It was a wise person who said of Christmas, “When God wanted to shake the world, He sent a baby, not a bomb.”
How different to the way we seek to deal with those who oppose or reject us!
And how good it is that God acts so differently to us. The way of humility is the way of real strength. At the time of Jesus’ coming, no culture, whether Greek, Roman or Jewish valued humility in practice. Very few have practiced it since. Yet most of us know instinctively how good it is to be in the presence of those whose life is characterised by real humility.
Jesus from His coming, where He laid aside for a while His rightful place in glory; to His life, where He genuinely took the initiative in moving towards others, especially the poor and unpopular ones; to His death, where He willingly allowed Himself to stand in the place of the judgement we deserved, exemplified humility. A baby, not a bomb.
No wonder statements about Jesus, like that of Historian W.E.H. Lecky abound: “the character of Jesus,” he writes, “has not only been the highest pattern of virtue, but the strongest incentive in its practice, and has exerted so deep an influence, that it may truly be said that the simple record of three years of active life has done more to regenerate and to soften mankind than all the disquisitions of philosophers and all the exhortations of moralists.”
The way we behave and the hope we have in life ultimately depends on whether we believe in the baby or the bomb. God’s way or our own way. When a baby comes our way, it is natural for us to stop and look. We even do our best to communicate and to show our joy, but from a bomb we naturally run for fear of great loss.
God invites our joyful response to His Son. There is nothing in Him that would make us run in fear. For sure, He claims our full allegiance, but it is the claim of the one whose subsequent path to the Cross serves only to assure us of His loving purposes for us.