Day Seventeen - Scandalous Christmas

In church, we often speak of the scandalous grace and mercy shown by Jesus at Easter, when He gave His life in our place so that we could enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.

But have you ever stopped to consider how scandalous and crazy Christmas actually is?

Creator coming and living amongst His created.
Architect stepping into the plan He designed.
Artist going and dwelling within the canvas.
The limitless wrapping Himself in human form.
Divinity treading the same dirt as us.

But He didn’t come with fanfare or with trumpets sounding. He wasn’t born in a palace or a castle. His coming wasn’t announced in a loud voice from Heaven for all the earth to hear.

His birth was announced, but to a very small number and to those you might not expect. Shepherds in the fields – those literally on the margins of society.

But the question is: Why? Why did He come at all, and why did He come in this manner? So I thought I’d look to the words of Jesus Himself (which is always the best starting point!).

In Luke 19:10 Jesus says “For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.”

Jesus’ birth was a picture of His whole life, ministry and of one of His main purposes in coming to earth. He goes to the unexpected places, in unexpected ways, to unsuspecting people. He goes to the lost, to the hurting and to the broken. He goes, in short, to you and to me.

Throughout Jesus’ life the religious leaders of the time were always shocked to find Him speaking with prostitutes, tax collectors, thieves, all the worst kinds of sinners. So, one day, they challenged Him about it:
Jesus answered them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but those who are ill. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." (Luke 5:32)

But we also know that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

So, Jesus didn’t come for a select few, He came for all. The only way we gain righteousness is through relationship with Jesus and belief in Him as our Saviour.

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

So, if we look back at this well-known picture of a baby boy, born in a stable in a small out-of-the-way town not as just a nice image on the front of a Christmas card, but as a picture of Jesus beginning His mission of reaching the lost and the marginalised, then it begins to have new meaning for us. We see the scandalous grace extended to us from the hand of the Father.

I encourage you all today to thank God for the gift of Jesus. That we can know He was sent to earth to seek and save you and me.