I was brought up on Nativities, carol services, and Bible stories describing what happened at Christmas. I have loved God my whole life and gave my life to Jesus when I was a teenager. I have also been swept up in the side of Christmas that is growing more and more popular where Christmas means time off work with family and presents. Despite my best efforts however, I have never felt the complete impact of the Christmas story until now. It hasn't been a bolt out of the blue as I know the story forwards and backwards, inside and out. And it hasn't been something I promised to really dwell on this year. It has just been something God has been revealing to me in a beautiful gentle way over the past weeks and months. I know why Jesus came as a baby...but to I really understand just what this meant?! I thought I would share a few wee things I have realised and learned about God.
God keeps his promises. At church this Sunday we learned about Jesus' genealogy (which can be found in Matthew chapter 1) which can be traced all the way back to Abraham. He story is well known for a few things but one of the stories most people recall is that God promised Abraham he would have a baby. After many many (many) years, the baby was born. They waited a long time for this promise and for a while it probably seemed like God had forgotten, but this is just one example of how God always keeps His promises.
Did you know that you can read about God promising Jesus back in the time of Adam and Eve? When they sinned, God declared that He would send a saviour (Genesis 3v15) to repair the broken relationship with God and man. This assures me that God has a plan. God always has a plan, and before the dawn of time, He had a plan. He had a plan to save mankind and He has a plan for my life. God is never suprised, never caught out, never stumped at what to do next. Even right back and Genesis when sin first entered the world, He was right there with mercy. He didn't need a few days, months or years to figure out what to do with the mess, and despite the sacrifice He knew He would have to make- he gave it so freely.
I have some friends who have recently had babies. They are the most beautiful wee things and everytime I take the sweet little bundle in my arms I am constantly reminded of how innocent and vulnerable they are. Completely dependent on their parents for love and care. It has really helped me when thinking about Jesus and the tiny baby He once was. I am then struck by the fact that He wasn't always that way, and then I get thinking about where He was before He came to earth.
God's love cannot be fathomed. Jesus was in Heaven and being glorified within the Trinity. He was in the place of perfection. And He was perfection. Why should God have even cared about us? We made the mess, we should live in it. We blew it. We were in a state of utter hopelesness, but why would God want to come all the way down to this rotten world and help us? For me, there isn't much competiton between endless glory, light and perfection and a dark sinful world where the people would ultimately reject, ridicule and kill you. But for the tiny minority that would accept Him, He came. Phillipians 2v6-8 says 'Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.' He emptied Himself, and left His throne in Heaven for me.
For me Jesus in that manger isn't just a cute story. It is the biggest sacrifice in the history of time. This was it. God's masterplan, the promise given hundreds of years ago was finally given. God now had to stand and watch Jesus grow and lead a perfect life. He had to watch Him as He pleaded with people to accept the gift that God was giving them. He watched as He gave sight to the blind, healed the sick and saved the sinners. And He had to watch His broken body hanging from a cross being ridiculed and mocked. Such is His love.
Who has believed what he has heard from us?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
and no beauty that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
Isaiah 53v1-6
