Photo by Rick Shaw on Unsplash
He laid in a trough of wood,
so that terrifying angels with flaming swords
would worship a newborn in straw. (Genesis 3:24; Hebrews 1:6)
He who joyfully delights over His creation
cried as a baby so that He could know suffering. (Hebrews 2:9)
The one who leads us from temptation
took on a weak body and felt those temptations. (Matthew 6:13; Hebrews 4:15)
He who created the marvelous self-healing human body
took one, so it could be mortally wounded. (2 Peter 2:24)
He, with eyes too pure to look on evil,
traveled land and sea to visit those filled with evil spirits. (Habakkuk 1:13; Matthew 8:28)
He, who warned Eve about the death that could come,
took that death, so Adam’s kin would not. (2 Peter 2:24)
The undying, eternal, immortal God took a killable body,
so that by experiencing mortality, He could destroy the devil (Hebrews 2:14)
He who planted iron ore deep below the soil
knew it would become nails to attach His body to a tree. (2 Peter 2:24)
He who created all knowledge, lived among us,
so His actions could explain His words. (Hebrews 1:2)
The maker of the good world took on arms
to destroy everything the enemy made. (1 John 3:8)
The designer of hips, legs, knees, and feet
took on flesh and crushed Satan with a heel. (Genesis 3:15)
The all-powerful judge, whom we should respectfully fear,
chose to suffer death to remove our fear of dying. (Hebrews 2:15)
The God who allows humans to stain themselves with sin frequently,
took on flesh and blood to purify them from evil once and for all. (Hebrews 10:10)
The One from whom people hid
became one of those people
so He could bring them to meet His Father. (Genesis 3:8; Hebrews 2:27)
He chose to be born into a world of cruelty,
so that the keeper of justice Himself would experience injustice
in order to justify his kindness toward us, the unjust. (Romans 3:25)
At Christmas, we are baffled that Jesus would endured everything awful about humanity while the kings and the rich enjoyed luxury.
We are stunned that God was born as a baby, not taking shortcuts or sending a mysterious adult to walk in from the desert.
We cannot explain how the God who exists outside time and holds all atoms together was born on a particular date and time, made of molecules that He himself was holding together.
And we are bewildered to consider that God can create men who do great miracles — like Moses and Elijah — but He could not equip a great man to complete the task of redemption.
Christmas is when we remember that, in so many ways, our salvation is a God-sized problem that only God in human form could solve.
