The Scandalous Present

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
1 Corinthians 1:18


I thought about it during Christmas time.  God - condensing Himself into a human baby.  The Maker of the universe somehow fit His immensity into mere molecules.  That should have been one dense little baby :)  The One who created life became fragile, breakable life.
I find it awe-inspiring.  The stuff of tinkly, twinkly Christmas music.  Ephemeral, mystical, fairy tale-ish.

Immortal, all powerful God became helpless flesh.  But, He shouldn't.  He couldn't.  Could He?

Ruth Bell Graham - Billy's wife - said somewhere in a book I read (and now can't find) that it is a holy thing to have a Christmas time baby.  You feel some of the awe young Mary must have, struggling through very immediate and tangible labor pain reality to birth the supernatural Son of God.  The closest I've come is to have a January baby, so I can only commiserate by having been "great with child" around the end of December, looking like I could quite feasibly have squashed a little donkey under my girth.  (For the record, though this has nothing to do with my point, I've often wondered if Mary had to walk.  Would a poor couple really have had a donkey at their disposal?  I don't know, its not in Luke 2, just a thought.  Take that donkey out of the nativity scene and shake it up a bit.)

A baby is a miracle.  How is it possible life could come out of me?  There are fingers, toes, a personality - through me, but separated from me, complete apart from me.  Aside from the science of the birds and the bees, it really seems like something comes from nothing.  There was no life.  Suddenly, there is a beach ball kicking my ribs, then labor, then a squalling child.  A mind, a beating heart, a life.  A miracle.  I cannot comprehend this.
How could I understand then, the miracle on top of this miracle?  Supernatural life became human life.  The world didn't put up Christmas trees and buy extra scotch tape and eggnog when any of my babies were born, miracles though they were.  Jesus' birth was extra special.  Incomprehensibly special.
If I were just into Christmas for the stocking stuffers and pretty decorations at the mall, I would translate this miracle as ridiculous.  Foolish.  One commentary translated it "scandalous."  The message of the cross is utterly scandalous - God, in the flesh, born to die so we might live with Him.  Crazy.

Unless, I suppose, I grasp that He did it because He loves us.  He loves me.  Because He wanted me, God of heaven stopped at nothing to get to me on earth.  He pushed aside the flesh and blood barrier between us, not simply for fun.  He wasn't bored in glorious heaven so decided to sleep in a stinking manger on a whim.  That would be ridiculous.  He changed the foundational laws of spiritual and physical worlds so He, King of heaven, Son of man, could know us in both.  He changed the laws of physics (He made them, after all) to be with us.  To save us.  That's power.  That's love.  Scandalous love.  

P.S.  Talk about scandal - this was our tree this year.  Documented, in all its glory.  It was chosen and cut by my five year old in Grampy's back yard.  They thought it was the most beautiful tree ever.  Defeated the moment it came across the threshold, I let them have their way with it.  It was a wonderful Christmas.    

Joy to the World

There is constant music in my house.  Well, OK, there is constant noise.  A hum of activity fills our background.    It is our normal.  In fact, the baby cries when it gets quiet around him; he finds the hubbub delightful and comforting.  Its not always happy noise.  But even when the bickering and fussing quiet, I often hear a child by himself singing (his version of) a familiar song.  They know choruses from Sunday school, melodies that accompany their Bible memory verses, and songs their Daddy wrote while perched on a stool in the laundry room with his guitar.  I can't imagine life without them singing through the day.  (Oh, I try to imagine it, sometimes.  Silence.  Golden silence.)  But their songs are so joyful, their singing so natural, the music is sweet.  If God is pleased by a joyful noise, (and He is) then He is honored by their songs.

In the 1600's, the only songs allowed to be sung were poetic versions of the Old Testament Psalms, rigid and unnatural.  Isaac Watts was born in 1675 to an English Dissenting father who had already endured hardship and jail for his differing views from the Church of England.  Isaac complained about the quality of their music one day after a church service, and a fellow member challenged the teenager to see if he could improve on it.  He could.  He wrote so prolifically that Watts is now known as the Father of English Hymnody.  Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament, a collection of his songs putting New Testament fulfillment to the Psalms, was published in 1719.  It contained a song he based on Psalm 98 called  Joy to the World.

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven, and heaven, and nature sing.

Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,

   And wonders, wonders, of His love.      


It wasn't meant to be a Christmas song, simply a celebration of Christ's birth fulfilling verse that was written hundreds of years before Jesus came.  Watts wrote over 600 songs, many of which are sung today.  


I love hymn stories.  The words of these old songs are so rich and purposeful, they can stick in your head and be pondered.  Joy to the world - the Lord is come!  Let every heart prepare room for Him.  The wonders of His love!  What a great excuse modern Christmas tradition is that we can have meaty thoughts filling our ears throughout the day.  Not that I'm opposed to little ditties about Rudolf or partridges in pear trees, but I like a good steak meal more than a handful of candy.  Same with music.  How sweet to have it fill my house and mind.   Even off-key in high-pitched children's voices, God loves the noise of praise.  Most of the time, I do too.