Christmastime ushers in a season of traditions, cozy images, and memories both beloved and bittersweet for most people. For the Christian, Christmastime also brings a whole month of opportunity for contemplating the most profound, simple truths within our faith.
We need a savior.
God sent us a savior.
God is our savior.
He took on our human frailty.
He embodied incarnation to completion.
His willful suffering has spared us from the worst.
He has always existed with this purpose.
He came to redeem us.
He will come again to restore us.
We are loved.
[↑ If you read that again, you’ll see that each line is its own plot twist.]
Christmastime has been for me a meditation on the life of Christ. On His humanity. On His sufferings. Some years past I was struck by the perplexity of an all-powerful god subjecting himself to the physical experiences and limitations of humanity. Beyond this, what was I to do with the idea that an all-powerful, all-knowing god would endure the humiliation of birth to infanthood to childhood mishaps and adolescent awkwardness? Truthfully, for many years I didn’t know what to do with that idea and simply couldn’t reconcile it meaningfully, so I just didn’t think about it much. I thought of Jesus as though He sort of cheated the human life because He’s actually God and actually perfect anyway. In my ignorance, I cheapened the realities of Christ.
I don’t know why it took so long or what finally broke through for my mind and heart, but one year the human stories of His earthly life began to click into place for me. During these early stages of life especially, we are at the complete mercy of the adults who surround us. On its own, this dynamic is often at least a little bit terrifying in hindsight. All of that vulnerability comes before the humiliation of an “all-powerful” god beaten and dragged off to a torturous death. A deity like that is meant to be untouchable. That’s part of how we instinctively define power and perfection. Am I now meant to understand that the story of Christ is the story of the one, true God being made touchable in every sense of the word?
Where else in all of human history can I find a story like this?
I have loved this meditation and sharing it with my family and friends. Tomorrow, I’ll read off the lyrics of this rap song and then play it for us to soak in, encapsulating our awe-inspired worship in a brief tune. This will be part of our final advent-themed family devotional time. The concept of “advent” itself is relatively new to me, or at least the intentional practice of it is a recent development in my family’s life. This year, I’ve gained another layer of contemplation within the simple truths of the Bible’s story.
The creators of our advent plan ask the same few questions an awful lot, and one of those repeated questions centers around whether or not Jesus came in the way we would expect our savior to arrive. Naturally, after being asked so many times, this got me thinking in a new way.
Well, if our savior is the Lord, then for sure no. I would expect the Lord to show upsimilarly to all the powerful ways He shows up throughout the Bible. Actually, I’d expect Him to come the way Revelation tells us He will… Wait a minute. He DOES come the way we anticipate. That expected demonstration of His power and assured victory isn’t wrong. Hmm. I really understand the Israelites’ confusion. So, if that belief is right, and all of those goals of defeating evil and sin will be accomplished in totality, then why did He come in such an unexpected way the first time? To what end? What would motivate someone to suffer through all of that? What kind of being would do such a thing?
As I look ahead, I see the fulfillment of all our hopes and expectations (and then some). Because of this, when I look behind, I’m even more perplexed. He will come because He is just and faithful. He came already because He is merciful and gracious. He endured humiliation and suffering to kill the power of evil in me so that my life and soul would be redeemed, spared when He comes again – this time restoring creation into the absence of all wickedness.
Surely, the life of Christ is proof of God’s character. Truly, He is love.
The Lord is everything we expect of a one, true God, and He’s still so much more than all we might think to expect. This is wonderfully good news, grasped in the depths of His promised arrivals. This is good news worth celebrating.
“God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.
Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.
And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us. Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. All who declare that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love.
God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world.”
1 John 4:9-17, NLT