Christmas, the eternal spring of God's heart

Almond tree blossom

As people celebrate Christmas with all the symbols regardless of the exact time and year of God's divine condescension among us, this is what this season represents to me as a reality.

As I was reflecting upon the incarnation of our Savior Christ Jesus as the supreme gift of our Heavenly Father to mankind, I could not help but thinking of the limited perspective that we sometimes have of the infinite measure of all of God’s attributes and works in the vast universe He created but also in each of our lives.

The first thing I consider when I ponder the miracle of the supernatural birth of Christ is that God chose to manifest His presence in the flesh as a seed of the Holy Spirit in the chosen womb of Mary.

Imagine a little! The creator and sustainer of the endless universe becoming a frail human being Himself subject to the natural law of human birth.

What is amazing is that as we follow the course of His birth, life, death, resurrection, ascension and His coming back to take His own faithful ones to reign with Him, the same characteristic stages apply to us who have experienced the second spiritual birth and have passed from death to life, from the kingdom of darkness into His marvelous light. As the mature tree is essentially contained in the seed just waiting to develop through the different stages of growth, so was the life of the Lord Jesus and so is everyone of our lives.

An illustration from the sharing of presents on Christmas day comes to my mind. Imagine one of the present being a huge box with someone’s name on it. The person feverishly tears off the paper hoping to discover a big present that will provide a level of satisfaction commensurate to his perceived size. But as the box reveals another smaller box hidden under the packing peanuts, he suspects someone is playing a joke on him as he realizes from the sheer weight of the box. As he keeps on opening another box, then another one, he finally opens the last tiny box and no matter what the value of the present, it leaves him or her with a sense of unfulfilled expectation and diminished satisfaction. Here in brief is how the acquiring and enjoying of material things which are supposed to fulfill our lives from the cradle to the grave end up being a great disappointment and a snare in the end. Not so with the present from our God, the free gift of salvation available to any one willing to accept it. To the contrary,imagine that you received the gift of God in a small box. After receiving and opening the gift,once your life is changed by that spiritual tiny seed, you realize that as you grow, the gift keeps on growing as you learn and mature into eternal everlasting life, the box of our life, so to speak, getting bigger and bigger.

Now considering another angle to giving and sharing presents.
Jesus talking about greed said that life doesn’t consist in the abundance of things. Luke 12:15.And He told the people to not lay up for yourselves treasures upon earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven…for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Matthew 6:19-21.

Jesus is not only talking about treasures, but incorruptible treasures! What is He talking about? He is talking about treasures that have their beginning as an intangible seed beginning here on the earth and continuing in Heaven and/or enjoying all the stages of the growth of the seed in two dimensions simultaneously, in the physical body while at the same time in the invisible realm of the spirit.

In the Bible we can find several mentions of this manifestation of life as encapsulated in the title of Our Lord who is the Alpha, the beginning and Omega, the end and of course everything in between.
We can find the image of the seed in I Peter 1:23. “For you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is through the living and abiding word of God.”Isaiah 9:6-7 promise of the coming Messiah follows this development: "for a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us, and the government will rest upon His shoulders…there will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace."

To give another perspective to our modern misguided interpretation of authority, let’s look at the test of authority as it applies to governing a people. To resolve the problem of questioning of Aaron the high priest's leadership by the other leaders of Israel, God caused Aaron’s rod, sign of his authority to instantly sprout, put forth buds and bear ripe almonds, Numbers 17:8. And the best of it is that it started from a piece of dead wood. Here in a nut shell, we have a transformation (resurrection), new birth and growth, a flowering branch and a mature nut ready for nourishment. Now real and good authority consists in extracting the nut out the shell without crushing the nut. Why would God choose an almond branch out of all the possibilities? I have my own thoughts on the questions. As an aside, it is a good lesson in the discipline of children. If we want almond paste mixed with hard bits and pieces of shell mixed together, then we can crush the entire almond with brute force. If we want to raise emotionally and spiritually healthy children we need to apply discipline with the wise and loving, but firm instruction provided by God, breaking the strong will, but not crushing the spirit. Thus the seed will grow into maturity and produce a good fruit or a good nut in this case!

An example of this kind of authority in the New Testament is found in the person of Paul so many times misunderstood by many detractors in our time. In II Corinthians 13:10, Paul who loved and cared for his spiritual children writes to them: "For this reason I am writing these things while absent in order that when present I may not use severity in accordance with the authority which the Lord gave me, for building up and not for tearing down."

This love and wisdom are part of the incorruptible treasures that Christ talks about in Matthew.
Talking about Christ, Isaiah 33:6 declares: “He will be a sure foundation for our times, a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge: The fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure.” This love which starts as a spiritual seed planted by the Holy Spirit Himself in the hearts of men who have received Him on His terms is ever expanding and revealing the loving heart of our Heavenly Father at this time of the year and all year long.

Paul prays for the Ephesians in Ephesians 3:14-17 that: "He would grant you according to the riches of His glory to be strengthened with power through His spirit in the inner man so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith and that you being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God." This is also my prayer for all of us today and for the coming year.

Contrary to the philosophy of this passing and dying world, the present of eternal life in Christ Jesus starts as a tiny seed that contains all that is necessary to fulfill the purpose for which our Father and Creator put us on this earth.

I invite you to remember this season with grateful and humble hearts, that the tiniest and most humble manifestation of life, a human seed, a tiny baby in his or her mother's womb is infinitely precious and worthy of protection and nurturing because it was made in God’s image. Psalm 139.

So this Christmas season until the beginning of 2008 and beyond, I invite you also to reflect not only on the baby Jesus in the arms of Mary, but to let our hearts and minds expand our panorama onto other amazing dimensions of life and their meaning and consider all the stages of the life of the Savior in His birth, His death, His resurrection, His going back into the glory of Heaven and His coming back to give us glorified bodies, for we have already been resurrected if we have been born again, starting as a tiny seed wrapped up in a small and fragile package that we all are, as pilgrims on this earth.

Jean-Louis.