Merry Christmas!

​I know it’s been awhile since I’ve blogged.  This is the first Advent season in three years that I haven’t written something.  Sorry for the silence!  This Christmas season has gone by in a blur of activity and festivity.  I hope you have all been blessed by the season.
 
But as we approach today—Christmas morning—there is a certain level of awe and wonder that ought to fill our hearts as we contemplate and ponder the birth of Christ.  Not only were the events surrounding His birth amazing and incredible, but the very fact that He came fills my heart with worship.  

​Jesus didn’t have to come.  He could have stayed where it was comfortable.  He could have left us in the filth of our own making, in the brokenness of our sin, in the mess that we created.  But He didn’t.  Oh no!  Jesus left the glory of heaven and descended to earth.  Not as world renown leader or an influential somebody, but as a baby. 
 
A baby that needed constant feeding.  A baby that needed His diapers to be changed.  A baby that would eventually need to learn how to walk and would fall down in the process.  Jesus not only humbled Himself by becoming human, but He chose to walk through all of life’s difficult and challenging stages just like us. 
 
He faced the terrible twos, His teeth fell out when He was seven, and the teen years had their share of challenges.  As an adult, He had bills to pay and work to do.  In fact, Jesus spent around thirty years experiencing life just as we do before He ever stepped into ministry. 
 
But the crazy thing is that Jesus didn’t have to go through all of it.  He could have bypassed so many seasons of life.  But He chose not to.  Why?  Because He wanted to share all of our humanity—the good, the bad, and the ugly. 
 
So as you celebrate this Christmas, don’t just visualize the perfect manger scene where the Christ child is lovingly held by His mother, but also ponder the years that followed—all the things that Jesus navigated for us.  And remember that Jesus didn’t have to.  But He did.  For us.
 
My favorite Christmas song this year has been this powerful, thought-provoking one by Hillsong Worship called “Arrival.”  Below are the lyrics.  May they touch and impact your heart as they have mine this Christmas.

Arrival
By Hillsong Worship

Who is God that He would take our frame
The artisan inside the paint
Or breathe the very air His breath sustains
The architect inside the plan
Oh come now hail His arrival
The God of creation
Royalty robed in the flesh He created
Jesus the maker has made Himself known
All hail the infinite infant God
The One who had no start and knows no end
Became confined in time and tense
The Everlasting God
The Great I Am
In the mercy of a mother’s hands
The One who holds the stars
In the creases of His hands
Is the One who holds my heart
Like a mother once held him
The One who knows what lies
Where space has run its course
Embraced a baby’s mind
And now I can know my God
The monarch of the stars
The King above all kings
The ruler of my heart
And the Saviour for my sins
The One who sees what lies
In each and every soul
Embraced our finite eyes
And now we can see our God
The holy Word of God defined by name
The author climbed inside the page
God embraced our frame
When He graced the world He made
All hail the divine in a manger
Love embraced our fate
When the playwright took the stage
All hail the arrival of our maker
All hail the arrival of our Saviour
All hail the arrival of our maker