When I was a kid, Saturday mornings meant parking myself in front of the TV to watch Superman. George Reeves was the man back then, and everything was in black and white. The episodes were basically the same every week: mild‑mannered Clark Kent, Jimmy Olsen, and Lois Lane all working at the newspaper… and sooner or later, either Jimmy or Lois would end up in some life‑threatening situation. As the clock ticked toward their pending doom, “mild‑mannered Clark Kent” would catch wind of the trouble and sprint off to the nearest telephone booth. He’d duck inside, and moments later he’d burst out as Superman.
The music always made it even better. It would shift from this tense, perilous buildup to a full‑on powerful crescendo the second Clark disappeared into that booth. Then—boom—Superman would leap into action. People would look up and shout, “Look… up in the sky… it’s a bird… it’s a plane… no… it’s Superman!”
Those moments lit something in me. I genuinely believed I could be Superman. I’d even clothespin a bath towel to the back of my T‑shirt as a cape, climb onto the playhouse in our backyard, and jump off just to see if maybe—just maybe—I could fly.
Fast forward…
Now here we are at the start of Christmas week. The shopping is done. The big meals are planned. Everything’s lined up for the usual adult version of Christmas. But I don’t want this moment to just be about buying and eating. I want to pause and sit with the significance of what we’re actually celebrating—and why it matters.
What we’re celebrating is the birth of Jesus. But not just that—so much more. From the very beginning, as Genesis tells it, God created man and woman and walked with them in the garden. Everything was perfect. God enjoyed them, and they enjoyed Him. Then that relationship broke, and sin entered the world. A perfect God and sin can’t coexist, so a gap formed between the two.
The Bible then walks us through thousands of years of history—events, people, prophecies—all pointing toward the day that gap would finally be closed. And the thing is, only God could close it. Humanity couldn’t. God had to do it Himself… and He did.
So what Christmas really is—and why we celebrate it—connects right back to that Superman moment for me. It’s the moment Clark Kent steps into the phone booth. The music shifts. Everything changes. Good is about to overcome evil. The rescue is underway.
Christmas is God stepping into the world He created to close the gap between Himself and His beloved creation. It’s what people longed for and looked for over thousands of years, never imagining it would happen the way it did.
Christmas is the beginning of God’s rescue plan.
As I move into the days ahead, I can’t help but imagine what it must have been like for those shepherds out in the fields that night—when the sky suddenly filled with angels celebrating the arrival of the Savior. Each night, I’ll look up and remember… and be grateful… that God did what only He could do to remove the gap.
Happy Birthday Jesus…we’ve been waiting for you…
Merry Christmas.
