December 5, 2017
When Pope Julius I authorized December 25 to be celebrated as the birthday of Jesus in A.D. 353, who would have ever thought that it would become what it is today.
When Professor Charles Follen lit candles on the first Christmas tree in America in 1832, who would have ever thought that the decorations would become as elaborate as they are today.
It is a long time since 1832, longer still from 353, longer still from that dark night brightened by a special star in which Jesus the king was born. Yet, as we approach December 25 again, it gives us yet another opportunity to pause, and in the midst of all the excitement and elaborate decorations and expensive commercialization which surround Christmas today, to consider again the event of Christmas and the person whose birth we celebrate.—Brian Harbour and James Cox1
The first time Jesus came
He came veiled in the form of a child.
A star marked His arrival.
Wise men brought Him gifts.
There was no room for Him.
Only a few attended His arrival.
The next time Jesus comes
He will be recognized by all.
Heaven will be lit by His glory.
He will bring rewards for His own.
The world won’t be able to contain His glory.
Every eye shall see Him.
He will come as sovereign King and Lord of all.
—John F. MacArthur Jr.
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The Eternal Being, who knows everything and who created the whole universe, became not only a man but a baby, and before that a fetus in a woman’s body.—C. S. Lewis
*
Ah, dearest Jesus, Holy Child,
Make thee a bed, soft, undefiled,
Within my heart, that it may be
A quiet chamber kept for Thee.
My heart for very joy doth leap,
My lips no more can silence keep,
I too must raise, with joyful tongue,
That sweetest ancient cradle song,
Glory to God in highest heaven,
Who unto man His Son hath given!
While angels sing with pious mirth,
A glad new year to all the earth.
—Martin Luther, 1535
There was a man from India who was a devout member of a Hindu sect and who had a profound sense of reverence for life. He would not kill an ant, a cow, or even a cobra, because to him, due to his belief in reincarnation, he might be killing some past relative.
During his visit to America, he had been confronted with the claims of Christ, yet he could not grasp the biblical truth that God actually visited this planet in the flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. He could not comprehend how the Great Creator God of the Universe could become a man, or why.
One day as he was walking in the field meditating upon this new truth about Jesus the Christ being God, he was wondering how this could possibly be. He ran across a large anthill with thousands of little ants scurrying around in their busy-like manner. He was standing there observing with wonder the activity of these ants, and what amazing creatures they are, when suddenly he heard a tremendous and threatening noise. It was the noise of a large tractor plowing the fields.
As he looked up he discovered that the tractor would soon be plowing through that anthill and thousands of ants would probably be killed and their home destroyed. Gripped with the same concern you and I would feel for hundreds of people trapped in a burning building, he became frantic. He wanted to warn them of their impending destruction.
He thought to himself, “How can I warn them? If I could write in the sand, they wouldn’t be able to read it. If I shouted to them, they wouldn’t understand me. The only possible way I could communicate with them would be by becoming an ant, if I had that ability.”
Then suddenly he had a revelation from the Spirit of God. He saw why God, the Creator of the universe, chose to become one of us by becoming a man, in the Person of the God-man, Jesus of Nazareth.
Through his experience with the anthill, the light suddenly came on in the heart of that Hindu man, and now he understood the words of Paul: “Though he was God, he did not demand and cling to his rights as God. He made himself nothing; he took the humble position of a slave and appeared in human form.”2—Bill Bright3
Jesus renounced His citizenship in heaven, and though He was rich, for our sakes He became poor, that we through His poverty might become rich. Jesus not only had to come down amongst us, but He had to be one of us! He had to become a member of the human community.
He came as a meek and quiet, weak and helpless baby. He not only adapted Himself to our bodily form, but also conformed to the human ways of life. He was human. He got tired. He got hungry. He got weary. He was subject to all these things, even as we are, yet without sin, that He might have compassion upon us, know how we feel, know when we’re footsore and weary, know when we’ve had enough.
God sent Jesus to become a human being in order that He might better reach us with His love, communicate with us on the lowly level of our own human understanding, and have more mercy and patience with us than God Himself. Think of that!
“He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust,”4 having worn that frame Himself, suffering in it, and dying in it for our sakes. He came down here to our level that He might take us with Him back up to His. What a miracle, all for our sakes!—David Brandt Berg
Published on Anchor December 2017. Read by Reuben Ruchevsky. Music taken from the Rhythm of Christmas album. Used by permission.
1 Brian L. Harbour, James W. Cox, The Minister’s Manual: 1994 (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1993), 254.
2 Philippians 2:6–7 NLT.
3 http://www.christianity.com/devotionals/insights-from-bill-bright/the-hindu-and-the-anthill-mar-11.html.
4 Psalm 103:14.
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