Last week on The World and Everything in It George Grant considered “The Wisdom of paradox.” He concludes his reflection, that Christmas is “the greatest and most remarkable paradox of all is revealed: He who was infinite, was yet an infant; He who was eternal, was yet born of a woman; He who was almighty, was yet nursing at His mother’s breast; He who was upholding the universe, was yet carried in His mother’s arms. Thus, Chesterton exclaimed, ‘Outrushing the depth of the fall of man is the height of the fall of God. Glory to God in the Lowest.’”
“Glory to God in the lowest.” What a mind-bending truth.
As we conclude our Christmas series, “The Theology of the Manger,” we consider this, that the “stumbling block” (1 Cor. 1:23) nature of Jesus did not begin with his subversive teaching, it began with his very birth. The God who established strength “out of the mouths of babes” (Ps. 8:2), smiled as he became a babe. The King of the Jews! Born in a manger. Almighty God! Wrapped in swaddling cloths. The source of life! Nursing on his mother’s breast.
We still haven’t gone back far enough, because his birth merely revealed his paradoxical nature that was from the beginning. The three-in-one God. The Son of God who became man and is fully God and fully man. The Sovereign one who condescends.
At New Life this Advent, we’ve been studying John’s apocalyptic vision of the incarnation in Christ in Revelation 12. How is our great foe, the ominous, devouring dragon slain? He is “conquered by the blood of the Lamb” (Rev. 12:11). The dragon is not defeated by a bigger creature, but by a meek lamb.
The ending of the story upends our expectations, and yet, if we have been paying attention, we should not be surprised that God brings victory through weakness. As God told Paul, “my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9).
Considering the character of God is no mere intellectual exercise, it calls us to act. Let us not let the mind-blowing truths about God revealed in the incarnation remain in our heads. Let these truths transform our hearts and lives. How do we respond to this paradox of God’s nature, that we worship him in his lowest? We are called to be like him, giving up our rights for the sake of others, draping ourselves in humility.
Paul considers the birth of Christ and urges us:
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,[a] 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,[b] 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant,[c] being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Phil. 2:3-8)
Merry Christmas! Because of his love for you and his glorious paradoxical nature, the almighty God has become a child. May we worship him with praise and lives that reflect his humility.
You May Also Appreciate:
The Theology of Christmas
Part 1: The Theology of the Manger
Part 2: Just and the Justifier
Part 4: The Faithfulness of God of the Manger
Part 5: Glory to God in the Lowest!
Photo by Alex Hockett on Unsplash