That Jesus was 'special' is a drastically pallid understatement. But that is the reminder for me this Christmas season. It is easy to be so wrapped up in the nativity to forget that there was something eternally special about this child. When I read the story, I forget the air that must have come around this baby. I think of who He was to be and become and the Spirit in Him. The Spirit that IS Him.
The only way He could be more special is if He lived on forever, and He does. The only way that story become as magical and mysterious as a child makes Santa to be is if Jesus Christ also never dies and lives on in our hearts forever. Of course, He does in truth and reality. He lives on in the truth as His Spirit takes hold of our heart and spirit for the rest of our lives.
I tend to focus a great deal on the humanity of Jesus when I think of Christmas, because after all, God came close in Jesus. God came into our flesh that we may truly know Him and that He might truly know our human condition enough that He might redeem it. The humanity of Christ is truly a gift, but I also have to remember to direct my attention and expectation to the Holy. I miss the divine. I miss the greater relationship found in and with Christ.
This is the challenge of my heart and mind this year. Don't forget that Jesus is more than special. He is Holy! We celebrate a holy invasion of earth that lives on in the hearts of men and women who will not ignore the sacred realities of Jesus Christ, which still play out for us today and throughout eternity.
further, deeper, greater
When I consider the depths of who I am, I realize I cannot even fathom what is there. I am a mystery even to myself when I strive to understand the depths of the soul, spirit, and body. I read Psalm 139 about a God of light and dark. A God of mountains and ocean! Even those things I can at least see and take in, but Psalm 139 reminds us that we are further, deeper, and greater than even the mountains, light, dark, and ocean.
Psalm 139 reveals to us the depths of our spirit, but it also praises a God who knows and controls all these very depths that we cannot even reach with any entirety. Ozzie Chambers says, "The work of the Holy Spirit is in the dim regions of our personality which we cannot get at."
We are reminded by the Psalmist that God is deeper, further, greater than we can grasp, but that His Spirit truly does change and restore that core place of who we are; that place we struggle to get at. That ongoing restoration is entire and complete (1 Thess. 5:23)
The greatest disappointment is for us to assume these depths of ourselves and the work of the Holy Spirit with these depths are myth because we have no conscious experience of them. There are depths to our spirit we cannot consciously experience, but we need God to be our God, who can search and restore the depths we cannot get at.
We need the cleansing of sin at the very depths we cannot get at. We are terribly mislead when we say we are not conscious of our sin. Sure! There are depths to our darkness we are not conscious of, and God does regenerate and restore those things if would but ask.
There are depths to our light that we are not aware of either, and God will reveal the brighter parts of who we are when we would but ask.
There is depth to our greatness as men and women created in the image of God, and He will reveal and unleash those things if we would but ask.
When we think on these things of soul and spirit, we realize God truly knows us better than we know ourselves.