"This is how Jesus Christ was born. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. But before the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit. Joseph, to whom she was engaged, was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, so he decided to break the engagement quietly. As he considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. 'Joseph, son of David,' the angel said, 'do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife. For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit.  And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins'" (Mat. 1:18-21).

"Jesus" means: "the Lord Saves". The Bible says: "Because God’s children are human beings the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he destroy him who holds the power of death – that is the devil. It was necessary for him to be made in every respect like us so that he could be our merciful and faithful High Priest before God" (Heb 2:14-18).

Paul wrote: "God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ" (2 Cor. 4:6). Now consider Jesus as a totally dependent and vulnerable baby, entrusted by the Father to flawed human beings, Joseph and Mary, so that he might become our Representative, our Champion, our Rescuer and our Saviour. Imagine God's majestic and holy glory radiating from the face of a new-born child. How staggeringly wonderful is that!

When sin entered the world, our relationship with God, with each other and with ourselves instantly became broken, antagonistic and crippled by shame. Sin separates, and its wages is death. Jesus came to save us from the terrible consequences of our sin: eternal separation from God and from everything that is holy, loving, kind and good in what the Bible describes as unimaginable suffering.

We needed to be set free from Satan's prison. We were powerless to escape because he was strongly armed with a list of our sins; that was his armour. "When a strong man [Satan], fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are safe; but when one stronger than he [Jesus] attacks him and overcomes him, he takes away his armour in which he trusted and divides his spoil" Luke 11:21-22). Jesus saves us by snatching that list from his hands and nailing it to his cross.

"You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. He cancelled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross" (Col. 2:13-15). Hallelujah! What a Saviour!