In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. (Genesis 1:1–2 NLT)
The beginning of every story is important because it sets the tone for everything that follows. The story of the birth of Jesus—and His life and eventual death, resurrection, and ascension—is firmly rooted in the story of Israel, which begins with the story of creation. Genesis 1 tells of the creation of the world, and the animals, plants, and people that populate it, but the central character throughout the creation story is God as Creator.
There is a mystery at the core of the story of the birth of Jesus: how could the Creator of the universe, Himself uncreated, become as one of His creations? It’s a question that is as baffling as it is central to our faith. As C. S. Lewis frames it in Surprised by Joy, “If Shakespeare and Hamlet could ever meet, it must be Shakespeare’s doing. Hamlet could initiate nothing.” Because we, like Hamlet, could never be the initiators of an interaction between ourselves and God, the Creator of all that is—to continue Lewis’s metaphor—wrote Himself into our play so that we could come to know Him and commune with Him.
Set aside some time to praise the Creator for all He has made. Read Psalm 104 and worship Him with songs of praise.