To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible,
the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen
(1 Timothy 1:17).
Background music: David Nevue, Away in a Manger, from O Come Emmanuel
Who would ever get us?!
Who would ever understand?
Understand our fallenness;
understand our struggles in the flesh;
understand what we really need?
Humans were struggling.
Struggling to be wise,
struggling to obey,
struggling to love.
We were struggling with others,
struggling with our own selves,
struggling, most importantly, with our God and Creator.
But God had a solution: Jesus.
From eternity,
our Savior declared,
“A body You have prepared for me.”
And come in the flesh He did.
Mercy!
Conceived by God, the Spirit,
in the virgin’s womb,
a body was prepared
for God, the Son, to come near.
God made manifest in the flesh!
Very God
put on humanity,
born as Jesus, the perfect God-Man.
It was, indeed, the dawn of redeeming grace!
Jesus came to reveal the Father,
to truly be God With Us,
to fulfill God’s plan and promises;
to serve, suffer, and save.
He is the image of God revealed,
to reveal the image of God in man,
in order to renew it.
Gregory of Nazianzus eloquently said this about the incarnation, “[Jesus] in these last days has assumed manhood also for our salvation; passible in His flesh, impassible in His Godhead; circumscript in the body, uncircumscript in the Spirit; at once earthly and heavenly, tangible and intangible, comprehensible and incomprehensible; that by one and the same person, who was a perfect man and also God, the entire humanity fallen through sin might be created anew.”
He did the unimaginable,
conquered the previously unconquerable,
accomplished the improbable,
and saved the ignoble.
Jesus accomplished it all—
but He could only do it here . . .
as one of us.
Most thankfully, He willingly did so!
He left His exalted position on High;
entered the realm of darkness, sin, and death—in poverty;
He wore humanity—in all its temporality and vulnerability;
and sacrificed glory for scoffing . . . persecution . . . ingratitude.
And,
glory be,
because He did,
He understands.
