The Christmas Missionary

Perhaps this Christmas finds you far from home and family. It's Christmas and you'll only be "home" in your dreams. The call of God has brought you to a new land, to a new people, to a new mission. The calendar is approaching the 25th of December, but the weather is hot and muggy. A white Christmas is not even a remote possibility. It's hard to feel the magic of the season. 

If, as John Stott famously taught in the Bible Study at Urbana in '76, "the living God is a missionary God" (Perspectives, pg 9),  then Christmas was the greatest missionary endeavor of all time. 

You know what it is like. You have left the familiar to venture into the unknown for the sake of the gospel. You have pressed ahead, leaving your comfort zone and many conveniences behind so that you could identify with those whom you serve. You have been sweating over your language studies so you can understand and communicate effectively. It’s hard, but you are hopeful.

The Christmas Missionary, Jesus himself, did it all. Leaving it all behind. Living as one of us. Loving beyond measure.

Hudson Taylor discarded his European styles for Chinese garb. Jesus stepped into our world as flesh and blood wrapped in swaddling clothes.

Translators from William Cary and Henry Martyn to the hundreds of Wycliffe Bible Translators have worked tireless to provide the Word of God in the mother tongue of people groups around this globe. The Christmas Missionary was the Living Word who became flesh and dwelt among us.

Many missionaries have struggled trying to find a competent and reliable interpreter. God communicated directly with us through his Son.

Nameless and forgotten missionaries who, with their lives, paved the way for the gospel to be spread into Africa, communist China or the deep jungles of the Amazon, were only following in the footsteps of the Christmas Missionary who came “to seek and to save that which was lost” and “to give his life a ransom for many.”

Perhaps your mission work at Christmas feels more glum than glamorous. I’d encourage you to spend some extra time visiting with this veteran Missionary. See His battle scars and hear His war stories. After all, the Christmas Missionary was the greatest missionary of all time. You’ll learn something new about cross-cultural ministry from the One who carried the cross. You’ll learn something about sacrifice when you consider Him, “who, for the joy set before Him, endured the cross.” This Christmas, you are loving the people He loves; you are serving to advance the mission work He pioneered.