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Matthew 1:18-25
With explosions, earthquakes and shooting stars, that's how many expected to see the Messiah descending out of heaven. No one would miss his coming! The whole world would have to bow down in wonder before him. But God's purpose wasn't to wow us into submission before the awesome power of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. His purpose was to save us. It was to restore a relationship with Him. God's plan was to give us unmistakable proof of His love for us. And so, God chose to become like us so we could see what love looks like.
Amazing. The King of Kings and Lord of Lords, God in the flesh, came as a little baby to a poor couple to save his people from their sins. From the very beginning of his life to the very end, Jesus' story is the story of grace, the unending gift of God's love for us.
Consider Corrie who was touched by that love. In response she gave her life to sharing it everywhere. Corrie Ten Boom was a Dutch watchmaker whose family hid Jewish citizens and helped them escape from the Nazis during World War II. Corrie and her family were eventually arrested by Nazi soldiers and spent four months in prison before being sent to concentration camps. Her father and sister died in the camps. After her release, Corrie became an author and speaker, sharing her war experiences and her faith with people all over the world.
One day Corrie and her ministry team were invited to speak at a prison. The men clearly didn't want them there. The prisoners began making more noise, trying to drown out the singing that preceded Corrie's talk. But then Corrie stepped up to the microphone and began her story, "When I was alone in a cell for four months--" And the men quieted down. Suddenly, they wanted to hear what she had to say. She had been a prisoner too. She was one of them.
No doubt many of us have heard the story of God who loved us enough to take on human flesh and became one of us. The story of Jesus' birth, his life, his death, and his resurrection are a story of an amazing love from beginning to end.
We learn so much from the birth of Jesus. When we love someone, we build our plans around them. We become intentional about spending time with them, watching out for their interests, envisioning a future together. The Bible tells us before the foundation of the world, God chose us for adoption as God's children (Eph. 1: 3-6, 11), prepared a kingdom for us to inherit (Matt. 25: 34), planned for Jesus to offer his life as a sacrifice for us (1 Peter 1: 19-20), and promised us eternal life (Titus 1: 2). What an awesome plan! Before God even created this world, He planned to restore us to Him and to give us eternal life through His Son, Jesus Christ.
Many years ago, Pastor R. Benjamin Garrison received a computerized chess game as a Christmas present from his wife. He loved playing the game, but it was also frustrating. No one likes to lose to a machine. He admits one evening, he even yelled at the game, "All right, you idiot," he screamed, "If you're going to cheat, I won't play with you any longer."
In an article in The Christian Ministry magazine (Nov./Dec. 1988), Garrison wrote he knew the computer didn't cheat. It had simply made a move early in the game that would secure the win. Garrison hadn't noticed this move at the time. It slipped right past him. But the computer had already won the game long before it was over.
God did something very similar at Christmas when He sent Jesus to be born as a baby in Bethlehem. He wrote, "That move secured the future. That move guaranteed the outcome. Meanwhile, we are free to go on making our moves on the chessboard of life, some rather good, others unbelievably bad. Yet all the while God is edging us toward the inevitable triumph -- not over us, but in us."
When we love someone, we build our plans around them. We are intentional about creating good for them. Before the foundation of the world, God planned, through the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, to restore us to Him and to give us eternal life.
We also learn from the birth of Jesus that love keeps its promises. We all know this to be true. Trust is essential to a healthy relationship. And when someone we love breaks a promise to us, it becomes difficult to trust them. When someone consistently keeps their promises to us, however, we feel valued and loved. So, what does it mean that God is always faithful to His promises?
"All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 'The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel' ("God with us")." (Matthew 1:22-23)
More than 700 years before the birth of Jesus, the prophet Isaiah was called to bring a message to King Ahaz of Judah. Ahaz was a wicked man, defying God at every turn. During his reign, Syria and Israel joined together to attack Judah. It was during this time of tremendous stress and suffering that Isaiah was sent to both warn Ahaz and assure him God was still with him. And part of that assurance was the vision God gave Isaiah of the eventual birth of Jesus. It was an ironclad promise of hope and salvation for all people. In fact, the apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 1: 20, "For no matter how many promises God has made, they are 'Yes' in Christ."
A French woman discovered this to be true after following Pastor Donald Grey Barnhouse instructions. During the first World War she was overcome by fear and hopelessness. Barnhouse had taught this woman to meditate on the promises of God. At his prompting, she had created a promise box, a small box in which she kept slips of paper on which she had written the promises of God. Each day, she would pull out a promise and meditate on it and on the faithfulness of God.
But the war presented a tremendous challenge to her faith. Her family was hungry, their clothing ragged, their nerves on edge. The situation was desperate, and this poor woman couldn't see how God could be working in such a war.
So, she prayed a desperate prayer and asked, "Is there a promise here that's really for me?" But when she reached for the promise box, she accidentally knocked it into her lap. It opened, and all those little strips of paper spilled into her lap and onto the floor around her. And she was filled with hope as she realized all the promises of God were for her and were 'Yes' in Christ.
When we love someone, we keep our promises to them. God is always faithful to his promises. From the birth of Jesus, we learn that love keeps its promises.
In the birth of Jesus, we learn love becomes a Person. The Creator God, the Great I AM, loved us enough to be known by us. How awesome is that? Immanuel--God with us, in the flesh, through the birth and life of Jesus Christ, and in our hearts and minds as the Holy Spirit who continually causes us to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus. God's continual presence with us is proof of His never-ending love for us.
Many years ago, Bono, the lead singer of U2, spoke of a Christmas Eve service that changed his life. His band had just come home after a long tour. After St. Patrick's Cathedral for the Christmas Eve service, he was feeling sleepy and started to nod off. To keep himself awake, he began reading the Bible story himself. And as he read about the birth of Jesus, he began to cry.
As he said, ". . . love needs to find form, intimacy needs to be whispered. To me, it makes sense. It's actually logical . . . Essence has to manifest itself. It's inevitable. Love has to become an action or something concrete. It would have to happen. There must be an incarnation. Love must be made flesh."
In Jesus, God became concrete. Love in human flesh.
The oldest known Christmas hymn in the Western world, "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel," (8th-9th A.D.) was originally a Gregorian chant performed by Benedictine monks and had seven verses. In the week leading up to Christmas, they would chant one verse each day to prepare themselves for receiving the truth and joy and transformative promise available through the birth of Jesus.
How will you and I prepare for Christmas? Are we ready to receive the truth and joy and transformative promise God means for us through the birth of Jesus? It's such a simple story, it's easy to take it for granted. In Jesus, God planned for us, kept a promise to us, and became a Person for us. That's how much God loves us. I pray this Christmas all of us will be ready to receive God's love and accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, so that all God's promises will be made complete in our lives.
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Rev. Charles Eldredge is a member of Maitland Church of the Brethren. He has a Facebook page and can be contacted by email: ce1133@verizon.net.