by Ricky Chelette, Executive Director
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (Jn 1:14)
It is hard to believe that the Creator God of the universe, the Holy One who was before time, became a part of our time and enrobed Himself in human flesh. But that is precisely what the story of Christmas is all about.
Many religions have people who became a god, but I know of none who have a God who becomes the people He created so that they might know Him and He might redeem them.
Flesh becomes supremely important in every aspect of the Christmas story: Mary, a young, virgin-girl, is engaged to a man she has never known conjugally. An angel tells her that she will give birth to the son of God. Her response is on point, “How can this be since I am a virgin” (Lk 1:34)? She will conceive as no other human in her world has ever done. No one in their right mind would believe her story. She forfeited the pleasure of sexual union with a man while knowingly taking on the ridicule of everyone, even her own family, to follow God’s command.
I have to admit that in a world where sexual pleasure and personal autonomy over one’s body is considered sacrosanct, the bravery and faith of Mary are exemplary.
And then there’s Joseph. He is a young carpenter who, like most men his age, would have greatly anticipated his wedding night. His self-discipline amid an inevitable and forthcoming marriage is also admirable and rare in our modern world. He pushes back his fleshly desires for pleasure and union and chooses obedience and faithfulness to assure a holy marriage. Then he discovers that the woman who he is to marry is pregnant. The evidence is obvious, and claims of fidelity are impossible to comprehend. A virgin birth had never happened (and will never happen again). But Joseph was a righteous and compassionate man and “unwilling to disgrace her publicly, he resolved to divorce her quietly” (Mt 1:19). But God, however, had other plans.
An angel appears to Joseph in a dream and instructs him that Mary’s child is conceived of the Holy Spirit and is God’s son. Mary has been faithful. Not only does Joseph follow the angel’s instruction without question, but he also takes on further public humiliation, shame, and sexual restraint that this new arrangement will entail. Not only does he proceed with the marriage, but he has no sexual contact with Mary until after Jesus is born. Who in our day would do such a thing? Who has faith like these two teens?
We live in a world where feelings and flesh rule our lives and are the arbiters of our identity. To feel is to be. What you feel is who you are. Pleasure is king and restraint and discipline, well that is considered potentially damaging repression. I can only imagine that almost everything Joseph and Mary felt was contrary to the truth that had been revealed to them. Yet they obeyed and believed.
Jesus is born, not as a king, not even in a typical location, but likely tucked away in a cave on the outskirts of Bethlehem. Some scholars believe their cave was one of the caves used by shepherds to birth the spotless lambs used for sacrifice in the temple – spotless, newborn lambs were wrapped in swaddling cloth to preserve their perfect existence. No wonder the shepherds knew where to go in Bethlehem when the angel gave the announcement, “And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger” (Lk 2:12).
Jesus was real flesh, real embodied soul, lying in a manger and helpless. Because He was with us, he was approachable, knowable, and experiential. Jesus cried and nursed and had his diapers changed. But in His coming in the flesh, He also came to do what the flesh had failed to do in the first Adam – live obediently. He would grow and work and laugh and play and be human. Jesus would be God with us!
Jesus would also do what no human had been able to do. He would live a life of perfect obedience to redeem the imperfect, disobedient people He created and He would do it in the most unexpected way.
Even at His birth, His death was foreshadowed by the Magi who brought him myrrh, an embalming spice used for burial. Who brings such a thing to a baby shower? What mother receives such a gift without insult? Mary did. Though she had no way of anticipating the gruesome manner in which God would redeem mankind through Jesus, she had been told, “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end” (Lk 1:32-33). This is likely why when Jesus was going to the cross, she was there, witnessing the torture and the pain, but not demanding His rescue or release. Years of pondering the angelic proclamations and knowing the ancient words of scripture were making sense in ways she could not have imagined. But Mary, full of faith and flesh, believed and was faithful.
Jesus, now recognized as the Messiah and the Son of God, would be arrested, humiliated, and sentenced to death by the very people He came to redeem. In the flesh, He would experience pain that few of us would ever know. In the Spirit, He would take upon Himself the sins of all humanity. He would suffer, be tortured, and would die a cruel death to redeem us. What a Savior!
Christmas ought to remind us that we have a Savior who understands our predicament, can sympathize with our pain and knows our struggles because He became one of us. He is not detached from our world but is a participant in it. Paul, in Philippians 2:6-8, profoundly articulates, “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. Being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” And Colossians 2:9 states, “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.”
God became flesh so that our flesh could become godly. That is our hope, and that is the hope of Christmas. Our Savior has not abandoned us to a world He does not know. He is with us in a world He created and plans to fully redeem. Christmas points inevitably to Easter, and Easter assures our present victory and our future glory!
May we be more like Mary, Joseph, and our Lord. May we be willing to surrender the pull of our flesh and submit our lives to His will, knowing He can do in and through us more than we could ever hope or imagine. Christmas in the flesh. A Savior is born!