Dec 11 - Luke 2:7

And she gave birth to her first-born son

and wrapped him in swaddling cloths,

and laid him in a manger, because

there was no place for them in the inn.

Luke 2:7

God in diapers.

That’s the miracle of the manger. That’s the inspiration of the incarnation. Not only did God become human, but the King chose to be humbled. He was little. He was powerless. He was naked and swaddled in scraps of cloth. 

He spent the first years of his life constantly displaced. The Romans made these Galileans tromp to the Bethlehem hills for a census. A Jewish king made the family flee to foreign Egypt under the threat of death. Even on the night of his birth, there was nowhere dignified for the son of man to lay his sweet head … except a lowly cattle trough.

God in diapers. How undignified.

Why did he do it? Love.

In Christ’s Love,

a guy who thinks

Christianity’s oldest hymn

sings this miracle best …

Listen to The Message paraphrase of Philippians 2:5-12

Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death - and the worst kind of death at that: a crucifixion. Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever, so that all created beings in heaven and on earth - even those long ago dead and buried - will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ, and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honor of God the Father.