Which of the following are similar to the ways you've served Christ in your family? [check all that apply]
• Taught your kids to see God's glory in nature
• Washed the dishes without being asked
• Played a board game with your kids
• Encouraged your wife to finish her master's degree
• Attended a child's open house at school
• Worked fewer hours to be with your family
• Set an example of a godly prayer life for your children
• Held a crying child
• Swung on the tire swing with your daughter
• Told your wife why you're still in love with her
• Told your son he's got what it takes
• Coached soccer
• Let you child correct you now and then
• Fixed the vacuum cleaner
• Taught your sons to ride a bike
• Listened patiently to a complaint of your wife
• Taped your child's artwork to your office wall
• Admitted to your kids that you were wrong
• Told your children how Christ entered your life
• Cleaned up vomit
• Taught your children to love books
• Been romantic without expecting sex
• Told your daughter she's smart/beautiful
• Set standards for your kids and stuck to them
• Dealt graciously with a busybody neighbor
• Peeled carrots
• Watched movies together
Did the Galaxies Pause? Theme of the Week: Getting Down and Getting Human Friday, December 24, 2004
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Men of IntegrityNovember/December 2004Did the Galaxies Pause?Theme of the Week: Getting Down and Getting HumanFriday, December 2476
Key Bible Verses: The Word became human and lived here on earth among us… And we have seen his glory (John 1:14). Bonus Reading: Philippians 2:5–11
Don't try to explain the Incarnation to me! It is further from being explainable than the furthest star in the furthest galaxy. It is love, God's limitless love enfleshing that love into the form of a human being.
Was there a moment when all the stars held their breath for a split second, and the Word, who'd called it all into being, went with all His love into the womb of a young girl, and the universe started to breathe again, and the angels clapped their hands for joy?
Power—greater than we can imagine—abandoned, as the Word knew the powerlessness of the unborn child, still unformed, taking up almost no space in the amniotic fluid, unseeing, unhearing, unknowing. Slowly growing, as any human embryo; arms and legs and a head, eyes, mouth, nose, slowly swimming into life until the ocean in the womb is no longer large enough, and it is time for birth.
Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity, willingly and lovingly leaving all that power and coming to this poor, sin-filled planet to live with us for a few years to show us what it means to be made in God's image. Jesus, as Paul reminds us, was the firstborn of many brethren.
—Madeleine L'Engle in Bright Evening Star
My Response: I'll reflect this Christmas Eve on the wonder of what can't be explained.
Thought to Apply: The virgin birth [is] far less mind-boggling than the Power of all Creation stooping so low as to become one of us.—MADELEINE L'ENGLE (author)
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