Making Connections Review

December 13

Isaiah 7:14, Matthew 1:18-25, Philippians 2:5-10, Hebrews 2:17

 

Making Connections:

 

Imagine: You are engaged & some months before the wedding, your fiance comes to you & says she is pregnant. You know the child is not yours, but can you believe her story that the child is somehow from the Holy Spirit, and that your future bride is still a virgin? Or on the flip side - you are engaged to be married when an angel visits you & tells you that the Holy Spirit will overshadow you, creating within you a child. Though yet a virgin, you will be a mother. And you must tell your fiance... if he doesn't believe your story, he might have you stoned for adultery. Meanwhile, you can see & feel the evidence of this child growing within your own body.

 

The wonder & the scandal of the virgin birth is sometimes lost through our familiarity with the story. We can speak of it without really thinking about what it means, or what this might have been like in the lives of Mary & Joseph. God gave Isaiah the message that the virgin would be with child, but was there any reason beforehand for Mary or Joseph to think this Messiah would be born to them? Such very ordinary people - surely the Messiah would come with splendor & might, with more fanfare.

 

Think of the Incarnation itself for a moment: the very God who created the heavens, somehow taking the form of a human. Fully man & fully God, knit together in Mary's womb. Born like any other baby in this world, with even less glory than many, in a stable, with Joseph perhaps the only labor & delivery assistant. All the glory of God in a tiny, helpless baby. And let's never forget where this story ends: Jesus is born & He also dies. Then yet another miracle in the resurrection.

 

Immanuel - God with us. He became like us, willingly giving up His glory to be a servant, to share in our sufferings & temptations. He remained sinless, a feat we cannot accomplish ourselves, & lived a life perfectly pleasing in obedience to God. As this perfect man (yet still fully God), He alone was able to be the perfect substitute for us. He transfers His righteousness to us & takes our sin upon Himself.

 

God with us. Now through the Holy Spirit, and in heaven as we walk with Him face to face. Don't let the richness of the Christmas story pass you by because it is so familiar. Let God open your eyes to be astonished & awed by the virgin birth and the arrival of God as a baby, born that He might die.