I have come to marvel all the more at this glorious reality which is summed up in the word Christmas. However, even as I use that word I know my propensity is to dwell on a day, a season, and all the sights and sounds that have caused us to romanticize it. And so we do well to remember it is about Christ, such that our reflection of it does not just remain on lights, stockings hung, presents, and milk and cookies left out. But really it is not just about Christ. Before I am called a heretic consider some of the development of this even from a genealogy.
Matthew 1:1-17 takes us through a substantial list of names, some of which we know, others of which we know little, and others of whom we know nothing. And normally we just gloss over those we know, and blaze past the rest until getting to the terminating name of the list: Christ. Our inclination is naturally to arrive at this "last name" on the list, but without realizing it we don't even have a good perspective on that last name (Christ) because we have failed to see any bit of the development of those names preceding.
The point is this: God was ever working to paint a picture. The story involves a man (Abraham), but we don't stop there, the picture wasn't completed. But not just about one man, but about a people. And it would appear monochromatic as we see just one group of people (the Hebrews). But so as to add the expressive, vivid, diverse colors of the Artist's disposal, God involved the nations in His picture (Gentiles like Rahab and Ruth). But then in the deepest shades of black the darkness of sin sweeps over this canvas (everyone named), before finally the oppressive chaos of a deportation (Babylonians) leaves gray clouds floating over all that is painted so far in this picture. But it is because of all of this by which Christ in all His glory and splendor absolutely and unmistakeably pops off the canvas that God was painting in this magnificent redemptive story.
The fact is that God was painting a picture throughout history that culminated in and with Christ. And indeed we don't see the brilliance of the picture, of which Christ is centered and the obvious focal point, because we don't see the backdrop God, in His beautiful, detailed, artistic design, was painting. Note just a bit more of the details in this picture that we need to compare. Consider some of these names on this genealogy: Abraham was called out of the land of his father. Christ left a distance of time and space, of realms spiritual and physical to exit the proverbial "land of His Father" to embrace the incarnation. Isaac was this one and only son of promise, who was spared from becoming a sacrifice by his father, while Christ is the One and Only Son of God the Father, who was sacrificed at the crushing blow of His Father, God. Jacob was a deceitful, covenant stealing son, while Jesus in all truth shares the covenant blessing with others. Judah sought comfort in sexual relations with his own daughter-in-law, while Christ sought out a woman at a well to reveal Himself as her eternal comfort, even after her sexual sins had left her broken, and then made her a daughter of God. David whose unfaithfulness to the law (coveting and murdering) and to his wife in all surrounding his relations with Bathsheba is a great contrast with Christ who was perfectly faithful to the law and only continues to show Himself ever faithful to His Bride - the Church.
So marvel at Him, whose picture was not some afterthought, but of intentional design. Marvel at Him, whose picture was not at all limited by the diversity of people, or the wickedness of so many in and around it, but instead shows the sovereign purposes of God to work in it all, ultimately to display the beauties of the brilliance of CHRIST. And marvel in the backdrop of that wonderful day, where the Son of God took on flesh. In doing so we come to see a bit better the great glory of Christ and in doing so we understand just a bit better this Christmas.
The fact is that God was painting a picture throughout history that culminated in and with Christ. And indeed we don't see the brilliance of the picture, of which Christ is centered and the obvious focal point, because we don't see the backdrop God, in His beautiful, detailed, artistic design, was painting. Note just a bit more of the details in this picture that we need to compare. Consider some of these names on this genealogy: Abraham was called out of the land of his father. Christ left a distance of time and space, of realms spiritual and physical to exit the proverbial "land of His Father" to embrace the incarnation. Isaac was this one and only son of promise, who was spared from becoming a sacrifice by his father, while Christ is the One and Only Son of God the Father, who was sacrificed at the crushing blow of His Father, God. Jacob was a deceitful, covenant stealing son, while Jesus in all truth shares the covenant blessing with others. Judah sought comfort in sexual relations with his own daughter-in-law, while Christ sought out a woman at a well to reveal Himself as her eternal comfort, even after her sexual sins had left her broken, and then made her a daughter of God. David whose unfaithfulness to the law (coveting and murdering) and to his wife in all surrounding his relations with Bathsheba is a great contrast with Christ who was perfectly faithful to the law and only continues to show Himself ever faithful to His Bride - the Church.
So marvel at Him, whose picture was not some afterthought, but of intentional design. Marvel at Him, whose picture was not at all limited by the diversity of people, or the wickedness of so many in and around it, but instead shows the sovereign purposes of God to work in it all, ultimately to display the beauties of the brilliance of CHRIST. And marvel in the backdrop of that wonderful day, where the Son of God took on flesh. In doing so we come to see a bit better the great glory of Christ and in doing so we understand just a bit better this Christmas.
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