God Made Flesh

When we talk about Christmas, many times the conversation involves gifts, receiving and giving, love, the tree, mall or how much you plan to spend. This year a survey tells us the millennials will "out spend" all of us other significant shopping groups for Christmas.
The Christmas subject is, Jesus in the manager, or the story itself, but in this blog I want to focus on Jesus in a different way.

I want to look at him from eternity past to the manger.

In heaven, before creation, the Trinity consisted of God, the Word and the Holy Spirit. On earth, the ‘Word’ is called Jesus. God’s wisdom is made manifest or known to us through Jesus.
Jesus as the ‘Word” takes the mind of the Trinity and puts it in the form of the written word because it reveals to us the mind of our invisible God. As much as our words reveal to others our heart and mind and thoughts as people, so Jesus Christ is God’s ‘Word” to reveal His heart and mind to us. Since God is a spirit and Jesus, as the Word, is a spirit…Jesus' mission on earth was to become to us the visible image of the invisible God. That is what is meant when the prophet Isaiah said He is “Emmanuel- God with us.” That is what is meant in John 1:14, “and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” The Word in heaven became flesh and blood. So God became flesh in the person of Jesus and lived among us. During that time, His mission was to demonstrate God’s love for us. When He spoke and taught, He told us of God’s great love for us. In both the demonstrations and the conversations, Jesus communicated to us that as human beings with a free will we are separated from God by sin. But through His life, death, and resurrection, He came to rescue us from the death that that sin causes. 

Billy Graham wrote, “Jesus came so we could know, once and for all, that God is concerned about the way we live, the way we believe, and the way we die.  God could have told us in other ways. Of course -He had - throughout the pages of the Old Testament and in the lives of his people. By His written Word he declared His love. But when Jesus the Word was born in Bethlehem of a Virgin maiden that glorious night in that desert manger, the ‘Word” became ‘the Living Word.” It bears repeating what we read earlier in this article, He was ‘Emanuel-God with us.’ 

Finally, of all the things that your life will be involved with this Christmas, remember the powerful message of that simple little stable….there…..God came in the flesh.

He is Altogether Lovely

Song of Solomon 5:10-17, gives us this comprehensive account of a bride explaining her Lord.
After the conclusion of her lengthly description and passionately cooing over every part of His body, she closes with this one last beautiful summary, "Yea, He is altogether lovely."
Now just as this bride sums up her Lord in this allegorical account, I would like to remind you that the patriarchs, all the prophets, all the apostles, all the confessors of yesterday, tomorrow and the entire body of Christ have left us with no lesser testimony of our Lord.
I want to add this as well, that since all the Bible has been pretty much sealed up and there will be no further additions to it…….. that all the saints since it was closed up…..on earth…..and in heaven, have continued to confirm the exact same declaration made by this charming bride of old……the verdict of each particular saint, and of the whole host of saints as a body, could still be summarized by her lovely words. From the sighs and groans of our suffering brothers and sisters in the persecuted church and from the songs free of groaning and suffering that perpetually come from those immortal tongues before the presence of our Most High God, I could put my ear to their testaments and hear this one-master chorus--- “Yea, He is altogether lovely."
Now I speak to you personally about this text…..I struggled to preach on it. In my thoughts and construction of this message, I felt that - “It is just to high a thought and I will never be able to wrap my brain around it or do justice to it.”
?How do you take so high a statement, with so limited a human ability, and bring it excellence? Or make something so perfect….. better, or something so brilliant….. brighter? Let me ask you as you are reading this….how would you improve on those five lovely words from your experience with your Lord……?

Well, God is good and He helped me in my thinking……….I was a little afraid of the volumes that I couldn’t say about this verse but I could at least approach it and start chipping away at it and see where  the Holy Spirit would take me.

·      After all ….I may not be able to grab hold of the whole ocean in my hand….but I can swim in a part of it and be refreshed by it….

·       I may not be able to hike the whole side of that huge mountain anymore but I can park the camper on one of those 20 x 20 campsites and enjoy a campfire, the birds singing and that beautiful chunk of earth…

·       I might not be able to understand how some of those magnificent stones were cut and placed so perfectly on beautiful buildings of old but I can at least stand outside, awestruck, and admire the architects, carpenters, and stone masons of old and walk through the splendid threshold of their magnificent doorways and be amazed at their effort and design...

 

·       And in relation to this scripture, I may never be able to understand the length and breadth of this verse, but by the gift of divine grace, God has chosen to put it in my path to stimulate my thought and encourage my desire to preach on it……… therefore, I need not fear to take it on as a project for the purpose of meditation.

 

So no matter what is said, I pray for you the same thing that I desire for myself, that as we walk our individual faith journeys and after all the experiences of life have taken place in our sojourning here...I pray that like this appreciating bride, you and I would be able to say of Jesus, "Yea, He IS altogether lovely."

 

 

 

 

       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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