The Event Beyond All Other Events

“For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” (John 6:38 NKJV)

On Christmas Eve, 1968, three astronauts became the first humans to view the Earth from space. Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and William Anders, the crew of Apollo 8, spent the night before Christmas orbiting the moon and broadcasting all the glorious images they were witnessing for the first time. In one of the most-watched television events in history, the space travelers read the creation story from Genesis, chapter one, ending with the famous line, “Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.” America’s top newsman Walter Cronkite later said, “It was an event beyond all other events.” 

Man’s travel from Earth to space was certainly a monumental event in history, but it doesn’t compare to the moment in time when God traveled from heaven to Earth to be born as a baby. On that holy night of Incarnation, the divine Son of God put on flesh and blood, becoming fully human. Words can’t possibly communicate the tremendous sacrifice Jesus made to become Emmanuel, God with us. We’ll never fully comprehend the mystery of His transformation from God to man. Oh, what a Savior! 

Seven hundred years before the birth of Jesus, the prophet Micah prophesied where the Messiah would be born: “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to Me the One to be Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting.” (Micah 5:2)

Jesus came to Earth to show us what God is like. But why did His story begin in Bethlehem? His GPS location when He came to Earth revealed something about the character of God. Jesus didn’t come riding on the clouds on a white horse surrounded by myriads of angels, nor did He come to be king over the most powerful empire in the world, and to sit on a golden throne in a grand palace. No, He came to a stable in the tiny town of Bethlehem as a powerless, needy baby—what humility! He came to bring justice to the oppressed and to set the captives free. 

Before Christ, men and women religiously obeyed God’s law, more out of fear than out of love. “Jehovah” was a distant God to be worshipped through rituals, not like the God that Adam and Eve once walked and talked with in the cool of the day. But on that holy night in Bethlehem, God sent His indescribable gift, His only Son. Because Jesus came to Earth, we no longer have to wonder what God is really like. He became one of us, faced the same temptations, and lived a sinless life. What an example for us! And such great expectations He has for us! He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)

This Christmas, let’s ask God to help us be more like Him—to be humble lovers of mercy and doers of justice. And let’s thank Jesus for His sacrifice of leaving the glories and riches of heaven to come to Earth. His magnificent incarnation will forever be the event that’s far beyond all other events!

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Scripture is quoted from the New King James Version^®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.