God’s Impossible Promise
Isaiah 9:2-7
Psalm 96
Luke 2:1-20
God has made a lot of very grand promises throughout the Bible and history. Some of them are nominal like I will make the dew fall on the lamb's wool, but not on the ground. Then some are great: like I will lead you out of slavery in Egypt, through the desert, to a land of your own. These often felt impossible unto themselves, and we often feel that God’s promises are impossible, but in the prophet Isaiah we hear a promise that would have seemed utterly impossible to all those listening. “For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given . . . and he shall be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, prince of peace”. These descriptives would not have made sense together - a child is born, God. Yet, we know the answer to this impossible promise. God so loves us, that he was born among us. He emptied himself so that he might dwell with us, so that he might truly be our counselor, show his might and eternity and lead us to peace.
As we hear the Christmas story, maybe for the 50th time, it is easy to forget what an amazing moment this is: Jesus Christ’s birth is the realization of a seemingly impossible promise, that should remind us that God will live up to, even the seemingly impossible things he says, his love is an impossible love.
Up until Jesus’ birth there had never been a story told like this. There were practically no monotheistic religions, to begin with, but even in the great pantheons of lesser gods throughout the world, there are no stories where a god gives up his powers and becomes a baby so that he might depend on and be with humanity. I have heard many Muslims say that the idea of an all-powerful God giving up that power to become fully human is a contradictory set of claims - God’s birth, like the cross is another stumbling block. At Christmas, as we look at baby Jesus, we see the seemingly impossible God.
To come to this baby Jesus with new eyes, we must understand why this seems so impossible. First, when God becomes human, this all-powerful God sacrifices power, or at least what humanity has called power. Second, when God becomes a human, he has needs and naturally depends on humanity - especially as a baby. Third, when God becomes human, how could he possibly still be the one that upholds and guides everything? The birth of our baby Jesus, fully God and fully man, poses some intense problems, but when we dig deeper we find these lead to the solutions we need.
We often think about the cross of Jesus as God’s immense sacrifice, but realize that Jesus’ birth was just as much of a sacrifice. Here is our God, who is above all things, who created all things, who is life and goodness itself. What does he decide to do with all of that power, he gives it up, he lowers himself from the greatest power and height to become a human in a broken world that will suffer and die. This was an immense act of God’s sacrifice.
The thing we need to realize though is that it’s through God’s sacrifice, that he shows us his even more immense power. If God can give up all that power to become fully human in Jesus and can still guide, shape, and change the world, that is truly an immense and wonderful power. If God can show his power, by giving it up, that actually transforms our idea of what power is. The interesting thing is that God has done this before. When God gave his good creation over to humanity, knowing that we would mistreat it and one another to the point of death, it was God’s great sacrifice to give us life and freedom. When God saved Adam and Eve’s life after they ate that fruit, it was God’s great sacrifice to allow evil to exist. When God led Israel through the desert, it was his sacrifice to uphold a people who weren’t faithful enough to build his kingdom. We could go on. God has continuously sacrificed his power to give us a chance, to lift us up, to show us his love. Our fighting for power in this world is getting it all wrong. Sure, just like God we have to uphold justice and life, but as we have heard and seen in God mercy is greater than justice and mercy always comes with a certain kind of sacrifice. As we look on baby Jesus, we see God’s willingness to sacrifice himself so that he might show us a greater power.
This leads directly to the second struggle, when God becomes a human child he will naturally have to depend on other people, but God doesn’t need anyone else does he? Whether God needs us or not is a finer point, I’m not going to talk about it now, but the simple fact is that God has always given us responsibility over at least aspects of God. He has always wanted us to care for what was his. Remember, he gave us dominion over creation, he gave us his image and breath at creation, and he chose a people like Israel or Christianity to bear his name in the world. These are all ways that God has entrusted himself to us. The birth of baby Jesus is just the greatest example of this. As we look at baby Jesus, what we see is God entrusting us with the greatest leadership and potential that could ever be entrusted to us.
If God becomes human, how then is he caring for the world and upholding it? Well, the essential answer is that God is not as finite and limited as we often want to make him. He is distinct and has his own character, that is its own kind of limit but Christians know God to be three persons in one God. So, as a person of God becomes human, he can still look up to his Father in heaven and be empowered by the Holy Spirit of God. There is this amazing mutual sacrifice, support, and love that happens within God himself. Again, this shows God’s grandeur and power to be far more than we imagined. God can empty himself and hold on at the same time. Who are we to limit God? Instead, in this moment as we look at baby Jesus we see a limitless God. It goes one step further as we realize that it is through baby Jesus that God does care for and upholds the world - as he transforms us and redeems us from the inside out.
A question follows, why would God be born a human? Humans are broken. We are broken. We know what we can do and we know what they would do to Jesus, so why would God do this to himself? Well, to begin with, we see in Isaiah’s words that he said he would and God lives up to his word, but there are so many impossible promises that God is living into at this moment. God promised to go with them, to change hearts of stone to hearts of flesh, to establish his kingdom, to put a son of David on the throne forever and God even promised us eternity as he laid the tree of eternal life at Adam’s feet. God comes down and is born among us, because he will always live up to his word and Jesus’s birth is the first fruit of so many of those promises, that we can begin to live in now.
God was also born human because an essential part of his character and power is love. We already just mentioned that God in himself is a loving community of three persons in one God, but that love is consistently overflowing, outpouring onto us, because he wants to draw us into that love. When God knows we can’t come to him from our own brokenness and sin, what does God do? He comes to us. He comes to us in a way that we can see, touch, feel, and understand. He comes to us in a way that gives us responsibility, purpose, and most importantly a relationship. Just as God, in the Trinity, has this mutual sacrificial love and support he wants to invite us into the same. He shows us that sacrificial love and support, hoping that we respond by showing him sacrificial love and support. Mary and Joseph would have already been living into that as they now had a newly born infant God crying in a cold and dark manger. The angel’s lived into that as they announced it to the shepherds. The shepherds showed that sacrificial love and support as they left their flock to tell everyone the good news. The women following Jesus, the disciples and many more after would live into this relationship with God of mutual sacrificial love and support all because God showed us the same mutual sacrificial love and support in the profound act of God being born a little baby boy in that manger all those years ago. We are now being called into that same relationship.
So, today as we look at baby Jesus we see the realization of an impossible promise because we have an impossibly loving God. We see in this moment a God who will do everything to live up to his promises. We see a God that shows his power to change the world by giving up power. We see a God who so loves us that he will do everything to invite us into a loving relationship. We see a God who is willing to go low to lift us up. We see Emmanuel: God with Us. We see Jesus: God Saves. AMEN
