More Meditations on the One Behind Christmas

Christmas astonishes me. No, not all the glitter that surrounds the day. It’s that the Son of God chose to come in human flesh. To be born as a human baby. I look at my warts and liver spots. I think of my tiredness and my aches and pains. My need of a dentist and a hearing specialist.  Human flesh is so fragile, so subject to cuts, bruises, and sicknesses. Why did God choose to come in our flesh?

Oh, I know he was born without the sinful seed of fallen Adam in him. But couldn’t he have come as an avatar or a super alien, or at least as Superman using kryptonite. Human imagination has conjured up so many alternatives to our fragile human flesh.

God takes on human flesh

Look at how humanity has corrupted our flesh with addiction to drugs and alcohol, gluttony and illicit sex. People are being tortured in their flesh in different parts of the world. People are being killed and wounded in wars. Cancer has attacked many of us. God’s choice seems strange when we read that, “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness…the darkness…therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another” (Romans 1:18, 21, 24).

Clearly, to save us from how we have abused our flesh is the point. He came to redeem us from our depravity. He sees something redeemable in our flesh. That’s amazing. But it shouldn’t be if we read Genesis. “He created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them…God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (1:27, 31). As someone has said, “God doesn’t make junk.”

Our bodies are the best thing God ever made. We were made in his image. This creation was so very good that Jesus chose to be born in human flesh, to walk around as a man, to die on a cross as a man, to rise from the grave and walk some more with his disciples. And he is waiting to welcome us to heaven where we will walk with him until the time comes for him to make a new heaven and a new earth where our bodies can again feel what they were created to feel.

He is going to redeem us, cancel the corrupting influence of the fall, and remake us perfect again to walk with him in a glorious new earth. Astonishing!

No wonder the writers of Christmas carols wax poetic;

Veiled in flesh the Godhead see,
Hail the incarnate Deity,
Pleased as man with man to dwell,
Jesus, our Emmanuel.
Hark! The herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King!” Veiled in flesh the Godhead see,
Hail the incarnate Deity,
Pleased as man with man to dwell,
Jesus, our Emmanuel.
Hark! The herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King!”

Jesus, born in the fulness of time.

Time is mysterious. We can’t seem to capture it. Sometimes it drags. Sometimes it races until it disappears. We look back and wonder, “where did the morning go,” or “where did the week go.”

We look back and try to remember the day man walked on the moon, or where we were on 9/11. Some of us try to remember who our teachers were in grade school or what we were doing when the Second World War ended, VE day. With Christmas upon us, we may wonder about the Christmas when we got our first bike. Some days are life-changing while some seem just ordinary.

That first Christmas didn’t happen on a random day. No, we read, “when the time had fully come, God sent his Son born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under law that we might receive the full rights of sons” (Gal. 4:4,5).

God created time. All time led up to this birth, BC.  And all time is measured after this birth, AD. The coming of the Son of God into this world was the most momentous event in history. This time was set in the mystery of God’s sovereign will from before time. “He made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure which he purposed in Christ to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and earth together under one head, even Christ” (Eph., 1:9,10).

All the other key events of redemptive history will take place through Christ at determined times. He began his public ministry at a specific time. “’The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!’” (Mark 1:15).

Likewise the death of Christ on the cross, the resurrection of Christ from the dead, and his ascension to sit on the throne took place at a time determined by God. He is now seated as Lord. And time is moving on towards the day when this gospel shall have been preached in all the world for a witness—and then the end will come. (See Matt. 24:14.) Christ will return with the trumpet call and with fire to establish his righteous kingdom. There shall be a new heaven and a new earth in which dwells righteousness.

Knowing this what manner of men and women should we be? Paul said, “redeem the time, for the days are evil.” Moses, millennia earlier, said, “So teach us to number our days that we might gain a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12). Seeing that the days are evil, wisdom calls us to redeem what time we have as we long for the return of Christ.

Jesus, born to fulfill a specific mission

None of us are born to fulfill a specific mission. Oh, some of us are told, “he’s a chip off the old block.” Others are described as “the very image of their mother.” And some are born into privilege and expected by their parents to take over the company business or position in society. But many of us disappoint our parents’ expectations. My father thought I would, like him, become an engineer. I studied forest engineering but ended up as a missionary and pastor. All three of our children embraced careers that were quite distant from their college degrees. No one can predict how a baby will turn out, except God.

The Christmas is different. Christmas celebrates the birth of one who came into the world to fulfill a specific, predetermined mission. “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). Jesus was born to be the mediator between God and mankind. 

We desperately need such a mediator. Why? “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Our sins have separated us from God and the astounding good, defined in God’s moral law, that He created us to enjoy. Because of that rebellion and its resultant separation, “we were by nature objects of wrath” (Ephesians 2:3). “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness” (Romans 1:18).

As the only mediator sent to deal with God’s wrath for our sins, Jesus was born to fulfill three mediatorial offices. He came as prophet, priest, and king.

Jesus was born to be the ultimate prophet, the one who would explain the need for his intervention to save us from God’s righteous wrath. Throughout history prophets such as Abraham, Noah, Isaac, and Moses served as spokesmen for God. In Deuteronomy 18:15-20 Moses predicted the coming of a prophet like him whose words would have final authority.

Jesus is that final prophet. He revealed to us the way God, in love, would provide for his wrath to be appeased and our sins forgiven without extinguishing his justice and righteousness. Read of his life and teaching in the gospels. Join the people who “were all filled with awe and praised God. ‘A great prophet has appeared among us’, they said. ‘God has come to help his people’” (Luke 7:16). Marvel with the people who were stirred at his entrance into Jerusalem, saying, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee” (Matt. 21:11). Be astounded at his parables. Join Peter and the martyr Stephen who declared him to be the prophet predicted by Moses. (Acts 3:22; 7:37) But he was not only a speaking prophet but also a priest and king. We’ll consider these two offices in a further post.    

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