To Know He Knows
By Jack Wyman
A baby cried.
Here was the miracle of new life.
It was a profound wonder.
A glorious mystery.
It’s the centerpiece of the sacred and joyous celebration of Christmas. It was a first. No other god had ever done it. No other god could have conceived it. It was an offence, a scandal, a puzzle.
The Greeks mocked it. The Jews rejected it. The Bible prophesied it and then proclaimed it. Without it, Christianity wouldn’t even be a very good story, to say nothing of The Greatest Story Ever Told.
Destined by the divine will before time began, it came in the fullness of time. Crafted in the vast, unfathomable panoply of God’s purpose, it unfolded in the unlikeliest of places, under the most unexpected of circumstances.
Unprecedented. Astonishing. Mystifying. Beautiful. Here was a challenge to the heart and mind of man. It had never happened before. It would never happen again. Not this way.
The incarnation. God came down. The world changed forever.
After declaring the Word to be with God and to be God, John writes this in his profound and magnificent gospel prologue:
“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). God became a human being. He lived “among us.” He lived not above us, around us, or beside us. Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man, pitched his tent on earth and moved into our neighborhood.
It is this wonder of wonders we celebrate each year. Not the baby in the manger, but God disguised as a mortal. Bethlehem is the marvel of divine condescension. “The hopes and fears of all the years” were met on that clear and silent night in a small, tucked away town. Chosen by God to be the place for his entrance.
The incarnation is the Christmas story. Deity humbling himself to become humanity. The birth of a child is the majesty of it all. Charles Wesley, in his eloquent exaltation, cannot contain his praise and joy: “Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see; hail the incarnate deity; pleased as man with men to dwell; Jesus, our Emmanuel.”
God with us. It is the most stupendous, joy-filled drama of the ages
To grasp this amazing, historic, and supernatural event is to more fully understand and appreciate our part in it. You and I have been transformed by the triumphant truth of Christmas. God’s visitation to the world he made marked the difference for us between hope and despair, loneliness and fellowship; between intimacy and alienation.
The world has never been the same. Nor have you or I.
The Apostle Paul challenges the Philippians to have the mind of Jesus Christ. To think the way he thinks, to act the way he acts. Paul’s example is the incarnation. “Though he was God, he did not think equality with God as something to cling to” (Philippians 2:6). Jesus did not demand his divine rights. He did not justify his position. He made no excuses nor did he argue with his Father.
“Instead, he gave up his divine privileges.” Jesus “made himself of no reputation.” He emptied himself of all but love. This is the meaning of the Greek word, Kenosis. He set aside his heavenly glory and left his throne. Out of those ivory palaces, the King of kings entered “a world of woe.”
“He took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. . . and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:7-8). A criminal’s ignominious death.
His birth must never be separated from its reason. He came to die. He came to give light and life. Jesus never stopped being God. Not for a moment. The whole time he was here. Only God could save us. In Christ, he did.
“Mild He lays His glory by, Born that man no more may die; Born to raise the sons of earth; Born to give them second birth.”
In Gethsemane, on the night he was betrayed, Jesus prayed, “Now, Father, bring me into the glory we shared before the world began” (John 17:5). When Pilate reminded him of the authority he had over his life and death, Jesus calmly replied, “You have no power over me except it be granted from above” (John 19:11).
He could have overthrown Rome with a word and called 10,000 angels to set him free. Instead, the Creator of all allowed himself to be contained in mortality by his own free will and purpose. He permitted his creation to put him to violent death. Though he voluntarily relinquished the free exercise of his divine attributes, Jesus never ceased to be God.
His humanity never eclipsed his majesty.
The joy and meaning of the incarnation is that you and I may know that God knows.
Because of it, we know that God knows how we feel and what we experience. God knows the pain we endure, the hope we seek, the fear we face, and the dreams we have. He understands our disappointments and defeats; our joys and victories; our celebrations and achievements; our heartbreaks and regrets.
God knows because he came. He understands because he was here. He has been touched by the feelings of our own infirmities; he appreciates our weaknesses. He too was tempted. He too enjoyed the gentle breeze of spring and the joyous laughter of children. He too experienced the death of a friend. He wept. He knew pain, suffering, betrayal, and abandonment.
Only an omnipotent God could do it. Only a loving God would do it. Only an omniscient God could fully design it and appreciate it.
As you and your family celebrate the miracle and joy of Christmas this year, worship the God who came down. Who became one of us. That he might redeem us, save us, and reconcile us to himself, and to one another.
Our greatest comfort is to know he knows.
To order Jack Wyman’s book, “Everything Else: Stories of Life, Faith and Our World”, go to amazon.com, Christian Book Distributors or barnesandnoble.com. It is also available on Kindle and eBooks.
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