Christmas Meditations: Christ's First Coming

Why lies he thus in mean estate, where ox and ass are feeding?

Good Christian, fear, for sinners here, the silent Word is pleading.

Nails, spear shall pierce him through, the cross be borne for me, for you:

Hail, hail the Word made flesh, the babe, the son of Mary.

I often wonder why God doesn’t just proclaim himself. Why does He allow men to mock him? Why doesn’t He just show everyone once and for all who the boss is? Then I realized that day is coming, but it isn’t going to be a happy one for a lot of people. Mercy stays God’s hand.

Then the LORD came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the LORD. 6 And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, "The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation. Exodus 34:5-7

This is the thing that boggles my mind about Christmas. Christ’s first coming was one of humility and mercy. He came and had no place to lay his head and healed people of their physical and spiritual diseases. He created the world and had no place to lay his head? The owner of the cattle on a thousand hills living as a homeless wanderer? As John writes so poignantly of Jesus:

He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. John 1:10-13

How could he love us? How could he die for us? I would have wanted to crush anyone who dared to oppose me. Yet he was mocked, beaten, questioned, and killed.

He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
smitten by him, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before her shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth. Isaiah 53:3-7

How amazing that he who without whom nothing was made should go through this for his people. How patient and kind God is, and how great and precious the sacrifice that was made. How can we dare to defy him after the overflowing kindness that he has shown? I’m not trying to be dramatic, but just really thinking about what it means that the supreme benefactor who has given us everything would suffer and die to pay for our mistakes, and then we go and kick it back in his face saying that we don’t need him?

Lord, preserve us from folly and pride and help us to fall on our faces before you in worship. Help us to remember the cost of Christmas and not presume upon your patience and mercy forever, but to come before you in repentance. Amen.