Christmas In Six Words

I and the Father are one.
- Jesus

I have been meditating on the incarnation the past few days. The weight and immensity of what I claim to believe regarding God the Son taking on human flesh makes me groan with how casual I am and how absolutely and totally dependent I am on God's grace as I believe in Christ. There is no way to grasp the solemness of the season -- that we offensive, God-belittling, bored-with-the-fountain-of-delights people should be saved from what we so justly deserve. Yet, we read, 'he shall save his people from their sins.'

So when I come to John 10 -- I delight deeply in Jesus' words that the Father who is greater than all has given the sheep to Him and no one is able to snatch them out of His hand (10:29). Salvation procured and secured by the Father and the Son is the kind of salvation I need, and that's exactly what's offered. And there is the joy of the incarnation -- which is not seasonal but always present. What God the Son came for was completed, it was accomplished. The Christmas story -- as we like to label it -- is not complete without the death, burial, resurrection and ascension of Christ. We don't have a faith secured in a baby, our salvation is secured in a Christ who is seated at the right hand of the Father ruling. So when Christ states that he and the Father are one I find myself resting in something I can't add to or take away from and that no season can enhance or diminish. My hope is built on nothing less. . .

-- TWMathis