Read Luke 2:1-52

It’s easy to read today’s Scripture and gloss over the familiar scene.  A young couple about to give birth travels far and wide to a tiny town for a census.  While there, the baby arrives.  Baby Jesus.  And the shepherds working third shift in a nearby field get a visit from an angel who sings “The First Noel” before the multitude of his angel friends break in singing “Glo-o-o-o-o-ria!”  It’s easy to let our minds wander to last year’s Christmas pageant when little Shelby accidentally dropped baby Jesus on his head and then ran off the stage crying.  (Good thing they used a doll!)

But what if we didn’t know it?  What if we lived the story as it unfolded?  What if the outcome was unknown, unexpected, unfamiliar?  What if we lived in that tiny town called Bethlehem during the census and woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of thousands of angels singing God’s glory and man’s peace out in the field in our backyard?  What if we followed the shepherds to the stable and peeked in on the scene only to find a minutes-old baby lying in a feeding trough?  What if the whole idea of HIS story was entirely new to us?

Would we read Luke 2 any differently?  I think yes.

It’s absurd, really.  A baby — the Savior of the world?  Shepherds?  The first to be told?  Really?  I mean, wouldn’t a king, the King of the world, be born in a palace with all the pomp and prestige due Him?  Wouldn’t the Hero of HIStory lay claim to the throne from the get-go?

The Creator of HIStory wrote Himself in and chose an ordinary baby as the means by which He would enter.  The hero enters HIStory, and God becomes man.  Fully God becomes a real-live human being who grows and learns and goes through puberty.

God became man.  Almighty God dressed Himself in skin so that He could rescue man from the mess we were in.  Absurdly loving us so much that He gave up the entitlement due Him in order to rescue mankind and deliver us unto real life.

HIS story is no ordinary account.

Bria Wasson