The thing that amazes me the most about Christmas is how stealthily God entered the human race.

He wasn’t born into an affluent family or in a palace as most kings are, but in a foul-smelling barn, where animals lay amid their excrement and their nasty habits.

Mary wasn’t in Labor and Delivery with a cushy bed, attended by the finest doctors. And Joseph didn’t attend Lamaze classes to prepare for the baby’s birth. They were two new parents—alone, with no one’s help—bringing the Son of God into the world. Can you imagine the pressure?

The first intimacies Mary and Joseph experienced together were not on their wedding night with everything in place and Mary dressed in the finest silk. Instead, they were giving birth amid water, blood, umbilical cord, and placenta, with no clue what to do.

Maybe an angel was present to help them. The Bible doesn’t say. But this I know, as a mother who’s given birth: it was not a pretty, perfect sight. And yet…

I imagine that as soon as they set eyes on Jesus—heaven’s perfect Lamb—their world would never be the same. Their hearts would never be the same.

God incarnate came into the world the same way all people do: helpless, dependent, and vulnerable. Hebrews tells us He is a sympathetic High Priest. He partook of our earthly experiences—including birth. THAT is amazing to me.

God Himself subjected to the whims and brokenness of people. Two parents who didn’t have a clue—as most of us don’t—stumbling their way through raising a child and making mistakes along the way. Lots of them.

Still, He chose to come this way. How beautiful! The Perfect entering the imperfect. The Whole entering the broken. The Savior submitting to the unsaved. How powerful and perfect is our God?!

Oh, how judgmental the human race is toward God. How accusatory we can be—thinking we know better than Him. Insisting on running our lives without Him and navigating our own brokenness. How prideful and arrogant of us!

And yet still, gently and quietly, He comes to us—
bearing a love not human but divine;
a saving grace not resting on our perfection,
but on His own;
a redemption held solely in His hands,
untouched and untouchable by human effort.

This is the real Jesus—our magnificent Savior.

Celebrate Him. Worship Him. Honor Him—this Christmas and always.

Let Christ be glorified in all!

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A BLESSED NEW YEAR!!!