Christmas is often a time for stories.  We gather together to tell the Christmas story in various ways year after year—in plays and pageants, books and movies.  We share our own stories and memories as we spend time with family and friends.  We watch Christmas movies and read Christmas books that inspire hope and love and peace.  And the story of Jesus is an important one to tell.

John’s nativity story is a little different than the ones in Matthew and Luke.  Here Jesus’ story doesn’t begin with Mary or at His birth, but much, much earlier.  In fact, Jesus’ story starts “in the beginning,” before anything else ever was.  John looks back to a time long before, exposing the reality that Jesus has always been.  He is eternal.  And His work began long before He came to Earth, with each part of His story coming to pass at just the right time.

John 1:1
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Our story begins with the Word, the manifestation of all that God is wrapped up in a package we can see and hear and touch, something we can grasp, something that means something to us, since God is so beyond us.  And so our own stories begin a lot farther back than we may think.  Jesus knew us way back before we were even created.  He chose us in Himself before the foundation of the world.  He had a whole plan mapped out before He even came.  And He loved us before we loved Him back.  So as we tell that familiar story of Jesus coming to Earth, let’s remember that God has a story for each of us, too, ready to unfold at just the right time as we play a part in all that He is doing.