Every year two Christmases are celebrated in parallel.
One is about eating, drinking, making merry in the here and now, and some fat man with a white beard in a red suit.
The other is also a feast but has both here-and-now and transcendant elements. God made a promise thousands of years ago to destroy death, the "shroud that covers all nations"1. At Christmas we celebrate the incarnation, the enfleshment, of God: Jesus, "conceived by the Holy Spirit [of God], born of the Virgin Mary"2 as the Apostles' Creed (and early summary of Christian teaching) says. This Jesus in his death, resurrection and ascension, lived (and lives) the perfect life our forefather Adam failed to live.
There was no death when God created the world. It came into existence as the consequence of rebellion against God by the first humans, Adam and Eve. God calls that rebellion "sin" and it's been part of mankind ever since, a disease of the heart, will and mind with many symptoms.
Those who turn away (and keep turning away) from their sin and believe (and keep on believing) in this Jesus are given eternal life. Jesus himself said, "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."3
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