God With Us

For the first time in my 38 Christmases, I am doing an Advent Calendar. It's a simple set of stacked gift boxes numbered 1 to 25 that I got at Target on special discount because one of the doors is missing. We got a Play Mobil Manger Scene from Target as well. I am trying to read the boys the Christmas story and point out the people from the story in the manger scene before opening the Advent Calendar door for the day in which they get their gum ball or other candy. Next year, I'll stick pieces of the Play Mobil Manger Scene in the calendar instead of candy, but this year I wasn't that smart. Live and learn.


The great thing about observing advent this year is that it has caused ME as much as if not more than my boys to meditate on the coming of Jesus Christ--God with us. God came in human form and lowered Himself to be born in a manger with a cow and donkey as witness (if my Play Mobil set is to be believed). The humility of Jesus is one of the most intriguing concepts in all of Scripture to me.

Consider the magnificent description of Christ from Colossians 1.

15He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. 17He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

And contrast that with the humility He lived out for us and calls us to repeat in Philippians 2.

3Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!

As I meditate on the example of Christ--lowering Himself to be born in a manger, to wash the feet of His disciples, and to die in the most shameful way before the very people He came to save--I get why God repeats in Proverbs, James, and I Peter that God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. May we be a humble people--not with simple politeness and sham diplomacy that masquerades as authentic humility--but people who are genuine servants esteeming others better than ourselves, letting go of our rights for the good of the cause of Christ. May we be like Jesus.

Merry Christmas.