Have you ever been terrified by God?
It’s not a popular Christmas question, is it? We prefer tidings of comfort and joy, not holy terror. But to truly grasp the peace of the manger, we must first feel the ground shake at the foot of the mountain.
I’m talking about Mount Sinai. When God descended upon it to give His Law, the people trembled. There were “thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast.” (Exodus 19:16 NKJ) The mountain was engulfed in smoke and fire, and the people were warned not to even touch its base, lest they die. This was holy ground, and God’s message from the smoke was one of terrifying, absolute holiness.
From that divine megaphone, God spoke the Ten Commandments. And that voice has echoed through history, rumbling in the conscience of every human being since. It’s the voice that says, “You shall . . .” and we know we haven’t. It’s the voice that says, “You shall not . . .” and we know we have. It is a perfect, unbending standard of righteousness. It is a mirror that shows us every spiritual smudge, every moral failing, every selfish thought. And when we look in that mirror, the voice of the mountain condemns us. It is the just and holy voice of the Law.
For centuries, the thunder from Sinai echoed. It was not God’s only word, of course; He had whispered the sweet promise of a coming Savior from the very beginning. Yet the Law’s voice was the one that rang so loudly in the guilty conscience. It demanded a perfection that remained agonizingly out of reach. It promised death for disobedience. While the sacrifices of the Old Testament pointed to a future pardon, they could not permanently silence the righteous accusations. The great tension remained: how could anyone truly find peace under the shadow of a demand they could never, ever meet?
Then, one silent night, God spoke another word.
It didn’t come with fire or smoke. It didn’t shake the earth. It came as a tiny cry that barely disturbed the dust in a Bethlehem stable. It was the cry of a baby, wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a feeding trough. This was God’s answer to Sinai.
The Apostle Paul puts it this way: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law.” (Galatians 4:4-5)
Think of the staggering beauty of that truth! The very God Who gave the Law from the mountain now placed Himself under it. The Law-Giver became a Law-keeper. He didn’t come to shout a new set of rules at us. He came to live the perfect life the Law demanded, in our place. Every “You shall” was fulfilled in His perfect love for God and neighbor. Every “You shall not” was honored by His perfect holiness. He walked the path of perfect obedience that was, for us, an unscalable cliff.
The cry from the manger is the beginning of the silence of the mountain. The Law’s demands did not simply fade away; they were met. Its threats did not just vanish; they were absorbed by the One who would one day bear their full curse on a cross.
This Christmas, when the voice of your own conscience rumbles with accusation—when you feel the weight of your failures and sins—do not look back to the terrifying mountain of the Law. Look to the humble stable. Listen not for the thunder of condemnation, but for the quiet cry of a baby. That is the sound of your salvation. It is the sound of God’s living answer to the Law. It is the sound of mercy silencing judgment. It is the sound of the stable that silenced Sinai.
is pastor of Immanuel Lutheran Church in Winter Haven, Florida, and a member of the CLC Board of Missions