A couple on a journey of demand and urgency. Unexpected arrival that had been expected for all of time. Harsh, brutal and unsterile environment for a newborn but even the most majestic palace on earth would still have been undeserving. Tiresome, lonely and frightened newlyweds yet seemingly just the right couple for the job.
Joseph, manly, strong faithful not exactly an expert in prenatal care. Mary, young, timid and quiet yet the talk of her town.
The baby. Oh what a baby! Perfectly normal and abnormally perfect. He cries, he suckles at a breast, he rests. The one who created is now the tiniest creation.
How alarmingly odd is this picture? We make nice paintings from it. We decorate our lawns with it...but it is simply the most absurd image that one can ever dream up. And that is what it would seem to be, a dream. But it wasn't. It was very, very real.
Mary really was a young virgin. Joseph really was a godly young man. Angels visited, shepherds wondered, Magi marveled...God smiled. And yet it is still very odd.
Mighty Awesome Holy God clamored His way through a birth canal. Why then? Why them? Why that way? It doesn't make any sense and yet it seems to be that there could not have been any other way.
In fact, any other way would have been so cliche...so expected...so not God's way! Because that is the way He has always been. He always does what we don't see coming. He always acts wholly and Holy different from man.
That's our biggest problem, you know? We act so humanly. And because of that, He came to show us what humans were meant to act like.
But it sure is something to marvel at still. The Holy of Holies surrounded by the manure of domesticated animals. The birth of the one that literally split time in two (B.C. and A.D.) and no one really noticed...except for a few shepherds and some far-off star-gazers.
Christ's birth is one of the hallmarks of our faith. The virgin birth of Christ is a deeply important doctrine of our faith. Don't miss it. Don't belittle it. Don't take it for granted.
Celebrate his birth this year like you were one of the dirty shepherds who laid eyes on him that very night. Worship him this December like you were Joseph, bursting with so much pride and joy that it was uncontainable. Adore him like Mary who was so filled with love and protection for him that nothing else in all of the universe mattered but this child. Gaze at him again on Christmas morning on your knees like the Magi thanking your Heavenly Father for such an incredible, matchless and amazing gift of grace.
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