Christmas Eve.  Most of us understand that December 25 is, in all probability, not the day on which Jesus was born.  It was a day chosen by the early church for various reasons to remember and celebrate the birth of our Savior. It’s a remarkable thing to consider God slipping on flesh and living among men.  We know that Jesus came to save his people from their sins but Jesus himself told us that he also came to show us the heart of the Father.  In John 14, Jesus told Philip that if we have seen Jesus then we have seen the Father.  So what do we see in the birth of Jesus that reveals the Father to us on this night before Christmas?

First of all, the birth of Jesus reveals a depth of love in the Father than almost borders on desperation.  In one sense, to speak of God as desperate is a contradiction in terms.  How can God be desperate  for anything?  He is all powerful, all knowing, self-sufficient, and glorious. He needs nothing.  This birth of Jesus reveals a want rather than a need.  He loves his children so deeply that he was willing to take the most extreme measures to make it possible for his rebellious children to live with him. The story of Jesus from birth to death is a story of desperate love.

The Christmas story is full of paradox.  The infinite creator of the universe enters the world through a woman’s womb and is immediately confined within the tiny body of an infant. The one who is unapproachable in glory suddenly becomes dependent on a teenage girl and her carpenter husband.  The one who was adored for millennia by myriads of angels is born into obscurity and hardly noticed by the very people he came to save.  Only a handful of people were aware that God had entered into his universe in this remarkable way on the night it happened. Angels had revealed this reality to Mary and Joseph.  Mary’s cousin Elizabeth and her husband had some sense that a remarkable event had occurred. A few days later, Simeon and Anna took notice of him in the temple courts and spoke about the Messiah to the handful of people; who would listen. A few shepherds who tended flocks outside of Bethlehem got the message.  But the rich and powerful, the religious elite, and the scholars of Israel missed it all together.

The only men of standing who noticed the birth of  the King of Israel were from another nation.  They were probably Persian astronomers/astrologers who were familiar with the prophecies of Daniel since Daniel hard served and prophesied in the courses of Babylon and Persia during the Exile.  They had seen his star and had travelled great distances to worship him.  Imagine their surprise when they arrived at Jerusalem to find that no one in high places had a clue that this King and been born. Herod discovered the truth from the Magi and his response was an attempt to kill God in the flesh.  As far as we know, no Jewish historians wrote anything about Jesus, his birth or his death, other than those who wrote the New Testament.

So…what kind of of God is willing to be born into obscurity, to be birthed in a stable rather than a palace, to be entrusted to a little girl with a questionable reputation because of her pregnancy, and to become a political refugee fleeing from Herod to Egypt before he is two years old?  It’s almost hard to put into words.  Because God is love,  we find through Jesus that he is also humble, approachable, vulnerable, and willing to endure hardship and sacrifice for the one’s he loves.  We see Jesus with the same heart as he grows into a man – vulnerable, approachable, humble, gentle, sacrificial.  Those are words we rarely attach to all powerful deity, but that is who our Father in heaven is.

This evening as we attend our Christmas Eve services or as families gather together, remember Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, the angelic chorus and the Magi who came later bearing gifts from the East. But more than that, wonder at the heart of a God who loves us so desperately that he would hand himself over to a fallen race to demonstrate his love and to offer himself as a sacrifice some 30 years later so that we might live with him forever.  That is the true wonder of Christmas.

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  (Isa.9:6)