As the Christmas season comes to an end, life resumes a more normal pace. I guess Mary and Joseph were the first to experience this phenomenon. They witnessed the most miraculous birth in history and then they had to return home to begin life caring for a baby many saw as a sign of infidelity not salvation. “Normal” can become boring or downright depressing even if you were the mother and father of Jesus.
How do we handle what can sometimes be the mundane or depressing routine of life? Might I suggest that, in the midst of the ordinary, we look at the extraordinary that God has provided? What could be more extraordinary than the miracle of Christmas? The miracle of a virgin giving birth to God in the flesh—the Incarnation. Why did Jesus come and what does it mean for us today?
Why the Incarnation?
Jesus’ incarnation was the culmination of God’s plan of salvation. Hebrews 2:9 says, “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.” This verse simply and wonderfully explains why Jesus had to be a man.
Jesus had to experience humanity to receive the glory the Father wanted him to have.
Philippians 2:6-11 makes this point explicitly, “[Christ Jesus], being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Jesus had to be a man so that he could die in our place.
Just as the spotless lamb was placed on the altar and sacrificed for the sins of the guilty, so Jesus was our atoning once-for-all sacrifice. Consider Romans 5:9-11, “Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.”
So, in the midst of the return to the ordinary and sometimes dreary aspects of everyday life, do not let the miracle of Christmas fade from your mind and heart. Allow these truths from the Scriptures to strengthen you all year round.