Advent 2016 Day 3

Incarnation

As we move closer to Christmas day, our thoughts need to move continually toward the “why” of Christmas. Not “why” do we decorate our homes or “why” must we purchase presents for each other, but why is this really happening?

Sometimes we need to separate ourselves from the noise and distractions of Christmas celebrations and revel in the mystery of Christmas. We read in 1 Timothy 3:16, “Beyond all question, the mystery from which godliness springs is great: He appeared in the flesh.” The “mystery of godliness” is a God who chose to come to us… not as deity only, but “veiled in flesh.”

Our thinking about God becomes fuzzy at times. We see Him as someone so beyond who we are or where we live that His reality never intersects with our own. Our theology of God is sometimes too “out there.” God is a God who is “in here” with us. That’s what “the mystery of godliness” points to… and that’s what Christmas reminds us of.

Don’t forget, in the midst of all that Christmas has come to mean in our culture today, that we are celebrating a God who came near at Christmas. “He appeared in the flesh.”

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FOR MEDITATION:

Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
and with fear and trembling stand;
ponder nothing earthly-minded,
for with blessing in his hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth,
our full homage to demand.