Introducing 'When God became man' to the blog

Linda and I put together a devotional booklet seven years ago for the households in our church family titled “When God became man: A 31-day celebration of the Christmas event.” I plan to blog those 31 devotions in December with likely only slight, if any, alterations. Feel free to use them individually or as a family during the month. A new alternative for use during Advent is a devotional guide produced by The Village Church, a Dallas church pastored by Matt Chandler. You may access it online here.

Here is a condensed version of the introduction to “When God became man:”

Christmas has produced a variety of responses from followers of Christ. Most celebrate the occasion, while some refuse to do so. In our culture, the observance is largely inescapable. Given society’s often misguided absorption with Christmas, is there a biblical way to approach the event? Yes, it appears there is, and it would seem to be by looking at the big picture.

The birth of Christ clearly is not an end in itself. It is a part, an integral part, of God’s redemptive work. To say it another way, there is no crucifixion and no resurrection without the incarnation. That word, incarnation, speaks of an appearance in human form. As we use it in the Christian sense, it is at the heart of our faith: God became a man. Think about that. It is a mind-boggling consideration. A man lived who actually was God. He was totally man while still being totally God.

In his book Knowing God, J.I. Packer wrote some classic words about the incarnation:

It is here, in the thing that happened at the first Christmas, that the profoundest and most unfathomable depths of the Christian revelation lie. “The Word was made flesh” (John 1:14); God became man; the divine Son became a Jew; the Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, unable to do more than lie and stare and wriggle and make noises, needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child. And there was no illusion or deception in this: the babyhood of the Son of God was a reality. The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets. Nothing in fiction is so fantastic as is this truth of the incarnation.

We believe Christians can observe the birth of Jesus in a way that is faithful to the biblical account of God’s redemptive work and is glorifying to our Sovereign Lord. The devotions that follow in December are posted to help celebrate the glorious act of God becoming a man to purchase our salvation. Each includes a brief Scripture passage, comments on these verses and a suggested song to sing on that date. These brief, daily messages may be only a starting point for the contemplation of the incarnation by you and your family.

May we join with the apostle Paul in saying as he did in II Cor. 9:15, “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!”