John 1:1-2 tells us that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” In the beginning, says Genesis 1:1, God loosed the creative power of his being by speaking and causing everything He wanted to be created in the heavens and in the earth. So that from the beginning of our universe, from the very beginning of time, when the beginning began, the Word already was.
God’s Word came upon Adam and Eve, and when they had both eaten of the forbidden fruit,”and the eyes of both of them were opened, and they
knew that they were naked;” Genesis 3:8 says to us that “they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons, and heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day:”
That same voice was heard by Noah who was given the Word to build an ark so that God could cleanse the earth of sin and leave Noah’s family intact.
That same voice was heard by Abraham, when God spoke to him over in Genesis 17:1 and said ”I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect.”
That same voice was heard by Moses, when God said Go down, Moses, to go back down to Egypt land, and tell O Pharoah to let my people go.
That same voice was heard by Jacob and Isaac and David and Solomon, by Elijah and Ezekiel and Jeremiah, but it was not enough that men had heard the voice and received the word; it was not enough that men had preached and prophesied in the name of that word. Somebody had to embody the word, to be so full of the purpose and the presence and the power of the Word that he could actually BE the word. God still needed to send somebody to be the sacrificial lamb for the sins of all mankind. Somebody pure had to die. Somebody without blame had to die.
Because David had that word and yet David transgressed. Moses had that word but God wouldn’t let him see the Promised Land.
Somebody’s blood had to be shed. The Word had to be born. The Word had to become flesh.
Peter figured it out. When Jesus asked the disciples who do men say that I am, they said, some say Moses, some say Elijah, and some name others of the prophets. But then Jesus asked them, what about you? Who do you say I am? And Peter said, thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God– the anointing that God poured out on mankind.
God sent his Word to live among men and women, to grow up in the midst of people like us, to experience what they experienced without yielding to temptation, and to show us by his very example how to act like people made in the image of Almighty God.
The Messiah was born into the world that He might be born into you. So that by his example we can learn what it means to be a real child of God. What it means to be a son. What it means to be a daughter of God.
So we celebrate his birth. We celebrate his coming into the world, but more importantly, we celebrate his coming into us. And becoming a part of us.
Cause when we finally get that, when we finally truly believe it, when we finally come into a full understanding of what God has done—we will all be transformed.
Merry Christmas.
