Sweet Wheeler just a few days old.
So I've been thinking a lot about Christmas, and what it really means. And then about what it really means---to me. Sometimes I bypass the behind the scenes stuff that was going on and just focus on the fact that Jesus was born as a baby and the humble beginnings he had and then think of what he grew into. This year, I feel like the Lord has really been putting on display for me, the fathers heart. In terms of my own son, to think about taking this sweet baby that in a sense (not really bc he is God's) is mine. Taking this baby and willingly giving my son to another tribe who I know will raise him and then brutally murder him. What mother would give her son to that group of people knowing he would be torn to shreds, mounted with nails on a tree and left there to suffocate and bleed to death. God knew full well what was coming. He allowed Jesus to grow up here on earth, in our tribe. He gave him to us without hesitation or reservation. He put his sweet little baby into the hands of men that would tear his flesh off his body. There was a lot going on behind the scenes in the manger that I hadn't been thinking about. God wanted us so badly to know him that he would give his sweet perfect son into the hands of murderers. If I was forced to give my child into the hands of people I knew would eventually torture him beyond recognition, even knowing my son would do amazing things for those people, I can't imagine making that choice. God's decision to send Jesus at Christmas was more than just a sweet silent night. From a father's heart it had to be filled with emotion, seeing his son born into new form, knowing he would redeem so many, yet also the agony of knowing the torture that would come for him at the cross. This was the ultimate gift coinciding with the ultimate sacrifice. Jesus taking on flesh, meant he would take on pain, take on our sin. Christmas was God's decision to send his son to this tribe, the cross was Jesus' submission to his fathers will to ransom many. It means something differently after holding your sweet child in your arms. I am beyond speechless and awed and grateful for God's sacrifice in giving us his child.
Merry Christmas.
