Saturday, December 24, 2011

Who Is This Jesus, Really?

Familiarity tricks people! We see or hear something so often, we think we know it well and understand it. Sometimes we do, but too often familiarity hinders us from really thinking about what we know or think we know. And then some one comes along and asks one of those explosive questions, “How …?” … “Why …?”, and we realize we don't know or understand as much as we think we do. The Virgin Birth and Jesus' coming, generally, are, I think, among those too familiar things. So, why …?

In the previous meditation, I said that Jesus paid the price for sin, not just for one human being, but “for any and all who acknowledge their need and believe in Him and what He did.” Just so. But think on this for a moment. If Jesus had been simply a human being who somehow managed to be truly good, the innocent death of such a Jesus would not suffice to be a substitute for more than one other human being. Or if, Jesus were angel – Hebrews chapter 2 states that man is a “little lower” than the angels – maybe Jesus could be a substitute for 2 or 3 human beings. Or, maybe, angels being different creatures from humans, Jesus could not be a substitute for any human at all!

So, Who/What Jesus was (and is!) goes to the heart of our “simple” just-so story. And Scripture does provide the answer to that question:

"Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel" (which means, God with us). Matthew 1:23, ESV

Right at the outset, even before Jesus was born, Joseph was told Who Jesus would be, God with us, walking, talking, acting among us human beings. Paul gives us the fuller, mind-blowing, picture:

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant,being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Philippians 2:5-8, ESV

Jesus had a dual nature: from Mary, human; from conception by the Holy Spirit, Divine, sinless, infinitely greater than human. As a human, what Jesus said and did was as a human; as God, Jesus was without sin, truly good, and could be the substitute for “whosoever will”.

That leaves us with one major, “How …?” question. How did God accomplish the Virgin Birth? The answer is simple, though not necessarily satisfying. We don't know, because God didn't inform us. But consider … God created this universe; God created human beings; God created woman from man; God created the amazing mechanisms of human procreation. For such a Being, would a virgin birth be impossible?

Some of the wonder at the heart of Christmas is mentioned in the passage from Philippians quoted above. The Word (John 1:1) the Son, voluntarily subjected Himself to the limitations of human beings (power, knowledge, space-time) by being born in the form (and nature) of a human being. Jesus had to have the equivalent of His diapers changed; He had to ask adults to reach things for him; He had to learn things like reading and carpentry. He wasn't like some Graeco-Roman god disguised, but fully capable. Jesus was truly human – He had to grow – and truly God.

Why did Jesus come at all? Paul hints at it in Philippians, but John's Gospel makes the reason clear. John 3:16 has become for our culture one of those too familiar things. Christian children memorize it at age 4 or 5 or 6. People hold up signs inscribed, “John 3:16,” in the midst of sports stadium crowds. “For God so loved the world” is but six words, very simple ... but with a world, a universe and more, of meaning! Try to wrap your brain around this: God loves us. The Creator of this vast universe and of all the living creatures in it … lovesus …..... loves YOU!

Don't just browse on to the next post or webpage, think on that for a few seconds (or more) … how do you respond to that kind of love?

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