How Christmas Heralds Good News for a Cursed World

Try listening to this familiar song with new ears

Norman Rockwell was an illustrator in the previous century who created covers for The Saturday Evening Post magazine for over fifty years. While Rockwell painted Presidential portraits and advocated for crucial social justice issues such as the civil rights movement, he is best known for capturing a sentimental, idealized slice of American life. The name Norman Rockwell represents a simpler time — a low-stress era of peace when all was right with the world.

Even though everything wasn’t right. Not even close. Just ask Emmett Till and countless others for whom nothing about that era was sentimental or ideal.

For a truly idyllic, utopian paradise, we must go way back, way before the 1950s. For the world we want, we need to travel to Genesis 3, where, in the Garden of Eden, humanity experienced perfect peace. No wars. No racism. No disease. No violence. No theft. No financial crises, no marital conflicts, or ever-rising insurance premiums. No stressors, anxieties, or worries.

Perfect peace in perpetuity. Then, with the great rebellion theologians call the fall, paradise was lost in one fell swoop as the first humans committed high treason against the King. Pandora’s box was open, and the curse spread faster than COVID-19.

Since that time, if perfect peace has been the longing of every human heart, it has been equally elusive. Like hands trying to grasp the fog. The curse now covers the globe, infecting every family unit, every political structure, every business, school, civic organization, non-profit, and Christian congregation. Even creation has suffered the effects.

Yet there is hope.

At the very same time paradise was lost, a promise was made that a descendant of Eve would undo the curse. The promise continued through Adam’s family line, from Seth to Noah, Adam’s great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great-grandson. From Noah, the promise was carried through the family line of his son, Shem down to his great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great-grandson, Abraham. From Abraham, it passed…

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