The three longest seconds of my life were the three seconds I waited to hear my baby cry. The hospital lights faded and the sounds muffled together in a long, slow stretch of time until I heard her first tearful wails—she’s alive!
Perhaps because it is so obvious, it is not often said, but all of us are born to live. From the silent moment of conception to our dramatic entry into the world, the purpose of being born is that we sleep and breathe and eat, love, ache, laugh and cry for as many days as we are given on earth. Our birth is the beginning of a journey that ends in death only by precondition. No one comes to die.
No one except Jesus.
We perhaps don’t think often enough about the gritty reality of the incarnation. When God became man, he had a real human birth—a birth made more painful and complicated by the curse. As we ponder his advent, we must not forget the context for his coming.
Born To Reign
When Jesus came into the world that he made, he was naked and helpless, unable to feed, clothe, or change himself. His little belly would have needed filling every few hours, so he would have cried through the night for his mother to feed him. Is it hard to imagine the king of all the earth in such a state? Are you astounded to think of the God of the universe in his human infancy?
Surely, Mary had moments in the ache and haze of postpartum—when nights are long and yet so, so short—when she looked at the face of her baby and remembered what the angel Gabriel said to her, that he “will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:32–33).
And if Gabriel’s words weren’t enough, at some point shortly after she gave birth to Jesus, they would have been visited by local shepherds who had an incredible story to tell them: Angels had appeared to them and said that this baby was Christ—the anointed one—the Lord!
So, too, the wisemen came from the East looking for “he who has been born king of the Jews” (Matt. 2:2). This baby, delivered into the world in the full humiliation that is a human birth, would one day rule it. Of his kingdom there will be no end.
We know that Mary believed this promise, and she “treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Luke 2:19).
Born To Save
But Christ didn’t just come to earth to rule it—he came to save it. Adam and Eve’s first sin had consequences—work would be arduous and sometimes fruitless, labor pains would increase and bringing children into this world would be agonizing, and now, every human given life would also one day lose it. Into this world, Christ came to heal, to mend, to bind up, and to redeem.
When they present Jesus at the temple, Mary and Joseph are approached by a man named Simeon, to whom God had revealed that he would see the Messiah before his death. Simeon recognizes Jesus as the fulfillment of God’s promise to him, saying:
my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.— Luke 2:30–32
This salvation is not meant only for the Jews, but for all peoples. As the prophet Isaiah said: “I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations” (Isa. 42:6). This is our salvation. As you and I are among the blind, walking in the darkness of sin and a cursed world, Christ’s coming is for us. The purpose of his birth was to save you and me.
We know that Mary believed this promise, too (cf Luke 1:46–55). We know that she and Joseph named our Lord Jesus because he would save the people from their sins (Matt. 1:21), but did she know what that saving would entail? Could they have imagined the public persecution, slander and rejection he would face, the gut-wrenching betrayal by one of his closest friends, or his gruesome death on a Roman cross?
Born To Die
When Simeon comes to Mary in the temple, he blesses her and tells her this child “is appointed for the rise and fall of many,” but he adds: “and a sword will pierce through your own soul also” (Luke 2:34–35). It’s hard to know exactly what he means here, but we do know that Mary will eventually stand at the foot of the cross and watch the son she gave birth to die a slow, excruciating death of public shame (John 19:25).
And when the angels come to the shepherds, they tell them that the birth of this baby is “good news of great joy that will be for all the people” (Luke 2:10). The incarnation of God is the most incredible news the world will ever know, but it’s only good news because, one day, this baby dies—one day, Christ hangs on a cross, bears the wrath of God, dies the death of a human in our place, and then rises to reign over us as our advocate before God the Father (1 John 2:1; Heb. 7:25).
This is what he came for. As Paul tells us: “God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Gal. 4:4–5). He was born to die so that we might live. He is the suffering servant, prophesied about by Isaiah: despised, rejected, and acquainted with grief; stricken, afflicted, and pierced for the sins which are ours; but by his wounds we receive peace and are healed (Isa. 53:3–5).
As Mary treasured these things in her heart, let us also ponder deeply the mystery of God becoming human, the profound mercy of his salvation, and the indescribable gift of his Son, who came to die.
But emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.— Philippians 2:7–11
