Every year, we celebrate Holy Week—Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Easter—months prior to Christmas. It’s just how the calendar works out, but it is kind of backwards. We observe the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry before we ever commemorate his birth! But this hindsight view of Christmas-after-Easter gives us an interesting and illuminating perspective on the coming of Jesus Christ into our world. It allows us to notice signposts in the Christmas account; events pointing ahead to the new reality that Jesus would usher into the world through his life, ministry, death, and resurrection. We start to feel the first ripples of coming revolution that would change the world forever. When we filter the events of Christmas through the lens of Jesus’ inauguration of the Kingdom of God at Easter, the story of Christmas becomes more wonderful than we could ever imagine.

The old way of thinking? Impress God. Keep His codes, commands, and regulations so that you don’t get struck down by the Almighty—and if you’re good enough, He might just bless you. But then came Christmas. And now, in the full-God revelation of Jesus Christ, we see the true reality—there’s no need to stress to impress God. He spoke it—we’re already blessed.