"The Glory of the Unlikely"

(From 1987, pre-Orange Moon days)

      In the birth of His only begotten Son, the Lord revealed to us that He is the God of the unlikely.

    "He hath no form nor comeliness, and when we shall see Him, He hath no beauty that we should desire Him" (Isaiah 53:2).

    How unlikely that the King of the universe should be born in a feeding trough usually reserved for animals.  How unlikely that the nation which so long awaited her Messiah should miss the fulfillment of her dreams and reject her only salvation.  How unlikely that this Messiah should live the majority of His life in obscurity without the pomp and circumstance befitting royalty, and without the obvious appeal we might expect.  Most of all, how unlikely that such a One should die in shame and degradation, apparently discarded upon the dustbin of history as just another well-intentioned zealot without the means to accomplish His desired end.

    This is the glory of Christmas, the glory that fills the present as well as the past.  How unlikely that the humiliated is now the Glorified, and the possessor of that Name at which every knee will one day bow.  How unlikely that the Satan who instigated His seeming destruction served as the unwitting agent of the One who "worketh all things after the counsel of His own will" (Ephesians 1:11).  How unlikely that tragedy should lead to triumph in the purposes of the One in whom all wisdom resides.  Perhaps most of all, how unlikely that God in His wisdom should determine to fill the seemingly marred, broken, and useless vessels we appear to be for the purposes of enabling us to "walk, even as He walked" (I John 2:6).  How unlikely and how wonderful that His strength is made perfect in weakness so that He alone may be glorified as He leads us in His presence and faithfulness.

    He is the God of the unlikely, the God who requires mangers in which to birth His beloved Son rather than the pristine palaces we might anticipate.  Let us therefore expect to find the Lord Jesus Christ in the unlikely venues of our lives, those circumstances, situations, and people where we least expect Him to be.  Our Lord often reveals the glory of His presence in direct proportion to the appearance of His absence, and let us rejoice that through faith in the Christ of Christmas, we have found our King in the most unlikely place of all…

"It pleased God... to reveal His Son in me."

(Galatians 1:15; 16)

"Ye are the temple of the living God."

(II Corinthians 6:16)

Weekly Memory Verse

    I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for Thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety.

(Psalm 4:8)