JOIN USGod’s divine nature is love. Obviously then, He showered it all on humankind. Yet, man with his human nature of being treacherous, squandered, misused and abused this supreme love of his maker. The result was palpable. Man was living in sin and wickedness. He had to be redeemed, saved and brought to life again. In desperation, God looked for a master plan and a foolproof formula that would accomplish the challenge.
He called for advisers, specialists and policy makers for assistance. But none could come up with something that would be flawless and without any backlash. God was left with an unparalleled solution – to send His only begotten Son to earth, put Him amongst men and reveal the compassionate nature of the Father through the Son to all of humankind.
God’s Son thus had to take human form and be born among men. To the prophets and ecclesiastics, this truth was soon revealed, who prophesied the coming of the Son of God. The world waited in anticipation. It reckoned in human wisdom, that He would be born in a palace, to a king, in a mighty land with pomp and glory.
Yet, God’s foolishness, which is wiser than human wisdom, chose the stark opposite setting for His son to enter the earth.
A carpenter for the earthly father, a modest maiden for the mother, an obscure hill country for the homeland, a lowly stable for the birthplace, cattle for the background, shepherds for the guests, the dark night for company and the manger meant to feed the cattle as the bed – these were the humble beginnings that the Son of God was born with on that First Christmas more than two thousand years ago.
And in this epic beginning unfolds the grandest love story ever known to humankind. No other recorded event in the history of humankind has had such a dramatic and momentous occasion as that of the birth of the Child Jesus. Filled with paradoxes, intertwined with mysterious circumstances and mixed with farfetched realities came God in human form on this day centuries ago.
He was a king born in poverty who came down to be a teacher though he would acquire no education, a healer who would study no medicine, a reformer though he would have no army and a revolutionist despite his orthodox lineage.
He was the light of the world, the salt of the earth and the saviour of humankind.
Born amidst the choirs of angels and in the glow of the lone simmering star of Bethlehem, the birth of the Child Jesus went unnoticed by the vast majority of the world that first Christmas night. May His birth and its significance not go unnoticed this Christmas Day!