Excerpts:
Some years ago, Queen Elizabeth visited the U. S. She brought with her four thousand pounds of luggage, including two outfits for every occasion, a mourning outfit in case someone died, forty pints of plasma, and white kid‑leather toilet seat covers. She brought along her own hairdresser, two valets, and a score of other attendants.[1] How different was the royal visit to Bethlehem. When the King of glory came the ancient gates were not raised; the doors were not opened. Even Motel 6 didn’t keep the lights on. He had no royal attendants. He did not bring pints of plasma. Quite the contrary: he came to donate blood.
The King of Glory did not come to earth so that he could lie in a manger. Bethlehem is momentous and mind-boggling, but it is only phase one in God’s plan to rescue humanity from ruin. Bethlehem leads to Calvary, Calvary to the empty tomb, and the empty tomb to the life-changing, humanity-transforming Spirit. God’s plan is comprehensive. He has thought of everything.
I said a moment ago that people in Israel were already deeply religious. But the Son of God did not undergo incarnation – bilaminar disc formation, cell mass differentiation, organogenesis, and nine month’s internment in a womb – to make people religious. He didn’t die on a cross to make you religious; he died to make you good – that is, strong, loving, joyful, faithful.
After Thanksgiving, many people go to their garage or shed and take out their nativity scenes and set them up in their front yards. They put up cows and sheep, wise men and shepherds, Mary and Joseph, and then they take the newspaper wrapping off the Baby Jesus and place him in a plastic manger. When the season ends, they swaddle baby Jesus in newspaper again and bury him in the back of the shed until the next holiday season comes ’round.
Some of us do the same kind of thing. We love the baby Jesus. We get excited about him every Christmas, sing songs about him, listen to sermons about him. But when the holiday season is over, we wrap him up and bury him in the back of our minds until next year. It’s the American way to do Christmas.
Christ did not come to Bethlehem to sleep in a manger. He came to offer God his love and obedience, even to the point of death. But he did not offer this life of love and obedience so that we wouldn’t have to—that is the “we’re off the hook” theory of the atonement. He lived a perfect life, died a sacrificial death, rose from the dead, and was exalted to God’s right hand so that he might give the Spirit that was in him to us. Because of what he has done at Bethlehem’s stable, Calvary’s cross, Jerusalem’s empty tomb, and heaven’s throne, we, too, can say, “Here I am … I have come to do your will, O God.”
The Way Home 