Day 16

I promised on Day 13 that I would come back to Isaiah 7:14,

"Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." (God with us).

Since Wednesday I have not been able to pull my mind away from the Incarnation. Now, while that sounds romantic and mystical, for me, it is frustrating. No matter how many times my mind returns to the mystery of God becoming flesh, I just can't comprehend it. But this is such a crucial part of the 'God Story.' From the time of the fall God has been longing to dwell with us. This first seen in the Tabernacle of Moses when God commands Moses to make a tent of skin for Him to dwell in (Ex 26:14). This was the manifest power of God in the form of a pillar of fire making a way to dwell in the midst of the children of Israel; to be their God and for them to be His people. And after the pillar of fire lifted and the glory departed from the temple, the Lord had more permanent plans to dwell with us. This is the foundation of the Incarnation, the desire in the heart of God for Him to be 'with us'. Not just to rule us or to have made us, but He actually joined Himself to humanity forever by taking on our dust and laughing, weeping and bleeding with the rest of human kind. What kind of God is this who would even have this thought in His head? Many people have an idea of God as a stoic god who is unconcerned with human affairs. But this is the farthest thing from the truth, Jesus Christ cannot be unconcerned with the affairs of men because He is now and will be forevermore, a man. He is a Bridegroom, a King, a Judge and a sympathetic High Priest who has run the gambit of human experience while remaining without sin and now all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him; and even while I am writing this it is amazing who little of this I fully understand. It is simply amazing that the God who created the heavens and the earth desires for me to be with Him where He is (Jn. 17:24) and that He manifested that desire by taking on my frame and entering the world as a helpless baby.

Truly this is a truth worth beholding for eternity.