It’s Absurd
Luke 1:26–38
Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” Luke 1:34
The Christmas story seems absurd to many. It claims that the birth of Jesus is the birth of God, that is, the birth of one who was both man and God. How can that be?
But I want to ask, why? Why should God have saved us?
God is the holy God. God made us in his image, to have fellowship with him. We by our own wills have made a muddle of our lives in arrogant, willful rebellion against God. We have tried to build a world that is immune from God’s good influence. We do not even want to hear the name of God acknowledged publicly. Why should God come to earth to save a race like that?
Why should God, the infinite God of the universe, take to himself the form of a helpless baby in the womb of a mother, be born in the pain of childbirth, be laid in a stable, be nailed to a cross and die an ignominious death? Why should God do that for us? Isn’t that absurd?
There is an answer, of course. It may be an absurd answer, but it is still an answer. The answer is that God did it because he loved us.
God, why did you love us? Why did you send Jesus to be our Savior?
How is God going to answer that question in terms that we can understand? Can God explain his love to us? I don’t think he can. God simply says, “I did it because I love you.” And if we say to God, “But why did you love us?” God answers, “It is because I loved you.”
Let’s apply this to us. 1 John 4:19 says, “We love because he first loved us.” What that means is that if we have understood the Christmas story, we have understood at the most profound level that God has done this because he loves us. And then, because he has loved us—and loved us in this way—we must love others also. Some of the older versions wrongly add the word “him,” saying, “We love him because he first loved us.” But the text actually says, “We love . . . ” We start by loving God, but we also love one another, even the unlovely, apart from “reason,” loving them as God has loved us.
Isn’t that absurd?
Yes, it is, if you are thinking about it as the world measures things. But that is Christianity, and it is that absurd but wonderful reality that is able to transform our wicked world.
Taken from Come to the Waters by James Boice ISBN 9798887790954 used with permission from P&R Publishing, Phillipsburg NJ 08865
Scripture quotations are from the ESV (the Holy Bible English Standard Version) copyright 2001 by Crossway a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved.