It’s seems easier and easier to get lost in what Christmas isn’t about…
Black Friday, gift cards, parties and other events are all well and good. And in religious terms, we talk about joy, hope, peace, love (sounds a little 60’s doesn’t it 😉 and things like the Incarnation.
But beneath of all that, like the bulbs beneath the snow, there is something wonderful and mysterious, just waiting to emerge. It’s the true meaning of Christmas…
Madelyn’s Jesus Storybook Bible calls it “The Secret Rescue Mission” that God had been planning all along. And so we all think that if God is planning a rescue mission it is going to be perfect – all the necessary resources, personnel, and well planned. Maybe the first century version of Jack Bauer?
True on all the right stuff and the right person. But I think we would all say on some level, it certainly didn’t look like it at first. I mean, to rescue us all…sending a baby born out of wedlock to a virgin, in poverty, in a stable with an animal’s feeding box as his bed? This doesn’t sound like a good start to a worldwide rescue, right?
It has to make us wonder what this really was all about.
Christian recording artists, 4 Him have a song that I have been hearing on the radio recently. It is called, “Strange Way to Save the World.” Amen. Here are some of the lyrics, “But this is such a strange way to save the world; To think of how it could have been/If Jesus had come as he deserved/There would have been no Bethlehem/No lowly shepherds at his birth/But Joseph knew the reason/Love had to reach so far…”
It is a strange way to the save the world, isn’t it? When we think of trying to save the world today, we would think of power, or influence or money or bailouts. But to save us from our sins and the accompanying carnage, as it was then and is now, no amount of human influence nor wealth could save us from rescuing our rebellious hearts.
Like the song says, if the Son of God came into this world as He deserved, it wouldn’t have been in Bethlehem, or in the quiet of night, and instead of shepherds there would have been kings and rulers (and probably celebrities) gathered at his arrival.
See, God has this inclination of using unlikely people, things and circumstances for accomplishing His purposes and revealing His character in this world, then and still today.
Back then he used people like Abraham (the old guy from nowhere with his barren wife) to be the father of God’s people. Moses, the guy with the speech problem to be God’s spokesperson? The smallest guy of the family (David) slays the giant and becomes the most favored king of Israel. Joseph and Mary? Why are these people being picked for this important stuff? Why? Because when God uses the unlikely person or thing, it is more recognizable that it was God at work than if it were the expected or the powerful, right?
And today? Well, what I think is that God frequently shows up in the worst circumstances to demonstrate His best about Himself and His people. Let me say that again, God works and shines through the worst circumstances to demonstrate His best – God’s love, comfort, light, power and are all most visible in our worst times – that is the heart of the Gospel aka Good News.
For example, no one wants to see a young man with a family diagnosed with a terminal disease – that is not what God intended when He created the world. And yet, when this member of our church was diagnosed with a terminal disease almost two years ago, our congregation was led to demonstrate the love of Christ by thousands of prayers and by helping his family with everything from meals to cleaning to an purchasing an accessible vehicle and building them a house. And in turn this young man and his family have experienced the love of God in ways there never could have imagined, and so have all the people who have prayed and helped. In the worst of circumstances, God’s best has become very, very visible. God’s grace is always most visible when we are broken and in need.
And we think, there has to be a better, easier way for God’s best to be made visible. Why does it have to be this way, this unlikely, strange way?
Let me try. See, we live in a broken, broken world full of sin, evil, violence, disease, vanity, lust, corruption, hunger for power and wealth – all the things that aren’t of God. Our vision is blinded by all of these things. Our lives are contaminated and infected by them. So much so that we often long for and turn to and rely on very human, obvious, and likely prescriptions or answers for them – rather than turning to God.
And you know that God could fix all of this in an instant (and ultimately will fix it all one glorious day) but until then He chooses to work not around, not over, but through all the brokenness.
So the “love had to reach so far” (or be so humble) because the sin and brokenness goes that wide and deep. And Jesus’ arrival into this world had to be so unlikely and strange so it could be seen and remembered. So that thousands of years later, it would still be as mysterious and wondrous and curious as it was the first time.
In a world of bad news, in a world of often the worst news, in a world where the news is often forgotten the next day – somehow this strange, unlikely way of saving the world is still good news, still the best news we have.
And because of that best news, and in spite of all the bad news, we can still see and believe and hope and rejoice that God came to dwell with us in the flesh in order to save us…that above all, is Christmas.
Amen.
Discussion Questions
- Have you ever wondered why God uses unlikely circumstances to reveal things about Himself?
- Do you have a story of when God moved in a “worst time of your life?” What happened?
- What can we do to open our hearts to this mystery and make it like new?
- Have you grasped why the “love had to reach so far?”
Living Water 