The Greatest Thing That Happened to Mankind
I really enjoy Christmas, and being a "Dreamer" I always got caught in the Christmas rush, trying to complete all sorts of projects - until last year. Last year my preparation for Christmas was more in pondering it rather than turning the whole Dyck house into a factory. Here are a few thoughts relating to Christmas that I wrote down last year.
The Greatest Thing That Ever Happened To Mankind
December 17, 2017
Ahhh. Christmas. The season of pine trees, colored lights, cocoa, eggnog, gingerbread (and if your residence is anywhere near mine, a lot of snow.) And for me, this 2017 Christmas season has been different than all the former ones. For the past few years, my customary Christmas procedure has been to see how many Christmas projects I could manage to complete before December twenty-fifth. I`d print dozens of cards, write Christmas stories, and try to see how many presents I could make/buy. And I never managed to do everything that I had hoped to do. But this year I didn’t do all those things. I did a little Christmas caroling, a little cookie-baking, and some playing of Christmas songs on the piano. But mostly, I thought - about Christmas.
I have been told ever since I was old enough to be told anything and understand it that Jesus was born as a baby in a stable around two thousand years ago. And I always liked the thought of the birth, the angels, the wise men…. I always thought of it as a rather nice and somewhat abnormal story.
This year has been different though. At church this morning, I was looking at a very cute little baby girl there, one about three months old, with very chubby cheeks and tiny pink lips and adorable, crystal blue eyes. And this afternoon I was thinking about her, and about the Baby born on Christmas two thousand years ago, and about who the Lord really is. And then I realized how crazy, abnormal, and wonderful the Christmas story really is.
Think about. Sure, it’s pretty unusual for a virgin to have a child, and it’s a little strange that they couldn’t find a better place for Mary to give birth to Jesus than a stable, and it’s also quite spectacular that an angel came to tell the shepherds about it, and then a multitude of angels filled the sky and sang. But that isn’t the half of it. Put yourself in Mary and Joseph`s sandals and think about this for a minute.
Mary carried the Almighty God inside her for around nine months. Is that not the craziest thing you ever heard of? The Almighty God, the One who made her, everyone else in the world, and the world itself, in six days, by simply speaking, was inside her, as a tiny Baby. And after He was born, she would have fed Him, the Great I Am!!! I imagine it was also pretty strange for Joseph, being the protector of the All Powerful One, the One who knit him together in his mother’s womb. When you think of who the Lord really is, you realize what a miracle the Christmas story is. Often when people talk about the life of Christ, they talk about all the great miracles He did. But even though raising a person from the dead is pretty amazing, it’s really not the greatest miracle Jesus did. I think that the greatest miracle of the life of Jesus was that somehow, The King of Kings and Lord of Lords fit Himself into One so small and helpless so that He could be as one of us and bring us salvation.
I`m not finished yet, though. There is something even more amazing and wonderful about the Christmas story than the fact that the King of Kings and Lord of Lords was able to come to earth as a baby. It’s that He did do it. Think of it - He went from the highest position there is, being the King of Heaven, to being in a very low position, a helpless Baby being born in a stable to two people who must have been very poor. And not only that, His ultimate reason for coming was to go and die on the cross for us. And He knew that. All His life he prophesied that. He was nailed to a cross and hung bleeding and bruised, with the weight of our sin on His shoulders, having been separated from His Father, so that we can have everlasting life. That’s how much He loves us.
The Bible says in Philippians 2:6-8, speaking of Jesus, “Who, being in the very nature of God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to His own advantage; rather, He made Himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, and being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to death - even death on a cross!”
Well. If that is not the greatest thing that ever happened to mankind, I sure don’t know what is.
May God bless us this season, and every season, as we ponder His astounding power and mercy, and may we learn to serve others as He did, through His Spirit working in our lives.
