Christmas is just a few short days away. This year, perhaps more than any other, I’ve been thinking about the sacrifice the birth of Christ brought. I’ve been reading an Advent devotional that has convicted, encouraged and challenged me to think about the Christmas story from the very beginning. Which of course begins in Genesis 1:1 when God created the world we call home. 

To think that from even before the moment God said “Let there be light”, the plan was for Jesus to come as a baby, grow up and ultimately die for our sin is mind-blowing?! And the thing is, Jesus didn’t have to do any of it, but He did! Paul says it best in Philippians 2:5-7a “Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity.” He didn’t have to do it, but He did. 

Jesus didn’t have to step out of heaven and into the tiny and helpless body of a new born baby. A baby born to a relatively poor family. His first bed and clothes meant for animals, not humans, let alone the Savior of the world. 

Jesus didn’t have to come to earth, this sin-filled, ugly and dirty place. Think about the fact that Jesus chose to step out of the perfection and beauty of heaven. He didn’t have to, but He actually chose to leave it all behind to come to our sin-ridden and broken world. 

He didn’t have to grow up here, learning to walk, talk, read and write. Feeling the pain of hunger and the tiredness that comes from hard work. This is God we are talking about, He could have come as a grown man. How quickly we forget that Jesus didn’t have to do any of the things He did, He could have tapped out any time, after all He was and is God. But He chose to stay, chose to endure it all, chose not to fight back, to take the beatings, take the shame, take our sin. 

Jesus  didn’t have to, but He did. A baby, a man, born to die. That was always the plan. Why?

Why would God choose this way? Jesus was fully God and  fully human. The easy answer to why is that He was God. But we too quickly forget He was also a human man! How in the world was He not scared to death?! A human man, a man that as scripture says was “tempted in every way we are” but He chose not to sin. 

How and why would our Savior do that?  Perhaps, love, obedience, mercy or grace? My guess is that all those things feed into the equation. However, we also know from scripture that there was no other way. Perfection was what God required, so Jesus chose to become perfection on our behalf. Not perfection as we know it, but perfection as our Holy God requires. He didn’t have to, but He did. 

We celebrate a baby born at Christmas, as well we should. But we often forget the magnitude, sacrifice and humility of this amazing gift of His birth. Christmas wasn’t and isn’t the beginning of the most amazing story ever told, but it is the season in which we celebrate the birth of our Savior King. Over the next few days, I encourage you to make and take the time to contemplate the whole story -the birth of Jesus, the death of Jesus and the resurrection of Jesus. The fact that it was always the plan. He didn’t have to do any of it, but He did! Jesus is the Amazing Gift Ever!