What Child is This
Can you imagine, a child changing the course of history? I man who only lives to 33 on this earth to be the Savior of the world? I think we - as humans - tend to underestimate the beauty, power, and force for good that children, and young people alike, can be to the world.
I love, love, love Christmas time, because it reminds us of the humble birth of Jesus. Jesus was not just some prophet, a good person, or a teacher of morality. He was, and still is, the Savior of the world, the Son of God, the God-man, God made flesh, Emmanuel. I love that this season reminds us that God, the very Creator of the cosmos, came to this lowly Earth to become one of us. And not just that, He became an embryo. An unborn baby in the lowliest and most unexpected of circumstances. An infant that was totally and utterly dependent on his parents. He was nurtured and raised by two ordinary people, in a small, insignificant town. As many of their time would say, “Can anything good come out of Bethlehem?”
With the humility and grandeur of Jesus’ incarnation and birth, I’m honestly confronted with what I deem to be most valuable in life. I oftentimes think it’s about fame, popularity, financial success, credentials, and who I know. But at the end of the day, there’s only one person, the One Person, with whom I need associate and attach my worth. Because I know Him, and am known by Him (a most miraculous thing!), that defines my earthly success. My earthly power and glory is only, and ever only, defined by my richness in heaven. When I define my life on earth as anything other than what I’m achieving day to day in the heavenly realms, I’m doomed. That’s disastrous, and a dangerous thing to fall into.
Nevertheless, Christmas reminds me that there is such beauty in childlikeness, in dependence on others, and ultimately, the laud and glory Christ so powerfully deserves. I believe in such a good God, that He never demands glory or praise, though He is certainly worth and deserving of it. What a God! What a humble Creator! He longs to have His children come Home. He longs to be with us, to dwell with us, so much so that He came to do those very things; He dwelt among us in the Person of Jesus. He did come to be with us on the earth. He walked here. He was born here. He slept here, and ate here, and danced here, and celebrated life here, and healed people here. He washed his disciples’ feet here, he prayed here, he ministered to physical and spiritual needs here. He came as a baby, and left this world a man. He died, suffering a cruel and tortuous death - all for love - and came back to life!
Because I so strongly believe and hold to “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again,” I can hope. Such amazing hope! And that hope was born the moment Jesus became a baby. He teaches me day in a day out the beauty that is found in children. He teaches me how to recall and come back to seeing life through the eyes of a child. To be in tune with my inner child, my childlike joy, my trusting faith.
Without a childhood, without experiencing the comforts provided during those years of my life, I couldn’t sit here and receive just how humbling and extraordinary the Incarnation really is. God, a baby? God, a man? God, a lowly one whose very heart beats for the broken and lost?
I’m in awe of Jesus this Christmas. And I love that he was once a child, too. What child is this? This, this is Christ the King! Merry Christmas. :)
