Some times we do things that, well just aren’t too smart. In my case, this happens on a weekly basis. A while back, I heard a noise out near our trashcans and I looked out there to see a large raccoon digging for a little midnight snack. This had to be stopped. So the brave hunter I am, I got a little trap out and I was going to get the little dude. I began my vigil the next day. With fierce determination, I laid out the trap to catch the masked critter. Well, the morning when I went to check the trap, and I instead of catching a raccoon I had managed to catch a black cat. I read him his rights, and then released him. The next morning I went out, and I had caught another little cat, no biggie, same thing. On the very next morning, I looked out to the trap, and I saw this black creature going back and forth. “It’s that silly ‘ol cat again,” I thought, and I went out to release him. When I got closer, that thing turned around and lifted up its tail, and it had a long white streak going right down the center. This wasn’t a cat... this was a skunk!
The poor thing was caught inside there, and he was clawing at the ground so fiercely that dirt was piled up all around him. My heart went out to the little guy, so silly me, being the city boy I am, went and knelt down right next to the cage, and opened it up; but the skunk just curled up to the back of the cage and wouldn’t move. I tilted the trap up just a little and the thing still didn’t move. I thought, what a silly skunk. Here I was setting him free, but he was so terrified of me that he wouldn’t move an inch.
I then tried to talk some sense into the little guy. I began to say, Come on, get! Go, move along! But the thing wouldn’t listen. It was then that the thought hit me. What if just for a moment, I could change myself to become a skunk, if only for a moment. To get down on his level, to speak his language, to let him know that I wasn’t a bad guy and I really wanted to help him out.
Does that sound absurd? A man becoming a skunk? Now I’ve met some guys who smelt like skunks, but to take on its shape, to exchange my flesh for its fur, to limit myself to its limitations, does it sound absurd? If it does, then the following will sound just down right ridiculous to you. God became a man. Let those words sink in for a few seconds. God became a man. John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” And vs. 14 then says the amazing, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”
It just doesn’t sound right does it? God with flesh. A while back, after church one day I came home and took off my dress shirt and tie and put on an old t-shirt. A few moments later Denise and I were talking and around the corner came my oldest girl wearing my shirt and tie. She said, “I go to church!” Now she looked silly, but imagine how silly I would have looked if I had tried to put on her clothes. Yet we read here that the Word was made flesh.
Max Lucado illustrates this truth so wonderfully in his book God Came Near. He writes: “That particular moment was like none other. For through that segment of time a spectacular thing occurred. God became a man. While the creatures of earth walked unaware, divinity arrived. Heaven opened herself up and placed her most precious one in a human womb. The omnipotent, in one instant, made Himself breakable. He, who had been a spirit, now was pierce able. He who was larger than the universe became an embryo. And He who sustains the world with a word, chose to be dependent upon the nourishment of a young girl. God as a fetus. Holiness sleeping in a womb. The creator of life being created. God was given eyebrows, elbows, two kidneys and a spleen. He stretched against the walls and floated in the amniotic fluids of His mother. God had come near.”
Have you ever thought of Christmas in that light? The Word made flesh, and dwelling amongst us. God walking in our shoes. God experiencing what we experience. A little 5-year-old boy one day was playing with his 2-year-old brother when the 2 year old reached up and yanked his older brother’s hair. He screamed in pain, and his mother came rushing in. He cried and said that his younger brother had pulled his hair. His mom said, “Well, he’s only 2 years old and he doesn’t know what its like to have his hair pulled.” The mom left and seconds later she heard a scream from the bedroom, but this time it was the 2 year old screaming in pain. She rushed in and asked what had happened, to which the 5 year old explained, “You said he didn’t know what it felt like, well now he does.”
Well, God knows what it feels like to be human. For thirty-three years God walked this earth and He experienced everything that you and I would experience. He got thirsty, He got tired, and He laughed.
He knows what you are going through because He Himself went through it. He knew what it was like to be lonely and rejected. At a time when he most needed companionship, his friends ran away. He knew what it was like to be unappreciated. He healed a man of demons and the man’s neighbors asked him to leave. He sought to teach the truth and the teachers rejected Him. They called the Creator of this world a Blasphemer and a demon. He knew what it was like to be misunderstood. He knew what it was like to be beaten and ridiculed. He knew what it was like to face death. He knew what it was like to stand at the graveside of a friend. Since we don’t hear anything about Joseph after the birth narrative it is likely that Joseph had died before the ministry of the Lord began. This would mean that Jesus knew what it was like to bury a parent. He knew what it was like to grow up without your dad. Jesus knew what it was like to miss someone. He felt what you and I would feel. Hebrews 4:15 says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin.”
That is why that one verse, John 1:14 “The word was made flesh” is so amazing. One moment He was a boundless spirit; the next he was flesh and bones. In Psalm 139:7 David said, “Where can I go to get away from your Spirit? Where can I run from you? If I go up to the heavens, you are there. If I lie down in the grave, you are there. If I rise with the sun in the east and settle in the west beyond the sea, even there you would guide me,” Once again Max Lucado writes, “Yet when God entered time and became a man, he who was boundless became bound. Imprisoned in flesh. Restricted by weary-prone muscles and eyelids.
For more than three decades, his once limitless reach would be limited to the stretch of an arm, his speed checked to the pace of human feet.” Hebrews 2:14 says, “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity” That’s the glory of Christmas. That the babe lying in the manger was not just another baby, but as we sang earlier He is the incarnate Deity. “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God, & and the Word was made flesh.”
And we cannot forget, that as we gaze into this treasured text, that this Word who was in the beginning, that was with God, and that was God, that Word which was made flesh would one day have His flesh torn. He would walk this earth for thirty-three years, but then He would lay down His life on a cross for us, as His mother Mary watched nearby. John MacArthur once said, “Here’s a side to the Christmas story that isn’t often told: those soft little hands, fashioned by the Holy Spirit in Mary’s womb, were made so that nails might be driven through them. Those baby feet, pink and unable to walk, would one day walk up a dusty hill to be nailed to a cross. That sweet infant’s head with sparking eyes and eager mouth was formed so that someday men might force a crown of thorns onto it. That tender body, warm and soft, wrapped in swaddling clothes, would one day be ripped open by a spear” The Word was born to die. He was to pay a debt that He did not owe, so that we can enjoy a gift we could not pay.
Suppose you enter into a fancy restaurant and you are wearing an old worn out Mississippi State T-Shirt and blue jeans. You thought it looked nice enough but then the maître d’ informs you that there is a dress code. All men must wear a sports coat and tie. You are tired, hungry, and it is late. You have no other alternative but to beg. “Is there anything you can do?” You ask. Then the maître d’ does something that is unbelievable, he takes off his tuxedo and gives it to you. He then places that Bulldog shirt on his own back and with it all the shame from a dismal football season.
You see that is exactly what Jesus did. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” He took upon Himself our flesh, our sins, our guilt, in order that something truly amazing could happen.
Since the Word became flesh, and since the Word did die a sacrificial death on our behalf, we can now become something that is perhaps just as remarkable. We now can become a child of God. John 1:12-13 says “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God--children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.”
A child of God. Think of it. 1 John 3:1-2 in the Living paraphrase says, “See how very much our heavenly Father loves us, for he allows us to be called his children--think of it--and we really are! But since most people don’t know God, naturally they don’t understand that we are his children. Yes, dear friends, we are already God’s children, right now, and we can’t even imagine what it is going to be like later on. But we do know this, that when he comes we will be like him, as a result of seeing him as he really is.”
Because of what Jesus has done for us, we can pray, “Our Father who art in Heaven.” Because of what He has done, we can have an intimate relationship where God becomes our Daddy. Romans 8:15-16 reads, “For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.”
And we all have the opportunity to become God’s child. It says again in John 1, to all who received Him. To all who would make the choice believe in Jesus, they will be given the right to be called the children of God. It’s the ultimate Christmas choice. And there is no bigger choice than this. Either to receive or to reject the Savior born in the manger.
This past week I sat by a hospital bed of a man who more than likely will never come home. I walked into the room, and it’s hard to explain the emotions going on in there. I started to initiate some small talk; we talked about his family, his home, and then his condition. I then told him that lots of people were praying for him, and how God can do the impossible. He kindly nodded his head, and then told me about a preacher in his family who came by and seen him. I asked him if he belonged to a church, which I knew sort of his background already. He told me he was practically born in the church. Yet I knew he hadn’t attended in years. We talked some more, and I turned the conversation more toward a spiritual one, and I once again told him that lots of people were praying for him, but then I told him that even though we were praying that he would get better, God might have different plans. I then told him that the only way to Heaven was through putting your trust in Christ. And as I told him this, he looked out the window and …it was as if he knew what I was saying was true, but he didn’t want it. He turned the conversation around to tell me how terrible the hospital food was…and I knew then it was time for me to leave. I said a prayer for him, and then walked out of the room, disappointed. I had presented him with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, yet he chose not to receive. John 1:10-11 says, “He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.”
Imagine for a second that the by some chance I was able to become a skunk. Imagine that I humbled myself, took on the fur, the stench, the claws, and spoke to him face to face. Do you think he would have listened? Would he thank me for doing what I had done or would he scoff at me, reject me, and spray me? Would he remember what I had done for him?
This Christmas, remember what Christ has done for us. Philippians 2:5-11 in the Living Bible says, “Your attitude should be the kind that was shown us by Jesus Christ, who, though he was God, did not demand and cling to his rights as God, but laid aside his mighty power and glory, taking the disguise of a slave and becoming like men. And he humbled himself even further, going so far as actually to die a criminal’s death on a cross. Yet it was because of this that God raised him up to the heights of heaven and gave him a name which is above every other name, that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
This morning if you would like to receive the gift of eternal life and the gift of being called God’s child, you can receive Christ here today. He asks that we repent of our sins, which means to turn away from them, and simply place our trust in Him for our salvation. God came near and was born in the manger in Bethlehem, today he can be born in your heart, and you can be born again, if you will receive him.
