Our broken world is littered with abysmal “father-figures.” In a sad irony, we mentally “paint God with the same brush” as our earthly fathers. Our resulting concepts of God are often twisted, contradictory and sometimes downright terrifying.
Is it any wonder why we grow up capable of extraordinary good one minute, and egregious evil the next? Could we be unconsciously trying to live up to the imagined “expectations” of the wrong “god?” Happily, there is one Father-figure who will not disappoint — and He’s anxious to meet you.
How Do You Get Through to an Ant?
Suppose you love ants. (I know, it’s a stretch, but stick with me. It ends well.) And suppose you get deeply upset when your beloved ants blindly enter poisoned ant traps and perish in droves. How could you communicate with those “sweet little creatures?” Sit down and have a talk? Scream at them? Stand in their way?
Impossible! They are a different species communicating with “ant voices” in “antspeak.” So how would you bridge the “species chasm” that separates you without terrifying them?
Of course, become an ant yourself! Then, you could look them straight in the eye and “reason” with them as a peer. That brings us to the genius of the incarnation — the God of the universe taking on human flesh.
Merry Christmas Indeed!
Lest we be blinded by this season’s orgy of conspicuous consumption, remember that under all that bling, our so-called “holidays” originally commemorated a cataclysmic shift in the relationship between man and God. God quite literally “wrapped himself in skin,” took his place as a fellow human, shrunk himself down into the form of a tiny baby and humbly made his entrance into a decidedly inhospitable world.
Scripture astounds us with the claim that this vulnerable infant “had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process.”1
In other words, he was “born” (in his humanity) in Bethlehem, but existed for all eternity (in his deity). Only God could have pulled that off.
Now, if it were me — if I were God — things would have gone down differently. I would have made my entrance more like the Lone Ranger, kicking down the saloon doors with sixguns blazing. But we’re told, “He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death — and the worst kind of death at that — a crucifixion.”2
So, for sure, he must have had a different agenda than mine. And he did:
Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever, so that all created beings in heaven and on earth — even those long ago dead and buried — will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ, and call out in praise that He is the Master of all, to the glorious honor of God the Father.3
This humble carpenter from the sticks remained largely silent until just three years before his death, yet remarkably as one writer exclaimed, “Almost 2,000 years have come and gone, and today He is the most important person in the human race. Time is divided by His birth and death. All the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the governments that ever governed, all the kings that ever ruled, put together have not affected the life of man on this earth as much as Jesus Christ.”
Have you ever wondered why Jesus stands out so starkly from the other 100 billion people who have ever lived? Remember, this was a working man from the backwoods of Galilee, with a country accent, calloused hands and an unremarkable appearance. He would have been short by our standards, likely dark-haired and dark-skinned.
The Old Testament prophet Isaiah wrote of him hundreds of years before he was born:
For he grew up before him like a tender shoot,
And like a root out of parched ground;
He has no stately form or majesty
That we should look upon him,
Nor appearance that we should be attracted to him.
He was despised and forsaken of men,
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
And like one from whom men hide their face
He was despised, and we did not esteem him.4
This was hardly the kind of résumé that you would expect for a first-round draft pick to quarterback a world-shaking spiritual movement. And yet the effects of that solitary life have been rippling down through the centuries ever since.
Jesus never pulled any punches during his earthly ministry. If he were trying to attract people to his religious movement in modern times, he would be defying conventional wisdom. This was no feel-good preacher trying to fill auditoriums with customers who pay to be “blessed.”
Far from presenting himself as a dispenser of limitless blessings, he reminded people of the difficulty of the path he was calling them to. He explained that his cause would be violently opposed by dark spiritual forces, entrenched religious and political powers, and faced with innumerable individual prejudices.
And, not least, it could very well cost them their lives. He was not trying to win a popularity contest.
It could not be said that Jesus was anyone’s buddy nor that he was easy to figure out, like you might expect, were he the simple carpenter from Nazareth that his detractors alleged. Quite the opposite. He confounded his harshest critics, terrified his closest associates and exuded genius in every encounter.
Far from being predictable, he shocked his friends and enemies with astonishing insights, brilliant observations, and breathtaking acts of healing and dominance over nature.
So, what was Jesus’ secret? What was the one thing that caused Him to stand head-and-shoulders above the rest — something even His closest followers largely missed. Stay tuned.
— D.C. Collier is a Bible teacher, discipleship mentor and writer focused on Christian apologetics. A mechanical engineer and Internet entrepreneur, he is the author of My Origin, My Destiny, a book focused on Christianity’s basic “value proposition.” Click here for more information. Click here for previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.
1. Philippians 2:5-11 The Message (MSG)
2. Ibid
3. Philippians 2:5-11 The Message (MSG)
4. Isaiah 53:1-3 New American Standard Bible (NASB)