THAT BABY

The following is from Jim McGuiggin's blog site at http://www.jimmcguiggan.com.

THAT baby means...

The foundational truths of the Christian faith are too rich for us to fully unpack because they are part of the life of God and as surely as we can’t grasp everything about the life of a single human we can’t know or appreciate the life of God. But there are events in our own lives that disclose truths about us that are and will always be a part of who we are; so it is with God in relation to humans. The Incarnation of God in and as Jesus Christ is one of those massive truths.
The presence of that child says things about God as he relates to his human family but it also says things about the family he chooses to maintain his commitment to.

When God thought of the human family his first thought of it was in light of Jesus Christ—Colossians 1:15-16 and Romans 8:29.

• The presence of that child in the world says that when God made us and was pleased with his work he wasn’t like a toy-maker who said to himself, “I’d like to have one of those.” He said, “I would like to be one of them.” The Incarnation means that.
• The presence of that child says that the human family is in dire need of saving. [In light of that we should be sceptical about the grandiose views of how well we’re doing.]
• The presence of that child says that to God the human family is worth saving. [In light of that, though we must deal with abusive, oppressive, threatening and unrighteous behaviour because we think all humans are worth saving—victims and not just the victimizers.]
• The presence of that child says that the material creation (including the human body) is not to be despised—“matter” matters to God and there’s little point in our trying to be more “spiritual” than God.
• The presence of that child says that God has not reneged on his creation purposes which were to culminate in Jesus and all those who are embraced in his saving work. The experience of that Jesus from Bethlehem to Golgotha and beyond is the ultimate expression of God’s continued faithfulness in the face of our human faithlessness.
• The presence of that child says that the unaided human family is incapable of saving itself and/or of coming up with the structures that can set the world right. [Do we think this generation is the first or would be the last to discover our pervasive corruption and incompetence? We can’t take care of our sins and because we can’t we can never build a world in which righteousness, peace, adventure, prosperity and joy would be at home.] That baby’s presence in the world is God’s assurance that he has undertaken to right all wrongs! He will.

Merry CHRISTmas.