December 20th, 2021
Today’s devotion is compliments of Leigh McElroy (http://www.leighmcleroy.com/).
_________________________
The incarnation changes everything.
"A savior is born to us," Martin Luther preached on Christmas Day in 1534. "That reality climaxes all. For these words melt heaven and earth together, make death into sugar, and turn all ills, of which there are plenty, into delectable wine."
There has never been a time that the world has not ached for a Redeemer. That God, in love, sent just what was needed, just in time, is beyond my wildest imagination. And because He has come, lived, suffered, died, and rose again, we may keep on bringing to the long-expected Jesus "the hopes and fears of all the years." He expects them. He was made for this:
Slipping on humanity
like a coat You
left the rarest air that is
and settled here.
Never mind the glory
once laid by--
You plunged into a
world bereft of majesty
and stayed to woo us
into life again.
Heaven's purest Hope
contained in flesh
put on to die:
Your Dwelling changes
Nothing more than me.
Immanuel. God with us. Eternity stepping into time. The Creator becoming a particular person at a particular point in human history, for a very particular reason. Divinity becoming vulnerable. The Almighty putting on an infant's flesh. The absurd, eternal beauty of this plan still mystifies and amazes. That it includes me still slays me, every time I think of it: God. With. Us.
- Leigh McElroy
Through the Son God made the whole universe, and to the Son he has ordained that all creation shall ultimately belong. This Son, radiance of the glory of God, flawless expression of the nature of God, himself the upholding principle of all that is, effected in person the reconciliation between God and man and then took his seat at the right hand of the majesty on high—thus proving himself, by the more glorious name that he has won, far greater than all the angels of God. (Hebrews 1: 2-4, J.B. Phillips Translation)
_________________________
The incarnation changes everything.
"A savior is born to us," Martin Luther preached on Christmas Day in 1534. "That reality climaxes all. For these words melt heaven and earth together, make death into sugar, and turn all ills, of which there are plenty, into delectable wine."
There has never been a time that the world has not ached for a Redeemer. That God, in love, sent just what was needed, just in time, is beyond my wildest imagination. And because He has come, lived, suffered, died, and rose again, we may keep on bringing to the long-expected Jesus "the hopes and fears of all the years." He expects them. He was made for this:
Slipping on humanity
like a coat You
left the rarest air that is
and settled here.
Never mind the glory
once laid by--
You plunged into a
world bereft of majesty
and stayed to woo us
into life again.
Heaven's purest Hope
contained in flesh
put on to die:
Your Dwelling changes
Nothing more than me.
Immanuel. God with us. Eternity stepping into time. The Creator becoming a particular person at a particular point in human history, for a very particular reason. Divinity becoming vulnerable. The Almighty putting on an infant's flesh. The absurd, eternal beauty of this plan still mystifies and amazes. That it includes me still slays me, every time I think of it: God. With. Us.
- Leigh McElroy
Through the Son God made the whole universe, and to the Son he has ordained that all creation shall ultimately belong. This Son, radiance of the glory of God, flawless expression of the nature of God, himself the upholding principle of all that is, effected in person the reconciliation between God and man and then took his seat at the right hand of the majesty on high—thus proving himself, by the more glorious name that he has won, far greater than all the angels of God. (Hebrews 1: 2-4, J.B. Phillips Translation)
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