This time of year we celebrate the birth of a single baby; many would have him remain such as a baby is not at all threatening to the world and its’ ways.  The fact that he did become an adult, minister in and around Israel and Judah for about three years, performing feats that even extra-biblical sources extolled was the hinge on which history turned.  From that point on, mankind would have real hope that had been given away long before in a garden; not because of his life, but because of who he was, how he lived and died and his physical resurrection from the dead.  But that is not the focus of my thoughts here; instead, it is how God did invade his creation, not in might and power, but in weakness and humility.

Think of it, had the Son come to earth as the mightiest,  most majestic ruler of all time; taking the physical form to walk among men, even then that would have been a humbling beyond our imaginations.  God in the flesh; try to wrap your mind around that!  From eternity past, the Father, Son, and Spirit had reveled in the relationship they had as God and from their great love overflowed creation.  But also from eternity past, he knew of man’s fall and had a plan (not a Plan B as some suggest) to restore the broken relationship even before creation, before it happened; amazing grace indeed!

This plan was something that would never have occurred to any human as it seems the reverse of what was needed.  As with the conquest of Jericho (Joshua 6), this plan appears insanity itself and any who would believe it right equally crazy.  As with God commanding Joshua to have Israel march around the city in silence until the last day, then just shouting?  Ridiculous any sane military mind would say.  But it worked!

Paul, once the up and coming Pharisee Saul, put it like this;

“ 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,[a] 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,[b] 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant,[c] being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”  Philippians 2:5-8 ESV

Scholars have wrestled with what it meant when Paul wrote, emptied himself.  One source within Bible Gateway Plus seeks to explain it in the following manner;

2:7 made himself nothing. Or “emptied himself.” He did this, not by giving up deity, but by laying aside his glory (see Jn 17:5) and submitting to the humiliation of becoming a man (see 2Co 8:9 and note). Jesus is truly God and truly man. Another view is that he emptied himself, not of deity itself, but of its prerogatives—the high position and glory of deity. nature of a servant. Emphasizes the full reality of his servant identity (see Mk 10:45 and note). As a servant, he was always submissive to the will of the Father (see Lk 22:42; Jn 4:34 and note).
NIV Study Bible Notes
NIV Study Bible, Copyright © 1985, 1995, 2002, 2008, 2011 by Zondervan.

God in diapers!  In this weak form, this helpless form, Christ came to his creation, growing into adulthood while remaining a carpenter’s son until the time for his ministry came.  John the baptizer introduced him at the river Jordan, and he began to gather disciples even then.  Walking in the middle of the Jewish people, unrecognized by most as he just did not fit their preconceived ideas of who Messiah would be.  Finally betrayed and denied by those closest to him, he was executed by the Roman government at the behest of the religious rulers; but there the story does not end, it was only beginning.

His-story (history) continues today; an inexorable march to an end he predicted through prophets long ago.  This God in diapers is helpless no longer, but mighty to save for any who seek him.  Sadly, for many, the day is coming when they will be forced to kneel to this King of kings; those who refuse him now are in that majority condemned forever. Until then it may seem the world is out of control, but the story (His-story) is not yet concluded.

So, what’s new with you?

Another 24 hour period passes and the world seems to pause to celebrate this particular day more than another simply because it marks the passing of one year (2015) and the beginning of yet one more (2016).  Spending multiplied millions (if not billions) on the gaiety of such an event and, with the new risks we face, add to that the billions in added security to protect the revelers who gather around the globe.

Why do we do this every year?  We eat special meals, supposedly to influence events in the coming year that will bring us additional money and good fortune all the while laughing off such and telling each other that we are not taking such folk-wisdom seriously.  But those meals are served with the same regularity as we light up the night sky with brilliant displays of fireworks each year. 

Multiplied millions share resolutions to at least attempt to improve their lives, if not that of some attempt at improving the world around them; such promises for change often forgotten in the passing of days (hours?) that the ‘new’ year brings.  We hope, perhaps, that this year can be different; that governments can work together, and that industry as well will work more for the benefit of the world and the people who live on it rather than chasing after the amassing of more and more in the coffers of those same governments and businesses. 

​But what is new with you?  Is it vain to hope for improvement as Jiminy Cricket once sang, “When You Wish Upon A Star?” or are we doomed to continue the same circling of the drain as we await the final push of a button to end it all with nuclear oblivion or some other form of destruction?  Can that be the underlying cause of such careless and hopeful abandon each New Year Eve?  We did not blow ourselves up (at least in the case of the majority) and can hope that such will be the case next December 31st all the while nervously watching the growing tensions between religious groups, countries, and individuals.

​Dare I say it?  Is there hope in something (Someone) outside of our control?  Events that I participated in while in the Navy back in the 1970s make me less hopeful of man’s efforts to obtain “Peace on Earth.”  As more countries and the despots who rule them become members of the nuclear club, it seems that we are indeed circling the drain of our demise unless there is Another who will, as the bartender in a pub I once visited in Scotland said, “All right, gents.  Closing time.”
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We have no means to stop our maddened rush to eventual destruction.  A perusal of any news media or just looking within our hearts will demonstrate this truth.  Mutual Assured Destruction Doctrine is no guarantee of peace (as I learned in the 70s) and the vehement argument between scholars of different (or the same) religions give me little cause for hope.  It is only in one Person that I can look and see hope; a baby born in a slum of a forgotten part of a subjugated people brought that hope to all mankind.  A baby foretold for centuries, who was born to die and lived his life in complete obedience to the Law of His people, then executed putting an end, the authorities thought, to this sect of Jews.

But hope arose and continued to grow despite the efforts of any politician or imam; the Light of all men provides a newness in the most despicable of us (and I have, at times, been such and will be again).  Scattered around the world, the followers of this One look into a future that is New and filled with a Hope that the world scorns.  As this ‘new’ (but far too much the same) begins, I invite you to consider this Jesus and ask yourself what answer He would give you to the question with which I began this.
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So, what’s new with you?