We Are the Reason
Christmas Eve Meditation
Our lessons this evening give us an idea of how Jesus prophesied to come and how he came and how his arrival was announced to the shepherds, the people that became the first evangelists to the rest of the World about what they had witnessed. But they don’t really remind us about why he came.
Our messages over the course of Advent have been about the words of Isaiah and we saw how he was pointing the Jews who had been taken from their home in Jerusalem and dispersed around the region, because their leaders, their shepherd had led them astray because of their disobedience.
God promised to intervene for His sheep and to become the shepherd of His own people. He would seek them out and find the scattered, bind up the injured, feed the hungry, and strengthen the weak. He would rescue them himself. and us, to the when the time was right and God would come to be with us as he sends His Son. When the time was right, He sent himself in the person of his own Son to bring us freedom and to release us from our sins. That is what He is doing at Christmas.
He didn’t come to earth in barnyard, laid down in a manger, a feeding trough for animals, for His glory. He did it to become more like you, born into humble conditions. He did it for you, We Are the Reason he came into such “mean estate” as we will hear in Silent Night in just a few minutes, the unflattering, uncomfortable, even insulting circumstances that belie the coming of a savior, a King of King. We are the Reason that he did that, why He came that way.
During his ministry to the Jews he was mocked, scoffed at, and ridiculed by his own people. The rich and powerful hated him and had contempt for him, but the broken, sick, the poor, the homeless, the hungry, the lame, and the blind, they flocked to him for his comforting and healing touch, reached out to simply touch his robe in hopes of being healed, he had compassion for them.
Jesus didn’t come to be one of the rich and powerful, although if Satan had had his way in the Desert, Jesus could have, rather We are the Reason that he endured those things.
We see the cross and we imagine Jesus, bloodied and beaten offering comfort to his Mother Mary who bore him on Christmas Eve as she watched at the foot of the cross along with the disciple John, and forgiving the Roman soldiers for what they have done. Jesus didn’t come to die on the cross for his benefit, he died for ours, We Are the Reason that he died on that Cross.
It would have been easier for Jesus to simply lay in the tomb, claiming that he had done his best to bring the Word into the world whether they heard it or not, whether they believed it or not, whether it was accepted or not. He had paid their blood debt with his sacrifice; they were forgiven for their disobedience so now he can return to Heaven and be with the Father for an eternity.
But that isn’t what he did, he fought with the forces of evil to return to life, to rise from the dead and walk among his people again, to give them eternal life, if they were willing to receive it. Jesus didn’t do that for himself, he had eternal life already, he did it for us. We Are the Reason that he came back from the grave to give us eternal life.
We can only truly appreciate Advent, Christmas, by viewing it in the light of what comes on Good Friday and on Easter morning. Similarly we cannot fully appreciate the first Advent without remembering the promise that there will be a second Advent, the return of Jesus to collect his people and to live with them on a New Earth and a New Heaven.
The Lord is not slow to fulfil his promise as some count slowness, but is patient towards you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. (2 Peter 3:9)
So God isn’t just delaying the return of His Son because He hasn’t quite got around to it yet; and I don’t believe that there is a time certain rather He’s waiting for more people to come to repentance. God is being patient with a world that continues to reject Him because He wants them all to be saved. He wants more men and women to put their faith in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, that they might be forgiven of all their sin and come into His family.
I am certainly glad that God was patient with me during the time in my life when I rejected Him and went my own way, and you too my friend whether you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ or not, you should be grateful that God has been patient with you, and continues to be patient with us despite our failings and that We are the Reason that he came on the first Christmas morning! Amen.