For many of us the Christmas season is our most favorite time of year. I love this season, but I do know that the very familiarity of the Christmas story can deaden its impact on us. A person may have witnessed a hundred sunsets, but it doesn’t mean he’s ever seen the grandeur of one. You can walk past your wife a thousand times and forget how precious she really is to you. Familiarity with the manger scene in Bethlehem can insulate our hearts from life-changing truths that can transform it. Today’s episode has the potential to generate thousands of kilowatts of spiritual power for pursuing our three callings: Called TO Christ to enjoy a love relationship with him, Called TO BE LIKE Christ to holy Christ-like attitudes, and called to EXERCISE DOMINION FOR CHRIST, as we seek to influence the spheres of our lives towards righteousness.
A. The story of the incarnation has enormous power to turn our hearts towards Jesus. You and I can glide through Christmas, enjoying the traditions, family times, carols, and Bible stories and yet forget the incredible wonder of the story, the staggering reality of what happened in a Bethlehem stable 2000 years ago. What happened was something God’s people hadn’t even dreamed of. Yes, they believed a messiah would come.
- The Messiah would be sent by God.
- The Messiah would be empowered by God.
- The Messiah would speak for God.
- The Messiah would accomplish the mission of God.
But no one ever dreamed that the Messiah would BE God. Yes, it was in the prophecies all along. The Son of Man was a divine being—But THEY NEVER SAW IT. Yes, a descendent of David would come and one day to reclaim David’s kingdom. The Messiah would be great. But for the Messiah to be God, himself? No one ever imagined that. A human body housing divinity? The sustainer of the universe depending on the nourishment of his mother? Holiness and earthliness intertwined? God, himself the Messiah? It could not be.
But it was. And those who were given the eyes to see who Jesus really was were never the same again. They made statements like, “My Lord and my God.” “No one ever spoke like this one.” “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked.” “We were eyewitnesses of his majesty.” But Jesus’ best friend, John, said it best, We have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. John calls God The Son, the Word, and then utters the most astonishing statement ever penned in the human language—just four unbelievable words. The Word became flesh. The omnipotent made himself breakable? The eternal God imprisoned himself forever in a 6 foot body? He who was larger than the universe became a human embryo? God abandoned the splendor of the universe’s throne, surrounded by myriads of angels worshipping him every second, for of a smelly sheep pen? The supreme emperor of the universe arrived in his world wearing diapers? Surely this can’t be….But it was.
Have you ever wondered what it must have been like for Mary raising God? Max Lucado speculates on some of the questions he would have had for Mary:
- Did you ever feel awkward teaching him how he made the world?
- Did you ever see him with a distant look on his face as if he were listening to someone you couldn’t hear?
- Did the thought ever occur to you that the God to whom you were praying was asleep under your own roof?
- Did you ever try to count the stars with him…and succeed?
- Did he have any friends by the name of Judas?
- When he saw a lamb being led to the slaughter, did he act differently?
- Did you ever accidently call him Father?
- Did you ever think, "That’s God eating my soup?"
The most astounding words ever written, The Word became flesh continue, and he dwelt among us. The Greek word John uses for dwelt meant literally to pitch your tent—a clear allusion to the tabernacle, Israel’s portable tent where God’s throne, the Ark of the Covenant, was kept. God’s presence was understood to dwell most fully in the tabernacle. In the years prior to the construction of the temple in Jerusalem, the tabernacle was a portable tent to communicate the idea that God was present among his people, no matter where they went. John picks up on the OT imagery and says, “God again has come to dwell among his people.” But this time he doesn’t inhabit an animal skin tent—but a human skin tent. Human flesh is Christ’s tabernacle. God came among his people in the most total manner possible—by getting inside their own skin.
- The tongue that called forth the dead was a human one
- The hand that touched the leper had dirt under its nails
- The feet on which the woman wept were calloused and dirty
- And his tears came from a heart as broken as yours or mine has ever been
Not only that but as God came into our world, he did not shelter himself from any of the harsh realities of human life. He was not born into a family of Aristocrats. Jesus had a humbler beginning than any of us.
- His first breath of air would have in it the odor of animal urine.
- The first noises he heard would be grunts of animals.
- His first bed would not be on royal satin sheets as his royalty demanded, but a feeding trough in a stable because his parents were poor.
- He knew what it was like to be a refugee in Egypt.
- He endured the verbal abuse in a shame-based culture of being a bastard—i.e. a child born out of wedlock.
- As the oldest child he knew what it was like to bear the financial burdens of a single mom with seven children after Joseph had died.
- As a tradesman, he got real splinters in his fingers and real bruises from dropping stones on his feet.
- As one convicted of a crime he didn’t commit, his wrists and ankles were crushed by Roman spikes and the thrust of a spear poured out his real blood.
This incredible story of the incarnation can set our hearts aflame for three reasons:
1. Even if others don’t understand what you are going through, Jesus does. The author to the Hebrews writes: For we do NOT have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, (which being translated means JESUS LIVED IN OUR SKIN) yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Jesus, our Great High Priest, is a great listener. He wants us to pour out our hearts to him. And he is better able to understand EVERYTHING than any other person surrounding our lives. I’m reminded of a cartoon I saw in New Yorker magazine. It shows a forklift operator moving boxes with a quizzical look on his face. Instead of the writing on the box saying “FRAGILE: HANDLE WITH CARE,” it says, “CONTENTS UNKNOWN: HANDLE WITH NON CHALANCE.” The contents of human beings are not unknown to Jesus. He therefore does NOT handle us with non chalance. He handles us with CARE greater than the care we have ever known from our loved ones. We never wear out his desire to hear us pour out our struggles, frustrations, and need for grace.
2. The second reason the incarnation can inflame our love for Jesus is that the eternal cost to God The Son of becoming forever a human being is unfathomable. The more we understand what it cost him to empty himself for OUR SAKE, the more our heart is awakened to his love for us. Dorothy Sayers writes:
The incarnation means that for whatever reason God chose to let us fall…to suffer, to be subject to sorrows and death—he none the less had the honesty and the courage to take his own medicine….He can exact nothing from man that he has not exacted from himself. He himself has gone through the whole of human experience—from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death….He was born in poverty and …suffered infinite pain—all for us—and thought it well worth his while (The Greatest Drama Ever Staged).
3. The third reason the incarnation turns our hearts toward Jesus is that it is the fullest possible expression of the truth of “Emmanuel” God With Us. Jesus’ “humanness” is what makes us want to draw near to him—because the Almighty first drew near to us. Without the incarnation, how audacious it would be for us mere creatures to expect to be friends with The Creator of every atom of the universe. How scandalous to think a transcendent God would want a relationship with particles of dust. How unseemly to expect that the royal sovereign of the universe would want a relationship with us--one of billions of his lowly subjects. How unfitting for the guilty to ever think The Holy One of Israel would bridge the gap between their evil and his absolute moral purity. It would be the epitome of presumption to think that The King of Kings and Lord of Lords would ever want a personal, intimate relationship with humans…were it not for the incarnation. God in human flesh proves God’s desire to be near to US in every possible way.
The omnipotent made himself breakable. He who had been spirit became pierceable. He who was larger than the universe became an embryo…the creator of life being created. God was given eyebrows, elbows, two kidneys and a spleen. He stretched against the walls and floated in the amniotic fluids of his mother. God had come near. He cam not as a flash of light or as an unapproachable conquerer, but as one whose first cries were heard by a peasant girl and a sleepy carpenter. The hands that first held him were unmanicured, calloused, and dirty. No silk. No ivory…For thirty-three years he would feel everything you and I have ever felt. He felt weak. He grew weary. He feared failure. He was susceptible to wooing women. He got colds, burped, and had body odor. His feelings got hurt. His feet got tired. And his head ached. To think of Jesus in such light is—well, it seems almost irreverent, doesn’t it (God Came Near, Max Lucado)?
Perhaps it would be irreverent—if the Almighty had not chosen to bride the unfathomable gap between himself and sinful humanity by becoming incarnate. The incarnation and the awful pain he paid at the cross as our substitute guarantee that God WANTS THE CLOSEST OF PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS WITH US! Here is a screen shot of the kind of relationship Jesus wants with each of us—being able to say something like this to the Lord:
You are the most significant person in my life right now. Yu are my dearest friend, the one person I can be open and honest with, the person who knows me better than I know myself and still loves me. When I am with you, I am able to strip away the masks and stop all the game-playing. I can be myself with no pretense, and I am accepted and loved completely for who I am. There are no surprises with you; I know who you are, and you know who I am, and we are able to love one another completely.
Isn’t that an inviting picture? God has designed human beings with a capacity to derive great pleasure from our relationships—from loving and being loved, from knowing and being known, from enjoying and being enjoyed. And the greatest pleasure of all comes from an intimate love relationship with the most wonderful being in the universe—God himself, who not only loves you, he ENJOYS YOU!
The truth of the incarnation turns our hearts towards our Master.
B. The second way the incarnation helps us accomplish Christ’s mission for us is with our second calling—Called TO BE LIKE Christ. Paul writes to the Philippian believers, Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, 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 (2:5-7).
The Christ-like attitude we are to emulate is described carefully by Paul as not hanging on to his rights and glory as God, but emptying himself of those rights and privileges. JB Phillips translates this attitude as laying aside his prerogatives as God’s equal. The NIV translates emptied himself as made himself nothing. How mind boggling are those words! The one who is everything, made himself nothing. The source of life—the one in whom we live and move and have our being—the one of infinite worth and supreme dignity—how could he make himself nothing? How can this be? So great was the humiliation of our savior when he laid aside his glory to become a human being that the only way the language can accommodate it is to say that he made himself NOTHING.
This Christ-like attitude is the total opposite of human nature. At the very core of our sinful human heart is the desire to be the center of attention, to have everyone else accommodate to us, the desire to do better than everyone else, a preoccupation with what others think of us. Every person born into the human race is born with a congenital vision problem: OUR EYES ARE FOCUSED ON OURSELVES. This defect comes out as pride, rivalry, insecurity, jealousy, anger, and self-pity. God’s lifelong goal for you and me is to make us like Christ—to take our eyes off of ourselves: to make ourselves NOTHING.
Paul continues in Philippians with where our eyes should be focused. The text continues, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant. The nature of a servant is to have his eyes always fixed on another’s needs. That was Jesus!
That is what we observe about Jesus on the night before he would be crucified. Think of all that must have been on Jesus’ mind as he was about to begin his final Passover meal—all that he would teach them later recorded by John in chapters 14, 15, and 16 of his gospel. Jesus’ family of disciples, not unlike many families, had been fighting all evening. First, they refused to wash each other’s feet. Then at the meal, jockeying for a position in the kingdom, they were arguing over who was greatest. They fought over the THRONE; but nobody fought over the TOWEL.
So Jesus quietly pushes away from the meal, strips to his gym trunks, wraps a towel around his waist, gets down on his knees. One by one he does what they refused to do. Its almost like a father whose kids are arguing about whose turn it is to do the dishes. He just quietly goes and starts washing them. Can you imagine the knife of conviction that must have driven into their hearts? Around the room Jesus went—one by one. By now, probably there was silence, only the quiet dripping of the water back into the basin. Foot to foot—even Judas’ feet. Peter protests briefly but Jesus straightens him out. Jesus dries the last foot and sits down. Only one pair of feet are still dirty. Incredibly, it is the feet of the God of the universe.
God’s mission for your life and mine is to turn our eyes away from thinking about ourselves and fix them on the needs of others. To make that a regular characteristic of us—to make it a part of our character is to become like Jesus.
C. The third way the incarnation inflames the passion of our mission is to realize that it is a profound model to us of leadership of influencing those around us. Michael Hyatt, in his leadership blog writes, If you are going to be an effective leader, you must enter into your follower’s world. If you are going to influence anyone for anything—whether your boss, your employees, a client, your spouse, or even your kids—you are going to have to get really good at incarnational leadership. This leadership principle is based on the Christian teaching that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14a). Imagine that: God entered into our world in order to bring us back to Himself.
A pastor I respect told us that he always tried to get onto the turf of the men in his congregation by meeting them at their workplace for lunch. On afternoon he showed up at a construction site looking around for his parishioner. He heard, “Hey pastor, I’m up here. Come on up.” Looking about 23 floors up, he saw the man he had come to visit sitting on a steel beam dangling from a crane, pointing to the freight elevator on this half-constructed building. The pastor boarded the elevator, the crane operated turned to line up the beam with the elevator. The elevator door opened, the pastor’s whole life flashed before him but he gingerly straddled onto the beam and edged his way out towards his friend. My pastor friend almost decided on the spot to give up his incarnational approach to leading the men of his church! But you know, that steel worker’s respect for his pastor was through the roof the rest of the pastor’s time at the church.
If you want to succeed in any leadership role you fill, the best way to increase your influence in your followers’ eyes is to go into their world, physically when possible, or by asking them about what is happening in their world. The incarnation of Jesus is the best picture of leadership influence I have ever seen.
For Further Prayerful Thought:
- Which aspects of the incarnation touch your heart and make you want to follow Jesus more?
- What are your biggest obstacles to setting your focus on others, to seek to serve them instead of worrying about how others think of you? How does the fact that Jesus did this help you?
- What are some ways that you might increase your influence through incarnational leadership in various spheres of your life?
