Saturday, November 30

 

PREFACE

 

As the season of Advent begins December 1st, you will receive daily devotionals written by members of the Palm Beach Atlantic University family. Dr. Brittany N. Melton, editor of this digital Advent Guide, introduces the theme today.

 

“Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.” (Luke 1:29, NIV)

 

We often wonder at the magnificent, the unlikely, and even the ridiculous.

 

Think of the sense of magnificence and majesty you feel at the foot of a great mountain, the puzzlement and intrigue at the unlikelihood of “the miracle of life” and even the marvel and curiosity of a circus, with its ridiculous cast of interesting characters.

 

The fact that God sent his Son into the world as a baby is reason to wonder in all of these respects. Mary marveled at the magnificence (Luke 1:46-55); Zechariah was dumbstruck at the unlikelihood that he and Elizabeth would give birth to a child in their old age who would announce the coming of the Lord (Luke 1:8); and Mary was perplexed by the ridiculous, the seemingly “impossible” (Luke 1:37, ESV); indeed, “How will this be?” (Luke 1:34, ESV).

 

The whole cast of characters in Luke 1 is filled with wonder about what is about to happen, at these strange things God is doing among them. Even “the neighbors were all filled with awe, and throughout the hill country of Judea people were talking about all these things. Everyone who heard this wondered about it, asking, ‘What then is this child going to be?’ For the Lord’s hand was with him” (speaking of John the Baptist in Luke 1:65-66, NIV). They see clearly that God is working, but they don’t understand his strange methods.

 

It is magnificent that God would take on human flesh and enter into everyday life with humanity. It is unlikely that in Jesus we would find all the expectations of the Messiah satisfied, exceeded. And it is also ridiculous, according to our values of efficiency and hierarchical structures, that God would entrust his Son in the form of a helpless babe to a young girl and lower himself to be born in a mere stable. What kind of plan is this? What kind of Savior? One we should wonder at, one we should be in awe of, because the ways of God, in his infinite wisdom and grace, are so much higher than ours, so far beyond what we could grasp or imagine. I am struck with wonder every time I hear the bridge of the Hillsong worship song “Seasons,” which speaks of how God could have saved us in a second, but instead He sent a child.

My prayer is that this season you would stop to be struck with wonder at the birth of Christ, because that is the wellspring of our worship this and every Christmas.

 

Dr. Brittany N. Melton
Assistant Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies
Advent Guide Editor