Before Genesis, He was.

Before the garden, before the fruit and the snake and the shame, He was.
Before the Lord spoke words that formed stars and dirt from nothing, tree branches and blades of grass from emptiness, He was. Before there was light, He was.

Jesus was.

Jesus, the Son, was with God in the beginning, existing perfectly, needing nothing. And then, in a moment, He wasn’t. In one strategic, history-splitting moment, He wasn’t existing perfectly at the Father’s side; He wasn’t self-sufficient or in control of the universe the way He had been. He became, in a fractured instant, an embryo carried inside a young, unmarried Jewish woman in a poor village in Israel.

Let the gravity of it fall on you: a King in heaven, and then a fetus. The presence of God in the form of an unborn baby. It feels wrong. It seems out of character. In the past, standing too near the ground on which the Lord’s presence rested would strike a man dead; but now the Son of God slept in a teenager’s belly, sucking His thumb and dreaming the dreams of the unborn. His whole world was wrapped in amniotic fluid; His only responsibilities were the work of growing fingernails and eyelashes. Tethered to His mother’s body, the one through whom all things were created was helplessly tied to the business of being human.

God had heard the cry of His people during those many silent years. He’d removed His corporately known, manifest presence from among them—but He hadn’t abandoned them. He had listened and waited until the time was right. He could have done anything—could have come at any point in any manner that would inspire respect and demand fealty from the people of Israel. It’s what they were expecting, anyway—a king like great King David of generations past. God’s promise to David in 2 Samuel 7 was of a family line that would produce a king, so the people were looking for someone with power. A political leader, maybe, or a hero with a vast army and endless resources. Anything that would assert power and dominion and would pull the people from beneath the heel of Rome. They had waited four hundred years, after all. The last time they had waited so long for rescue, Moses had showed up with plagues and deliverance and a sea that was split open for a miraculous crossing. The next deliverer would come like that, right?

Well, no. Not exactly.

Jesus came helpless and needy, the way we come—helpless and needy. A baby needs everything. It takes months for a baby to even realize that he has hands, let alone to know how to use those hands to feed or dress himself. Babies are at the mercy of the ones who provide for them. And this helplessness is the robe that heaven’s King chose to wear. Wrapped in swaddling blankets and an infant’s frailty, the One who was with Yahweh for eternity backward, the One through whom God created every molecule, the One who was always with His heavenly Father—Jesus made His debut in an unwedded pregnancy followed by a rural barn delivery.

From the eternal Prince to a newborn baby. From heaven’s throne to a feeding trough. From scepter to slobbering. The Agent of Creation was a baby who didn’t even know He had hands yet. Why did He do it this way? God’s people weren’t expecting this.

And it would be just like them to decide that God’s chosen means of being present with His people was not enough for them.

They would reject Him, mock Him, ignore Him, hate Him, use Him, betray Him. He would prove that the way God had planned to be with His people was the best way. In order for him to show them that their longings were for the One who had made them, there was just one way for him to dwell among His people: He had to become one of them.

What Were You Expecting? 

The people weren’t looking for this baby Savior to be born to a poor carpenter’s family. All they knew of Yahweh was smoke and tents, clouds and temples. The stories they passed down were full of fire and fury, rent seas and perplexing plagues. The God whom they knew was big and loud and fearsome. At least, that’s what they thought. Could He really rescue them in such a humble manner?

If they’d been listening, really listening, they would have heard the whispers of the coming infant King. The prophets had spoken of the coming Rescuer. Isaiah had called him a Servant, not a political potentate. A servant. He’d talked about how undesirable He would be. A few saw Him coming: Zechariah, Elizabeth, Mary, Joseph, an old priest, an ancient prophetess, some foreign star-followers.

But that’s it. Corporately, there was no search for a Suffering Servant or a baby who would be born in a barn. If they’d been looking closely for Yahweh, they would have seen His Son. Their mistake was not that they didn’t look but that they looked for the wrong person. God has always chosen the ways in which He will keep His promise of presence, but we tend to see what we want to see. We’ll call Him good if He answers our prayers within the exact perimeters that we give Him, but God is good to us even when His answer looks wildly different from what we expect. Or even when His answer seems like no answer at all.

He does things in ways that seem backward to us. If we can look at Him instead of the distractions of our circumstances, we might be able to see Him being good to us in ways that we don’t expect. We might question what we know of Him. And if our questions send us to the Word so that we truly see this God who is good to us in unexpected ways, then the questions are well worth asking.

The Christ We’ve Always Needed 

Everyone who has been born after Jesus has had the privilege of looking at the Old Testament with Him in their peripheral vision. We can find His name on every page of our Bibles—if not directly, then in the way that earth and all humanity longs, yearns, buckles under their hunger for a reconciliation that only Jesus could provide.

But there are direct mentions of His name. Micah and Isaiah and Zechariah all spoke of the coming One—a King, a Prince, a baby, a child, a Servant of Suffering, a Shepherd. He would be an amalgam of humble and high, suffering and supreme, gentle and judging. In their longing for a deliverer who would pull them from Rome’s iron fist, Israel lost sight of the prophesies of His humility, suffering, and gentleness. They looked for what they thought they needed most: a powerful earthly king who would vanquish their enemies.

God had much farther-reaching plans for the birth of the infant Son. He would send them a King to deliver them—along with all who would believe—from the shackles of sin, Satan, and death. He was sending them what they needed most: His presence. He would do it up close. He would do it in person. He would do it while wearing human skin—while experiencing every form of rejection and betrayal. In a small town, in a small birth, came a small human who carried the weight of heaven and earth on his shoulders. In the fragility of a newborn baby lay the hope of us all. Joseph’s mingled-together fear and courage, Mary’s blood on the ground—it must have felt like hope. Born in a bath of water and blood, the One with no beginning began His earthly kingdom among the lowing of cows and sheep.

Immanuel—God with us. Jesus was the fullest, most tangible expression of God’s presence the earth had ever known. God’s eternal Son was breathing the same oxygen as the ones He had created. He was held in the arms of parents He had created. The Ancient of Days, the one without beginning, the agent of all creation, became a new life that took a first breath and felt human helplessness. This is the mystery and the miracle of the incarnation: the One who made us became one of us, in order to save us.[1]

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This is the mystery and the miracle of the incarnation: the One who made us became one of us, in order to save us. Share on X

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This is an excerpt from my book, The Promise is His Presence: Why God is Always Enough. Chapters 6 and 7 would be a great accompaniment to your Advent readings!

 

[1] Glenna Marshall, The Promise is His Presence: Why God is Always Enough (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing Company, 2019), 95-98,106-108.

Photo by Gareth Harper on Unsplash