Dave Brisbin | 12.16.18
We all tend to look for anything where we expect it to be. Makes perfect sense. Works for car keys and laundry detergent, but not so much when you’re looking for truth. Truth has a way of showing up in the most unexpected places, and if you’re only willing to look where you already believe it to be, you’ll miss it every time. How in the world would anyone think to look for or see in the face of a dirt-poor infant the truth of all that Jesus was? And yet the Magi did—advisors to their king, co-regents, scientists, religious leaders. And Galilean shepherds did—the uneducated poorest of the poor. And twelve hundred years later, Francis of Assisi did—a rich man’s son voluntarily living a pauper’s life. What do all these varied people have in common? What allowed each of them to see beyond and beneath the surface of things to a timeless truth?
We all tend to look for anything where we expect it to be. Makes perfect sense. Works for car keys and laundry detergent, but not so much when you’re looking for truth. Truth has a way of showing up in the most unexpected places, and if you’re only willing to look where you already believe it to be, you’ll miss it every time. How in the world would anyone think to look for or see in the face of a dirt-poor infant the truth of all that Jesus was? And yet the Magi did—advisors to their king, co-regents, scientists, religious leaders. And Galilean shepherds did—the uneducated poorest of the poor. And twelve hundred years later, Francis of Assisi did—a rich man’s son voluntarily living a pauper’s life. What do all these varied people have in common? What allowed each of them to see beyond and beneath the surface of things to a timeless truth?
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We need to know, because what they have to tell and teach is critical if we’re to also enter into the real meaning of Christmas, a meaning that Jesus will spend the rest of his life trying to teach as well… That our God is a humble God, vulnerable and unassuming, willing get right down on the level of each beloved like a mother playing with her child. And that regardless of their station in life, only those who have learned to value and practice humility and vulnerability will be able to accept a God who values and practices the same—to recognize that truth resident in Jesus even in his most vulnerable and powerless moments.
