Square Pink Marshmallows: The Weak and Lowly

It's Christmas time! I can tell because there are lots of sparkly lights everywhere, the Wal-Mart parking lot is packed all the time, and my credit card balance is... up (don't worry, we pay it off in full every month-- and we will this month too). But that kind of gift-and-glitz holiday is not the Christmas we Christians really need. That's just the Christmas we get caught up in-- the one causing me to bake dozens of sand tarts and peanut blossoms.

The Christmas we truly need to celebrate is the one where God became a man and walked among us. He became somehow fully human even while He was fully God. Emmanuel-- God with us. A supernatural, supremely powerful, completely authoritative creator, and a radiant redeemer, all wrapped up in a tiny little package of a fragile vulnerable baby boy-- Jesus.

Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you;

he is the Messiah, the Lord.This will be a sign to you:

You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.

Luke 2:11-12

God, in a helpless baby's body. Incredible! Why would He do such a thing? I think one reason He would do this is so He can identify with the lowest and least of the people He created and loves. God couldn't have chosen to become much lower than becoming a helpless baby born into scandal and abject poverty, forced to use an animal's feed trough for his first bed.

And things didn't get a lot better for him as an adult.

He was despised and rejected by mankind,

a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.

Like one from whom people hide their faces

he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

Isaiah 53:3

You see, Jesus was very familiar with pain and grief and suffering. When we hurt and grieve and suffer, He hurts and grieves and suffers with us.

Having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness,

which stood against us and condemned us;

he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.

And having disarmed the powers and authorities,

he made a public spectacle of them,

triumphing over them by the cross.

Colossians 2:14-15

2,000ish years ago, it looked like Jesus had lost and Satan had won. Jesus died a horrible death, being excruciatingly crucified on a Roman cross. Then everything was turned upside down. Satan's evil plan was thwarted. Jesus didn't stay dead. Not only did He rise from the dead, He's bringing every believing person with Him! Did you ever notice how much God enjoys irony? The story of Jesus gaining the greatest triumph the world has ever known after being brutally and publicly executed is the ultimate plot twist.

God is still using irony today.

But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise;

God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.

God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—

and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are.

I Corinthians 1:27-28

I truly believe that one day Jesus is also going to redeem every degrading, impoverishing, humiliating, grievous, painful evil that happens on this earth. He loves us and will never let our suffering or the suffering of those we care about to go unanswered. He was born as a baby. He lived, loved, rejoiced, laughed, suffered, wept and died like everybody else. The difference is that He was not just human, He is God. His motive is always love and His power is for redemption.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy;

I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep."

John 10:10-11

Places the thief has come to steal and kill and destroy: your own hometown; Newtown, Connecticut; Hakahana, Namibia... But don't ever forget about the power and love and victory of the Good Shepherd.

Hakahana