– The God who designed a woman’s womb was birthed from one with much travail.
– The One whose joy is everlasting had to burst into tears as He took His first breath.
– Jesus who spins the planets around the sun now stands beneath the moon and stars.
– Christ who powers that bright orb now grows weary under its heat at the peak of day.
– The God of perfect, triune love feels the sting of hatred and desertion.
– The One who supplies all creatures with daily food experiences hunger pangs.
– Jesus who created the universe in six days without exertion now grows tired at each day’s end.
– Christ who is eternal now knows the gloom of impending death all His earthly days.
– The God who formed each person’s body with intricacy and wonder now walks about in flesh that feels pain.
– The One who is Lord of the universe becomes just one Person among many, unknown and unpopular.
– Jesus who owns the whole world now faces the sting of poverty.
– Christ who never sinned becomes the sacrifice for all sin.
– God who sustains the life of all creation must raise Himself from the reality of death.
– The Christ of Heaven must ascend back to Heaven.
– The God of all glory who willingly chose to do all this will come again to restore us to the glory He originally intended.
We celebrate at Christmastime the day of the birth of Jesus Christ. While this is important, we cannot forget the days after His birth and the totality of the life He lived preceding His death and resurrection. For these days, we are most thankful. These days enabled Him to be made “perfect through suffering” on our behalf. (Hebrews 2:10, ESV).
Jesus suffered long before His crucifixion. The highest of all beings descended to the lowest of human experiences. Isaiah 53:2-3 (ESV) assures us that Jesus was not a glamorous or popular person and that, in fact, He was “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.”
When we hear in Hebrews 2:10 that Jesus was made “perfect through suffering,” God does not mean to say that Jesus had ever been imperfect or sinful. The word rendered “perfect” here means “to be brought to completion” or “to have the end goal accomplished.” How amazing that God chose to complete the job of participating in our suffering by enduring the regular, human struggle – including Monday mornings! – from the day of His birth to the day of His death.
Hebrews 2:10 heartens us, because we realize that the founder of our salvation knows exactly how we feel in the human experience. Jesus began the journey of identifying with us from the moment He descended to the womb of Mary. And every minute after that added to the process of Christ fully identifying with our frustration, pain, loneliness, and heartache.
The culmination of all His days was the moment He cried out on the cross, “It is finished” (John 19:30, ESV). The work was then complete. All our sin had been paid for, as Jesus had walked all His days as we walk in order to be the perfect substitute for us.
Thank you, Jesus, for your humble birth in to the world – and for EVERY DAY thereafter.
“Therefore, it was necessary for him to be made in every respect like us, his brothers and sisters, so that he could be our merciful and faithful High Priest before God. Then he could offer a sacrifice that would take away the sins of the people.” (Hebrews 2:17, NLT)
