2023 Advent Devotional - Luke 2:6-7 (Day 22)

Luke 2: 6-7 “And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”

In these two simple sentences Luke tells of the greatest miracle in all of human history.  This is the event that splits that history in two.  Everything that has ever happened on this planet falls into a category of before Jesus birth or after Jesus birth.  This is the miracle on which every other one rests.

The Creator of heaven and earth entered time and space.  God, who knows no boundaries (after all, the earth is His footstool) took on the shocking limits of a baby's skin.  Can we even imagine the risk?  God became flesh - flesh that had a belly button, flesh that got diaper rash, flesh that got cold, flesh that could be bruised, flesh that could bleed.  God entered our humanity fully and forever.  He emptied himself of glory and honor and angel choirs and dropped here, of all places - to be with us.  To lift us up to be like Him.  Because He loves us.

The God who commands angel armies, the God who changes times and seasons, the God who rules over nations and subdues kings emerged as a baby who could not speak or eat solid food or control his bladder, and depended on a teenager for everything.  The hands that made the moon and the stars were too small to point.  It is staggering.  

Luke lets us know that this Messiah will surprise you, that He will do the unexpected.  The humility, the utter condescension of the baby Jesus lying in a feed trough because Bethlehem had no room.  This Jesus turned the world rightside up.  This is the in-breaking of the kingdom of God, quietly confounding the wisdom of humanity.

How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given!

The mystery is so astounding, so impossible to comprehend.  We cannot explain it.  This is the manger scene in Charles Wesley's words,

Our God contracted to a span;
Incomprehensibly made man.

Incomprehensible!  It is a wonder of grace.  Go tell the world about Him!  Amen!  
- By Stacia Eversole