Ours is a visited planet. Our little world, situated as it is in a lower-middle class solar system, circling a mediocre star on the outskirts of a commonplace galaxy, has little to commend it. If the entire planet exploded in a fiery conflagration that could be seen from the sun, some 93 million miles away, it would attract no more attention in the universe than a gunshot in a ghetto.

And yet ours is the visited planet. The Wonderful Counselor himself, the Mighty God, has come down our dead-end street and stopped at our place. And he came in the most extraordinary way: He was “made flesh” in the Virgin’s womb.

That he came is remarkable. How he came no sage could ever have imagined. But why he came – that is the profoundest mystery.

People seem to think that God’s great and glorious Son came to earth to establish a religion. But that is “too small a thing.” The Eternal one was not straight-jacketed by time, the infinite one did not wear the shackles of space in order to make us a little more religious, or so that we would attend church two out of every four Sundays. He visited our planet in order to save people, or so the angel declared.

That he is savior is the good news of great joy. We often get this confused. We think that the good news is peace on earth, good will to men. But peace is a consequence of the good news, not its content. The angel told the shepherds, “I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people: “Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.”

The good news was that a savior had been born. Normally when we hear the word savior, we think of one person who rescues another (or others) from a desperate situation. The new coach saves the football program from disaster. The CEO saves the corporation from bankruptcy. The Coast Guard saves the boater from drowning.

If we were to make a list of the things from which we need to be saved, sin would probably not be at the top. If it made the list at all, it would come somewhere after hair loss and high cholesterol.

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But we, at least most of us, are not in a desperate situation. So, a savior has been born to us; what difference does it make? Will he save us from irrelevancy? Or insolvency? Or lunacy?

To answer that question, we have to turn to another of the Christmas narratives; this one in Matthew’s gospel. There an angel appears to Joseph, who had resolved to leave his fiancé, Mary, after hearing the shocking news that she was pregnant. But the angel assured Joseph that Mary had not been unfaithful to him. No, the Baby in her womb was miraculously conceived. Joseph’s fiancé was carrying the child of promise, the long-awaited deliverer. He was to be named Jesus (which means, “Yahweh saves”) because he would save his people from – from what? Boredom? Illiteracy? Hardship? No – he would save his people from their sins.

I suspect most people experience a letdown upon hearing those words. If we were to make a list of the things from which we need to be saved, sin would probably not be at the top. If it made the list at all, it would come somewhere after hair loss and high cholesterol. Even Joseph may have experienced a momentary disappointment. He was expecting a Messiah who would save people from their enemies and from the armies that occupied their homeland, not from their sins.

Why do we need a savior from sin? That is the fundamental question. According to the theologian Millard Erickson, sin is an inner force, an inherent condition, a controlling power. It is a disease that has been passed down through every member of the human family. It manifests in a variety of symptoms – some more apparent than others – but whatever the symptoms, the outcome is always death. Thus, St. Paul says, “The wages of sin is death.”

There are also more immediate consequences. Restlessness is one. The prophet speaks of those who are “like the tossing sea; for its waters cannot rest.” Another consequence is guilt – the kindthat our own efforts cannot absolve. Sin also brings trouble on us and our children, leaving us weary and sorrowful.

Even more disturbing is the self-propagating nature of sin. Sin begets sin; it fosters evil. The 100,000+ deaths that have occurred in current armed conflicts in places like Ukraine, Palestine, Myanmar, Sudan, Nigeria, and elsewhere are not occurring in a vacuum. Sin layered upon sin has resulted in hatred and malice and, inevitably, death.

We don’t have to go to Kiev to see the results of sin. We can look in our own homes, where sin results in anger, unkindness, and division – division from people and, more ominously, from God.

Now go back to Bethlehem. Here lies the Baby over whom so much fuss is made. He is about 19 inches long and weighs about six pounds. How can this helpless baby save his people from their sins?

We look in the manger and see a baby wrapped up like a mummy to ward off the cold. God sees the Bridge between heaven and earth—Jacob’s ladder, if you will, by which heaven descends to earth in order to carry humanity back with it. He is like every other baby ever born: he is fully human. He is unlike any other baby ever born; he is fully God. He is the bridge between humanity and God, the doorway to eternal life. In Bethlehem that first Christmas, by the very nature of what this Child was, the long work of salvation had begun.