Next spring, Vanessa and I will have been married for 25 years. You accumulate a lot of stuff over 25 years. Some stuff breaks or fades. Some stuff outlives its usefulness. Some stuff gets buried in piles of other stuff and forgotten or lost. But some stuff stays with you, for one reason or another.
We still have a few items we purchased in the months before our marriage. Some dishes, some tools, and some decorations. Every November, I pull one of those decorations down from the attic and unbox it. It’s a porcelain nativity set we purchased on sale from J.C. Penney, where Vanessa worked when we were first married. Each year, I can’t help but pause and look at it. I unwrap it with great care, holding each piece in my hands with strange determination. When it’s all set up, I’m reminded of how life seemed simpler then, 25 years ago. And 2,000 years ago. A baby in a manger. A couple of kids in a parsonage. Every great future work of our sovereign God timelessly present in a modest, timely moment. Even when we can’t see the big picture by sight, in full view of God’s sovereignty, by faith, the simplicity of a moment is ripe with strange and complex glory.
For Christians, Christmas is about much more than a baby in a manger. Do not be confused by the humility of an unassuming child whose place is made among the lowly. You can hold His delicate porcelain figure in your hands, but you cannot injure His sovereign and majestic grace. This is the Son of the living God — the rightful King over all creation, the Lord of armies Himself, the vanquisher of Satan’s oppression. In the lowly advent of Jesus Christ, the God of highest glory has visited us, and all His eternal power and authority are juxtaposed here against His timely humility. The snapshot of Christ’s nativity is ripe with strange and complex glory.
Isaiah 9:2–7 is one of my favorite biblical passages to read during the Christmas season. But I confess that I rarely give enough attention to its middle:
For you have shattered their oppressive yoke and the rod on their shoulders, the staff of their oppressor, just as you did on the day of Midian. For every trampling boot of battle and the bloodied garments of war will be burned as fuel for the fire. For a child will be born for us … (Isaiah 9:4–6).
Gideon led the army of the Lord in unprecedented victory over Midian, but in the most unconventional way: 10,000 brave soldiers were too many, so the Lord reduced His men to 300. They surrounded the camp, revealed their lights, shouted their message, and advanced with confidence. Charles Simeon masterfully drew the transgenerational application: “Precisely thus does the Christian triumph over his enemies: unable to accomplish anything by his own arm, he, by the mere light and sound of the gospel, vanquishes his foes … . Behold a man who was lately enslaved by the world, the flesh, and the devil; see him at once throw off the yoke, behold him trampling on the world, crucifying the flesh, and bruising Satan under his feet!”
In Christ, I am that warrior. In Christ, you are that warrior. Not one of 10,000 who approach the enemy with a strong arm, but one of the few who hold high the light of Christ and proclaim the message of the gospel, advancing upon the very gates of hell with hearts and tongues aflame.
And along the path of our victory in Christ, every instrument of war that has come against us is put to the torch.
For unto us a child is born. Be reminded — be encouraged — this Christmas season, that in Jesus Christ the God of glory shatters every porcelain perception and wins every battle. Look to the nativity of Christ and see the King of the universe, strong in battle and mighty to save. Then throw off the restraints, lift the torch, proclaim the message, and live in victory over sin, death, and hell.