Advent 4 God Came Through a Different Door

[HKHaugan]

“The world is unprincipled. It's dog-eat-dog out there! The world doesn't fight fair. But we don't live or fight our battles that way—never have and never will. The tools of our trade aren't for marketing or manipulation, but they are for demolishing that entire massively corrupt culture. We use our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ. Our tools are ready at hand for clearing the ground of every obstruction and building lives of obedience into maturity (2Cor.10:3-6 Message Bible).”

As we look forward to the celebration of the birth of Jesus into this world we need to see it from God’s perspective as it appears in the Scripture. According to man’s sense of glory a far more grand appearance would have captured the attention of human civilization. But no, God chose vulnerability and obscurity as His methodology. He came in the back door of man’s self-importance.

Come an infant born outside human hospitality, outside the usual comforts of friends and a home, outside of His heavenly home in a dark wilderness. Come in obscurity. Come amongst an obscure people in an obscure part of the world in an obscure family. Start with circumstances that would cause the neighbors to talk, philosophers to question, hounded by authorities, grow in the midst of this obscure people with no reputation and live a nomadic lifestyle with a group of obscure non-descript working men.

Be a ‘nobody’ and have nothing of value by the world’s standards, an outsider with no political, military, economic or social power. Just be who you are. Live a life of belief in the Word, trusting with your heart and having faith in a Father you can’t see. Let your presence, your words and actions speak for themselves. Face every encounter within and without as though the very existence of the entire universe depended on your response.

Coming from that unseen Father, wanting to please Him only, believing the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, is guiding every thought, emotion and impulse, your joy is obeying Him. Let the world of human expectations, sin and evil judge you and find you guilty of not conforming to its principles. Knowing the devil is the real enemy you gladly suffer the injustice of trumped up charges, false accusations and arrest, a hostile legal and judicial system. You submit and let your innocence be nailed to the final indignity of a Roman cross, die at the hands of foreign executioners outside a town meant to be yours. You give up your last gasping moments with words of Scripture and faith that the work you came to do was complete and finished.

Born alone to live for others, born to think spiritually, born to feel, born to believe, born to trust, born to save, born to redeem, born to reconcile, born to recover, born to restore, born to suffer in the place of others, born to die, born to know victory over death and the devil, born into the temporary to bring eternity to the present.

What we learn is how we become truly human as God intended. It is to yield to God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. As God the Son, Jesus revealed perfected humanity. Obeying the Father’s will in the power of the Spirit, Jesus set the pace. Submitting ourselves to Him is the beginning of eternity in each of us. Advent is a time of expectation, looking forward to His return to finish in each of us what He finished on the Cross.

This Christmas? Another glorious celebration of His accomplished work on the Cross and the resounding roar of its victory in the Resurrection.

“Rev.22:20 He who testifies to all these things says it again: "I'm on my way! I'll be there soon!" Yes! Come, Master Jesus! 1The grace of the Master Jesus be with all of you. Oh, Yes! (The Message).”