As we draw near to Advent, it’s an appropriate time for a reminder of Jesus role as our Lord, King, and High Priest. We’re approaching the time when we will celebrate His birth as man in our world, but we need to stay focused on specifically why this is such a cause for celebration. He was born into this world and took on our humble form to allow him to fulfill his role in its entirety, there was no other way for Him to do this than to be born fully man and fully God. What is more, His role continues now, and will continue until on the last day He will come again in His glory to be our judge, He is truly the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning, and the end of all.
I think it is sometimes difficult for us to grasp and keep in mind Jesus roles in their entirety when we ponder Him during this season, because we are so focused on His birth and coming into our world as a precious infant. Yet, even as an infant, His purpose had been foretold, and was ancient in its origins because it had always been Gods plan to redeem us since the time of Adam. Remember for our Lord, past, present, and future are all one, and so really the awareness of this need, and plan goes back even beyond that for God, because He has always known. God’s essence certainly has not changed either, He has always been a triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus has always existed as the Son, even though we only perceived Him as God and Man beginning on that night in Bethlehem two thousand years ago.
He came to us in our lowly form for the express purpose of our salvation. He taught us and walked among us to give us a new way of understanding Gods wishes for us, and His laws that we had been viewing through the eyes of an infant people for so long without a clearer understanding of what His intent for us truly was. Why, you might ask? Simply because we were not ready yet, and our Lord who knows us better than we know ourselves was fully aware of this. Yet at the appointed time in His plan, our Lord brought His Son among us to save us through both what He taught us, and through His sacrifice for our sake as the willing and perfect sacrificial offering to allow us to be redeemed before God and have hope of life with Him in eternity. That small child king born to us in that manger in Bethlehem was to do all this, and that is just the beginning.
That same small child is our Lord today, and we look to Him for our guidance and salvation. We pray to Him with our needs, and we who believe try to obey His commands and his truth so that we might be found acceptable to Him on that last day that will eventually come. This is when He will appear again in His glory, as Judge and King, for His kingdom will come to full realization on that day when what is beyond this world as we know it will be revealed. All this from that lowly human birth and life among us, as one of us, yet rooted in forever as our God – this is the Jesus whose birth we will celebrate, and who we are now preparing for in this coming season of Advent. We look upon a child in a manger with His mother Mary, and his earthly father Joseph watching over Him, but we need to look with eyes also knowing that He has, is, and will always, be looking upon us to guide us to Him as our God.
Podcast Link
The Deacons Bench 