Here's a side
to the Christmas story that isn't often told: Those soft little hands,
fashioned by the Holy Spirit in Mary's womb, were made so that nails might be
driven through them. Those baby feet, pink and unable to
walk, would one day walk up a dusty hill to be nailed to a cross. That
sweet infant's head with sparkling eyes and eager mouth was formed so that
someday men might force a crown of thorns onto it. That tender body, warm and
soft, wrapped in swaddling clothes, would one day be ripped open by a spear.
Jesus was born to die. (John MacArthur, God With Us,
Zondervan, 1989, p. 116.)
So then...
The Christmas
message is that there is hope for a ruined humanity – hope of pardon, hope of
peace with God, hope of glory – because at the Father’s will Jesus became poor,
and was born in a stable so that thirty years later He might hang on a cross. (J.I. Packer, The
New Encyclopedia of Christian Quotations, ed. Mark Water, 2000, Baker, p. 159.)
And...
All we could
ever imagine, could ever hope for, He is… He is the
Prince of Peace whose first coming has already transformed society but whose second
coming will forever establish justice and righteousness. All
this, and infinitely more, alive in an impoverished baby in a barn. That
is what Christmas means – to find in a place where you would least expect to
find anything you want, everything you could ever want. (Michael Card )
No comments:
Post a Comment