Luke 14:25-30
A part of what is so good and important at Christmas is to look at how God loves us so much. He loves every single person in this room with a love that is beyond our ability to understand. And this love is perfectly displayed in that moment when God visited earth. What a beyond amazing moment the incarnation was! God didn’t stop being God in that moment. He didn’t give up any of His deity when He took on humanity. Yet He became human. And He put Himself through incredible pain and suffering because He loves us. It’s so good and important at Christmas to look at the birth of Jesus and see the amazing love of God. But, part of the reason that I jump into passages like this around Christmas is that when we get together as a big crowd and focus on God as a baby, we tend to see Him in a certain light – warm, cuddly, loving, but certainly not controversial, polarizing, or demanding. It’s like we swaddle Him all up in our hearts and cover up His incredibly demanding call on our lives with a giant warm baby blanket. But, the Baby grew up, became the rebel Jesus, and this passage shows us that Jesus didn’t take on flesh and dwell among us to draw crowds. He didn’t go through the humility and pain of growing up, being rejected by His own people, and then crucified on a Roman cross to be admired or appreciated. Jesus was born in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago in order to invade your heart and change your life here in Central City today. It can’t just be enough that God came down and entered earth. Jesus must invade our lives and give us fullness of joy, peace with God, hope, and a future… no matter how painfully hard our temporary cross in this life will be to bear. Each one of us has a choice to make at some point. Are we going to keep Christmas merely a season? Keep Jesus swaddled up? Comfy, cozy, cute, but not demanding? Or are we going to unwrap that Baby and see Him as the God-Man who accomplished our salvation and follow Him where He leads us?
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