“After spending nearly two years investigating the identity of the Christmas child, I was ready to reach a verdict. For me, the evidence was clear and compelling.
Yes, Christmas is a holiday overlaid with all sorts of fanciful beliefs, from flying reindeer to Santa Claus sliding down chimneys.
But I became convinced that if you drill down to its core, Christmas is based on a historical reality–the incarnation: God becoming man, Spirit taking on flesh, the infinite entering the finite, the eternal becoming time-bound. It’s a mystery backed up by facts that I now believed were simply too strong to ignore.
I had come to the point where I was ready for the Christmas gift…the Christ child, whose love and grace are offered freely to everyone who receives him in repentance and faith. Even someone like me.
So I talked with God in a heartfelt and unedited prayer, admitting and turning from my wrongdoing, and receiving his offer of forgiveness and eternal life through Jesus…the greatest gift of all.”
Lee Strobel in The Case for Christmas: A Journalist Investigates the Identity of the Child in the Manger (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998) 90-91.