Immanuel, God with us.
Come with me for a moment. To a manger. Nestled in a small village on a cloudless starry night.
Everything about this moment is beautiful. Well.. almost everything.
The setting. The scene. The silence of the wonder, it is all beautiful. Even the pungent smell of animal manure that fills the small manger cannot distill the beauty of this moment.
Listen to the stillness of night and hear the angels, the choirs of heaven joining in to hail the arrival of the Prince of peace into the world.
This scene plays out in a lowly manger with characters hand-picked and positioned by the Director, God Himself. There surrounded by the crude smells of farm animals sits an ordinary teenage girl, holding the Son of God in swaddling clothes. No titles or credentials she holds. No trophies. No awards. Just steadfast. Just faithful. Behind the young virgin mother stands a young carpenter, a man who like his young wife, obeyed the outlandish voice of God.
But the spotlight lingers else where.
Center stage is the Babe. God. The King of Kings. God in flesh. Yet no crowns this King wears. No servants here to tend to His every need. No, for now He is dressed in the clothes of humanity. An ordinary infant, like every other infant. The King of Kings, God in flesh, is wrapped in humanity tonight. "Jesus Christ.. made Himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness" (Phil 2:5-7)
Stay and observe the scene. There is more to the story than beauty and joy. There is pain. Heaven knows. The motif of His life would be painted in His birth. The honor and humility of the King of Kings: a King born in a stable to be subjected to humanity, to a life of pain and death.
This story is beautiful. That's undeniable. The music. The setting. The characters. Beautiful.
The foreshadowing, the pain juxtaposed in the beauty, makes for great production. The world knows. Hallmark knows. But it becomes merely another story, another scene played out once a year, if we miss the significance of this babe that holds the spotlight.
This Child is unlike all the others. Thousand years before the story plays out, a prophesy is given to the house of Israel by prophet Isaiah. "Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign: the virgin will conceive and give birth to a Son and will call Him Immanuel" (Is. 7:14). Immanuel is translated to God with us. The promise was this: that God would come and God would be with us. This story of the birth of Jesus Christ signifies God coming to earth to save the world. But also fulfill a promise, to be with us, always. There are days when life is overwhelming. When life is hard. Too painful to go any further. And there are days when the sun shines. so bright. And everything is the way it should be.. I've seen a mixture of happy and hard moments this year. And whatever season of life that will come with this next year, the promise that God made to the people of Israel thousands of years ago, still rings true to us. He is Immanuel. He is God with us. He is with us, in our joy. In our sadness. He is with us. He will never leave us. Not for a moment. In Matthew 28:20 Jesus says this - "I am with you always, even to the end of the age".
My prayer for this New Year is this, that this Babe, this King, would be the center of my life. He would take center stage. The spotlight of my fleeting life would always be on Him. I wish you and yours a blessed and happy 2014! May you always know through every season that Jesus Christ is near to you. He is always with you.
Everything about this moment is beautiful. Well.. almost everything.
The setting. The scene. The silence of the wonder, it is all beautiful. Even the pungent smell of animal manure that fills the small manger cannot distill the beauty of this moment.
Listen to the stillness of night and hear the angels, the choirs of heaven joining in to hail the arrival of the Prince of peace into the world.
This scene plays out in a lowly manger with characters hand-picked and positioned by the Director, God Himself. There surrounded by the crude smells of farm animals sits an ordinary teenage girl, holding the Son of God in swaddling clothes. No titles or credentials she holds. No trophies. No awards. Just steadfast. Just faithful. Behind the young virgin mother stands a young carpenter, a man who like his young wife, obeyed the outlandish voice of God.
But the spotlight lingers else where.
Center stage is the Babe. God. The King of Kings. God in flesh. Yet no crowns this King wears. No servants here to tend to His every need. No, for now He is dressed in the clothes of humanity. An ordinary infant, like every other infant. The King of Kings, God in flesh, is wrapped in humanity tonight. "Jesus Christ.. made Himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness" (Phil 2:5-7)
Stay and observe the scene. There is more to the story than beauty and joy. There is pain. Heaven knows. The motif of His life would be painted in His birth. The honor and humility of the King of Kings: a King born in a stable to be subjected to humanity, to a life of pain and death.
This story is beautiful. That's undeniable. The music. The setting. The characters. Beautiful.
The foreshadowing, the pain juxtaposed in the beauty, makes for great production. The world knows. Hallmark knows. But it becomes merely another story, another scene played out once a year, if we miss the significance of this babe that holds the spotlight.
This Child is unlike all the others. Thousand years before the story plays out, a prophesy is given to the house of Israel by prophet Isaiah. "Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign: the virgin will conceive and give birth to a Son and will call Him Immanuel" (Is. 7:14). Immanuel is translated to God with us. The promise was this: that God would come and God would be with us. This story of the birth of Jesus Christ signifies God coming to earth to save the world. But also fulfill a promise, to be with us, always. There are days when life is overwhelming. When life is hard. Too painful to go any further. And there are days when the sun shines. so bright. And everything is the way it should be.. I've seen a mixture of happy and hard moments this year. And whatever season of life that will come with this next year, the promise that God made to the people of Israel thousands of years ago, still rings true to us. He is Immanuel. He is God with us. He is with us, in our joy. In our sadness. He is with us. He will never leave us. Not for a moment. In Matthew 28:20 Jesus says this - "I am with you always, even to the end of the age".
My prayer for this New Year is this, that this Babe, this King, would be the center of my life. He would take center stage. The spotlight of my fleeting life would always be on Him. I wish you and yours a blessed and happy 2014! May you always know through every season that Jesus Christ is near to you. He is always with you.
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