Luke 2.11-12
11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.
At this time of year, we think of Jesus’ coming into the world as a baby. I don’t know about you, but I find it extraordinarily difficult to get my head round the two sides of this picture: ‘Christ the Lord’ is also a baby wrapped in cloths by Mary and Joseph, and laid on a makeshift cot, totally dependent on them for everything. He had to learn how to use his voice and then how to refine that into speech, he had to learn how to move around, how to use his hands (e.g. as the builder we thought about earlier this week), how to read people’s faces, how to read and write (necessary for him as the rabbi we thought about yesterday). God’s son had to learn! – we get a little glimpse of this in the story of his visit to the temple at twelve years old in Luke 2.42-52 He even had to ‘learn obedience’ (Hebrews 5.8), but the result was that ‘… being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him’ (Heb.5.9).
Thank-you Lord Jesus that you made yourself nothing, being found in human form, and became subject to death; thank-you for humbling yourself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. So now we want to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
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