Dear sisters,
Meeting or just seeing from afar a well-known or famous person can be a heady experience. In my younger years I went to a political rally and saw my presidential candidate from hundreds of feet away surrounded by bullet-proof glass and I was all a-flutter since I just knew he had actually looked my way as he waved to a crowd of thousands. That man received my vote and he was grateful for everyone’s ballot on his behalf, but it was not anything personal. He did not know me from the next person in a sea of blurry faces. He had not invited me in particular to his rally. He would never, ever remember me because he did not remotely know me nor did he ever see me.
I did sit right in front of one of my favorite on-line/radio pastors once as he preached a series of messages over a week’s time. This man did see me sitting there since he actually looked at all of us in the small audience and even conversed with many of us in group settings, but if I were ever to be in his presence again and have the opportunity to ask, “Hey, remember me?”, he would have to reply in the negative. For someone of great renown who meets countless people over a lifetime, he could not possibly remember every face, every conversation.
Our Lord Jesus is different. He is far bigger and grander than any other human being, no matter how famous, powerful, or influential. He is the Creator of the galaxies, the stars, the planets, the earth, the seas, and all inhabitants, animal and human. He designed all intricacies of every single thing—every molecule, every cell, every atom, every speck of dust. He holds the worlds together by the word of His mouth. He creates life and makes life cease. He is sovereign over all things and circumstances, for all eternity. And He has always existed, uncreated, self-existent, no beginning, no ending. My 9-year-old grandson says such thoughts make his head hurt. And yet, for all this otherness, this grandeur and unfathomable power, Jesus actually knows me, my name, every line of my face, every hair on my head, every thought in my brain. He recognizes me instantly in the throngs of humanity. In fact, He knew me before I was even conceived. He knew me and continues to know me through all eternity. He chose me from before the foundations of the world, from all the billions of faces that would ever be, and said, “You are my daughter.”
Sin entered the created world and the Godhead put the eternal plan in motion, the plan which would save me and all others chosen to be His children. And wonder of wonders, the plan was not one to be accomplished from afar, but a very personal and close-up plan, enabling His children to see Him, living in close proximity to them, living a perfectly obedient life to His Father, eventually incurring the wrath of the Father on the rugged cross in our place for all our falling short of the glory of God.
How could God do this? How would the plan be initiated in time and space so that we limited persons could understand His love for those He personally chose? How would a transcendent God, one above and beyond His creation, accomplish His saving work?
The Scriptures tell us God is good and compassionate, benevolent and kind in His sovereignty. A kind, tender-hearted God is not distant and aloof. Love does not stay away. Those who love want to be with the object of their affection. And so, when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, with a body like ours. He condescended to our fleshy weakness. God became man, made under the Law which He obeyed perfectly…to redeem those of us under the Law that we might receive adoption as sons.
And so, on that still night in the little town of Bethlehem, in a stable with smelly lambs and goats and mice and donkeys, God-pleasing, young Mary gave birth to the Son whom the Angel Gabriel had promised in that fearful encounter with the heavenly being— the One the Holy Spirit had placed in her womb—as Joseph must have wiped her brow, caressed her face, and looked on in wonder, remembering the gracious words of the angel, assuaging his fears about the origins of this child. And they named Him Jesus, because He would one day save His people from their sins. He has many other names and titles, ones old Isaiah had prophesied long before the baby’s coming. Wonderful Counselor. Mighty God. Everlasting Father. Prince of Peace. He is the unblemished Lamb, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, King of kings and Lord of lords.
Rejoice in the kindness upon kindness of God this Christmas. Tenderhearted. Gift of all gifts. Far above us yet with us. Immanuel. God Almighty condescended to dwell with us—“and we beheld His glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” And He continues to live with us by the indwelling Spirit of God.
Another kindness awaits us. Another physical coming. The resurrected Christ is returning to take us to Himself and He will live with us again and we with Him, forevermore, never to be parted. Maybe today.
Love,
Cherry