Christmas 2023

The Most Glorious is the Most Humble

Luke 2v1-7

22^nd December 2023

Luke 2v4-7
In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria. Everyone went to their own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.
While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

We Christians yearn for our neighbours to grasp the significance of Christmas. The people living around us are aware that Christmas is traditionally a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, but many of them don't see why it's important. They don't realise that Jesus is the Saviour of the World. Many will, rightly, celebrate family and friends. Many will eat and drink more than is good for them. I wonder if one of the motivations for drunkenness at Christmas is an unconscious desire to block out the idea that they're without a saviour, without hope, without any experience of God's amazing love and grace or any confidence of His mercy.

Perhaps Christmas is the time when remember most clearly that our neighbours who haven't found the Saviour are truly lost. Our joyful celebrations of Jesus each December should surely motivate us to do the work of evangelism, telling people that Jesus came to save mankind.

You and I understand that Christmas is a celebration of the Incarnation of God the Son. I find the Incarnation of Jesus more wonderful and more life-changing every year. It is a mystery that the second Person of the Holy Trinity, who had always known perfect peace in communion with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, came to earth as a man. We don't fully understand how God lived in a human body. We can't really gasp the depth of love that motivated Him to do it. But we know it's wonderfully, gloriously true.

Writing some 700 years before Jesus came, Isaiah prophesied that Jesus would come in human flesh, and declared that Jesus is God:

Isaiah 7v14
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel [which means "God with us"].

Isaiah 9v6
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

As Charles Wesley wrote in Hark the Herald Angels Sing, "Veiled in flesh the Godhead see. Hail the incarnate Deity".

We're also told that Jesus Christ is God in such passages as John 20v28, Romans 9v5, Colossians 1v16, Titus 2v13, Hebrews 1v8, 1 John 5v20 and, as we read last week, 2 Peter 1v1. He always has been God, and He always will be God. He has always lived in perfect unity with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit:

John 1:1-2
In the beginning was the Word [Jesus], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.

One day, a day of God's choosing, Jesus came to earth.

Galatians 4v4
But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman...

John 1v14
The Word [Jesus] became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Jesus is not just the greatest man who ever lived. And He's not the man who became God; He's the God who became man. He is eternal. He existed not merely before his conception, but before the creation of the heavens and the earth. Jesus lives after His Resurrection, and He will live when heaven and earth have passed away. He left perfect bliss in heaven to come to earth for you and me. In doing so, He gave up more for us than we can ever understand or imagine.

We all know this story so well that we can forget how much Jesus was willing to give, how loving and humble He was. But perhaps we remember best when we recall that He, the King of Kings, was born in Bethlehem because a Roman emperor had decreed it, and in a stable because no-one was willing to give Him room anywhere else. Jesus, the glorious Second Person of the Holy Trinity, became a human baby. As Charles Spurgeon put it, "the Infinite has become an infant". The One whose home is heaven spent His first night on earth in an animal's feeding trough. As C. S. Lewis wrote in his book, "The Last Battle", "A stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world".

I realise that we know this. But please let it touch your heart and your understanding one more time, perhaps a little deeper and clearer than before.

The Most Glorious is the Most Humble

Paul describes the Incarnation of Jesus thus:

Philippians 2v5-7
... Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be held on to, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

Jesus, the Lord of Lords, was willing to live the humblest of human lives. He was born into poverty, and lived in poverty. He was often homeless. As He said in Matthew 8v20, "Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head". He described Himself as humble in heart (Matthew 11v29). I'm coming to understand that was a massive understatement. He died naked and alone, nailed to a cross:

Philippians 2v8
And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross!

We will never fully grasp the depth of His suffering, or the fulness of His humility. But His death is not the end of the story. Jesus was Resurrected and He Ascended into heaven, where He sits at the right hand of His Father. Paul continues:

Philippians 2v5-7
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

The Most Humble is the Most Glorious

O come, let us adore Him!

Our neighbours may not understand all of this, or they may not see how it matters. You and I are wonderfully blessed in that God has enabled us to know the truth, to believe it, and to understand how life-changing and eternity-changing it is. God has given us the insight necessary to put our faith in Christ and so inherit eternal life.

And there's another lesson for us in this. Jesus set us an example. He told His disciples:

Mark 10v42-45
"You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

What a wonderful Saviour we serve! May we never lose our gratitude for Him, and may we become humble and loving as He is. May our humility and love help our neighbours find saving faith in Jesus.