December 22
Come and Worship
Excerpted from God with Usby Joshua Cooley, author ofCreator, Father, King
The Word became human and made his home among us. – John 1:14, NLT
Throughout history, God has performed some astounding miracles:
– the creation of the universe
– the worldwide Flood
– the parting of the Red Sea
– the walls of Jericho falling
– Jonah surviving in the belly of the great fish
But the greatest miracle in history is captured in today’s verse: “The Word became human and made his home among us.” We call this the Incarnation. It literally changed the course of human history.
Throughout the Old Testament, God appeared to his people in many ways. He appeared to Moses in the burning bush; to the Israelites at Mount Sinai in thunder, lightning, and smoke; and to Ezekiel in a vision of a heavenly throne room so magnificent that it stretched the prophet’s ability to describe it with human language.
But the Incarnation was completely different.
In the Bethlehem manger, God took on human flesh. This wasn’t just a brief manifestation. The eternal Second Person of the Trinity became one of us and lived among us for more than thirty years. The Lord walked like us, talked like us, and looked like us. He got thirsty, hungry, and tired. He felt joy and pain. The human experience was his, excluding sin (Hebrews 4:15).
He was—wonderfully, miraculously, inscrutably—fully God and fully man. This is why Matthew declares in his Gospel that Jesus was “Immanuel, which means ‘God is with us’” (1:23). There is beautiful mystery to Jesus’ incarnate nature that we were never meant to fully understand this side of heaven.
Why on earth would God come to earth? Why would the Father send his Son to a world ravaged by sin, where his own image bearers—in the most fiendish of ironies—would reject, torture, and kill him?
That’s exactly why. The answer lies within the question. He came because we needed him desperately. Because there was no other way for our sins to be atoned for. Because only the Father’s love and the Son’s sacrifice could restore the relationship sin had severed. He came to save us from ourselves.
Christ left heaven’s glory and took on human flesh for you. What is there left to do but worship and adore the incarnated-now-glorified Savior? Praise his name!
For further reflection:
Read the apostle Paul’s beautiful treatment of Jesus’ incarnation, sacrifice, and glorification in Philippians 2:5-11.
Creator, Father, King
A One Year Journey with God