by Kelly Knowlden
In Luke 1, the angel Gabriel gives the birth announcement to Mary and says that her son shall be great. In all the Bible, I cannot think of a greater understatement. Mary is being told that the eternal God, who sits resplendent in light and majesty, whose regal qualities invade every corner of heaven, and who is grand beyond all superlatives, is going to be great. And poor Mary, caught in a drama of such magnitude beyond imagining, responded to the angel in child-like faith, “let all you that have said, come about…”
And of course, we, who are caught in a drama beyond what we imagine, get caught up in the celebration of Christmas as though this event were a postcard moment—that somehow, if we say the right things, sit in front of a warm fire with Christmas music in the background sipping our cup of warm cocoa, if we can capture the right mood, something magical will happen and we will have peace - if not on earth, at least a bit of inner peace from the bustle of our frustratingly busy lives. And we forget that the holiday is really about Him who IS great!
His greatness comes from the fact that the majestic God described above came to rescue us! That rescue was not from our national debt, from physical oppression of a foreign government, or from a commercialistic interpretation of His own birth. He came to rescue us from ourselves… our declaration that we are great! So His rescue involved taking our sin on Himself, paying the penalty that distances us from God and giving us life instead of deserved death.
Our child-like faith in that exchange puts us in the midst of a great drama. We are in the great drama of proclaiming His greatness! We do it by living in the moments of our days with child-like faith, “let all that You have said, come about…” Christ did this in facing His greatest crucible - the cross. He did it so that we might indeed have inner peace. May you know that peace this season. Merry Christmas!
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