Christmas Leftovers

I didn't get a chance to get this out before leaving for Urbana, so consider it a helping of Christmas leftovers...

My pastor, at our Christmas Eve service, based his message on John 3:16 ... for God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life (my NIV/KJV mishmash paraphrase). This is a familiar verse of course, but not one that I often recall hearing on December 24ths past.

On second thought though, it's perfect. That second thought occurred as I sat in the pew that night. I don't recall anything else he said as late night turned into morning. I got stuck on this verse and it suddenly dawned on me how incredibly brilliant the whole thing is.

God gave His Son! And He gave Him as a baby ... completely weak and helpless. His entry into the world was a marvelous picture of humility that would be topped only by His exit from it. But let me get back to that verb: gave. God handed Him over, in a sense. And then what did we, who received Him, do? We paid Him no mind for 30 years, marvelled at Him for two or three, got tired of His antics and then put Him to death.

But God knew it would be this way all along. Why then did He give Him to us? What would possess Him to do such a thing? Well that's what's so brilliant! It was part of the plan all along. God knew, even at Jesus' birth, that He was sending Him to His death. He knew that we would put Him on a cross, but He also knew that insodoing, we would be setting in motion the plan that would defeat Satan for good. He knew that only a guiltless man perishing could ever release us from the curse of Death that had rested upon us since Adam. So He gave His Son to us, with full knowledge that we would reject and crucify Him and that through this treachery salvation would be made possible for all men.

It's brilliant. He fooled us all, but Satan most of all. He did not come as we might have expected, nor did He accomplish what we might have expected or hoped for, but He delivered instead something entirely unexpected, but also unforgettable and incomparable. To God be the Glory -- His ways are higher than ours!

Here's hoping you might rejoice in the brilliance of Christmas!