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Advent Devotional - December 4, 2016

“Why lies He in such mean estate, / Where ox and beast are feeding? / Good Christians, fear, for sinners here / The silent Word is pleading. / Nails, spear shall pierce Him through, / The cross be borne for me, for you. / Hail, hail the Word made flesh, / The Babe, the Son of Mary.”

-What Child is This

It is not the “ox and beast” imposing the meanness upon the infant Savior’s estate. Friend, it is the sinfulness of man—the sin of each of us—which befouls his surroundings. Yes, the Lord Christ was born into the humblest of earthly settings; but in so doing, he shows that he will humble himself to far greater lengths than to merely lie amongst livestock. His beggarly material state ultimately foreshadows the greatest act of humility this world will ever know: that the holy God of all creation would descend into the likeness of men to take our place on the cross, bearing the wrath our sin has earned, and be buried in death.

The arrival of Jesus is the grand revelation prophesied to Israel for generations. He is the promised Messiah, the one for whom the people of God had waited! Indeed, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and even as he lies sleeping on Mary’s lap, his presence pleads on our behalf. For his purpose is singular: “Nails, spear shall pierce Him through, the cross be borne, for me, for you.” As depicted in Isaiah 53, the advent of Christ and the crucifixion of Christ are sides of the same predestined object, necessitated by the helpless condition of man.

But the coming of Jesus demands that you and I answer this question: “What child is this?” Is he Emmanuel, God with us? The Bible resounds, “He is!” He is the Lion of Judah become the Lamb, who has come to take away the sin of the world. And he comes not to walk with us in our natural state, but that we might one day walk with him, perfectly, in his.