Two millennia ago the Almighty Creator of everything chose to enter His creation in a distinctive and mystifying way. Not only did Christ’s birth divide history and the way years are categorized, it signified the intent of God to follow through on His promise to Abraham and set in motion a sequence of events whereby God’s answer to mankind’s fallen state would be decisively, perfectly and uniquely accomplished.
The Ancient of Days could have arrived on a chariot of blazing fire, inspiring awe from humanity. He could have set up a throne of precious stones and commanded the unrighteous to humble themselves before His mighty hand. He could have come as a conquering hero and made His enemies a footstool for His feet.
Instead, He chose meekness over majesty. He chose simple over complex and weakness over power. God chose to enter our world as a human baby. Not a child of noble birth. Not the son of an emperor or governor but as a perceived illegitimate child to a teenage girl betrothed to a lowly carpenter.
Furthermore, God orchestrated the birth of His incarnation to take place not in a mansion or even a human dwelling, but a forlorn stable with dirt for a floor. From these humble beginnings, our Lord activated the tiniest of mustard seeds that would one day fill the globe with praises for Jesus Christ.
But God didn’t proceed without fanfare. He announced the coming of His one and only Son to lowly shepherds in close proximity to Bethlehem (Luke 2:8-15). Not only did He announce the news through an angel surrounded with the glory of the Lord, He also had a great company of the heavenly host appear with the angel, praising God.
How many is a great company? Some translations use the term “multitudes” of angels. Daniel estimated there were a thousand thousands and ten thousand times ten thousand angels in God’s courtroom (Daniel7:9-10). If you’ve ever witnessed the aurora borealis stretching from the east to the west in a symphony of light glorifying God I think you may conceive of the magnitude of the angelic host that night.
God also led three Magi to Bethlehem by guiding them with a star from the east that stopped over the place where the child was. They worshipped Jesus and presented Him with gifts of gold, incense and myrrh. The significance of these treasures cannot be escaped: gold for a king, incense for a priest and myrrh for his death.
Jesus did not remain in Bethlehem because of the imminent danger imposed by King Herod and after a brief sojourn in Egypt, He and his family returned after Herod’s death to Judea and lived in the small town of Nazareth in the district of Galilee.
He Will Be Called A Nazarene
Nazareth was not a place of admirable repute, by Jerusalem’s standards. It was remote, rough and rustic, and its people were perceived as rural, simple and primitive. Matthew 2:23 tells us, “So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets: He will be called a Nazarene.’” This was not a compliment in those days and it is from this backdrop that Jesus emerged as the simple and humble Savior of mankind.
Even Nathaniel’s response to Philip exudes ridicule for the particular town Jesus called home, in John 2:46, “Nazareth! Can anything good come there?” Nazarene was a term of contempt in those days and not a title of honor. And rather than being the son of a scribe or a scholar, God chose a carpenter to raise His Son. However, Jesus never hid the fact that he lived in Nazareth and even referred to Himself as Jesus of Nazareth when He encountered the apostle Paul on the road to Damascus (Acts 22:8).
One must acknowledge that the fact that Jesus being born a Jew is a self determining identity of lowly origin since the Jews were despised by the Romans and many others throughout history. And God chose to become the lowest of the low in order to offer humanity a bridge of comprehension to truly know the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, whose ways are higher than our ways and whose thoughts are higher than our thoughts. In a way, by humbling Himself, God removed any perceived condescension by lowering the message to our level so we could grasp the lesson. Jesus exemplified this by chosing uneducated fishermen over Pharisees and teachers as His disciples. He kept His circle humble along with Himself.
Paul instructs us in 2 Corinthians 8:9, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.” The amazing thing is that even though God incarnated as a lowly man, He did not vacate His throne in heaven to do so. God is omnipresent therefore Jesus was both fully human and fully God. This explains how Jesus could pray to God the Father while being God incarnate on earth.
Similarly, when Jesus rode into Jerusalem (Luke 19:28-36), it was not aboard a prancing hot blooded Arabian steed with an elegant gate, nostrils flaring and mane flowing, it was on the back of a lowly donkey. He did not ride a war horse, a symbol of power and might, but a beast of servitude, a common man’s domestic burro. It was the same mode of transportation employed by Joseph and Mary when they entered Bethlehem before He was born. The humility embedded in the story of His life is a testimony to the very nature of Jesus Christ and ultimately the nature of God.
This humility was also exemplified when He chose the Holy Spirit to settle upon Christ as a dove rather than the fire that touched the disciples on Pentecost. Paul reminds us in Philippians 2:6-8, that Jesus, “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross!”
Even in death, God chose the shame and humiliation of the cross as an accursed death. The humility that was exemplified throughout His life was once again front and center in His death. With all the power available to Him, He refrained from using it for His own benefit. On the night He was arrested Jesus told those with Him, “Do you think I cannot call on My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matthew 26:53).
Isaiah 53
The prophet Isaiah paints a portrait of the Messiah in Isaiah chapter 53 that the Jews cannot accept even to this day, since the Messiah they hoped for was not the Savior they were given. “Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.
Surely He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered Him stricken by God, smitten by Him, and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth. By oppression and judgement He was taken away. And who can speak of His descendants? For He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people He was stricken. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in His death, though He had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in His mouth.
Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush Him and cause Him to suffer and though the Lord makes His life a guilt offering, He will see His offspring and prolong His days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in His hand. After the suffering of His soul, He will see the light of life and be satisfied; by His knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and He will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will give Him a portion among the great. And He will divide the spoils with the strong, because He poured out His life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” (Isaiah 53:1-12).
This is the underlying truth of the Christmas story. This is the good news of great joy that the angel spoke of to the shepherds in Luke 2:10. This is the mystery that had remained hidden for ages and generations that is now disclosed (Colossians 1:26). Peace on earth and goodwill toward all mankind (Luke 2:14). Peace that truly begins in the hearts of people who have received the peace of God that transcends all human understanding and goodwill toward men, extended by our Creator to reconcile us to Himself.
The same society that tolerates the notion of a baby in a manger, despises the man who calls for repentance. As John 15:18 so aptly proclaims, “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated Me first.” Society loves adorable. Society loves a winner. Jesus is the antithesis of the savior society wants. This judgemental paradox has a drowning civilization tossing back the lifesaver to the life giver under the delusion that it knows how to swim.
This Christmas contemplate the humility, the unselfishness and the profound simplicity of our Creator’s plan for salvation. And yet consider the complexity, completeness and incredible coordination of His redemptive strategy. Our Creator chose to enter His creation and through humility He personified righteousness. He chose meekness over majesty in order to draw near to humanity. That concept is truly humbling.
