There is a danger to the Christmas story. It is a danger of treating the revelation of God in Jesus Christ at Bethlehem as simple, harmless fairy tale or fable. Fairy tales and fables have their place are good for what they are intended; no one’s arguing against them. Even mythology, perhaps, can have a constructive place and purpose. Whether fairy tale, fable or myth they all have this in common; they are not true. Though myths often have their origin in a germ of reality and fairy tales and fable may be used to powerfully convey truth they are none the less, not historical realities. The birth of Jesus Christ is not a fairy tale, myth or fable. Jesus was a real person, born in a real place at a specific time in history. The terrible danger here is that as we hear and tell about the first coming of Jesus we will receive it or communicate it as if it were somehow not quite real. 

Jesus Christ as God the Son was born to be the savior. He must be taken seriously about this. We must receive this story with all the solemnity of an epoch event in space-time.