Pastor Chuck’s 2014 Christmas Countdown Blog #10 – I love that God chose common, ordinary people to be the “stars” of the story! Think about it – a poor peasant girl becomes the mother of Jesus – a common carpenter serves as his father – the birth of the Son of God was announced to lowly shepherds and the entire birth event took place in the back a barn surrounded by cattle. And why? Why weren’t the “high and mighty” chosen to play a part? Why didn’t God choose royal parents or have the baby’s birth announced to the rich and powerful of the day? The answer is clear – because God’s view of greatness is very different from the world’s view of greatness. The truth is that all throughout history God chooses and God uses regular, everyday people to do his greatest work. Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don’t see many of “the brightest and the best” among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these “nobodies” to expose the hollow pretensions of the “somebodies”? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That’s why we have the saying, “If you’re going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God.” (1 Corinthians 1:26-31 – Msg)
And so it makes perfect sense – at least from God’s perspective – to send his Son into the world not by way of the palace but by way of the manger. And by doing so, he includes a place for all of us “ordinarys” in the story. And I like that!