Cross-centered Christmas?

Taking a look at a cross-centered Christmas
-(Key text:Phil 2:8)
 This time of the year brings back many memories for most of us.  It is a time of great smiling, hugging, gift giving and receiving, a time for laughing and seeing the family, being reunited with our loved ones and the ones who cared to bring us up but perhaps the true meaning of this time has been lost…. Deep breath, shocker…. right? Ok, maybe not, almost everybody would agree on this statement, everybody has realized that the gifts and other traditions do not define the holiday, most would even point to Christ and say that he is the reason for the season, they are correct in saying this but on repeated occasion they lack respect for the statement in its definition.  That definition, in short, being that a very real, infinite, holy God came to Earth in the form of a man.
 So then, let us dive deep into the reason for the season in order that we might get off of our self-consumed gift-wanting natures and bow in reverence to our maker (we return to the meaning of Christmas a little later so bear with me for a just a bit).
 Where to begin…. Allow me to make this statement, to understand the realness of our earlier definition, we must first magnify our maker.  So let us zoom in on deity.  To do this successfully, perhaps we should look at our rather small view of God and realize our idolatry.  We, in our sin, are quick to say “God is mighty, God is infinite” and never even stop to think of the depth of these things, we have gotten God so bottled up in the little reserved in our minds, carefully hidden away with our Sunday morning smiles.  This is sin, when we make out this picture in our heads of God we give the infinite God finite limits thereby creating an idol and we worship our little God’s until our heads fall off, all the more worshipping an idol and this is our (please note as I say our) condition.  We are all guilty of this.  So for just a moment let’s open up the eyes of our heart and gaze upon the Lord without pre-defining His limits.  Now let us magnify our maker.  God…. Okay allow me to say this way, GOD…. Getting a picture yet?  The very thought should drive us to our knees.  Afterall, we are talking about the same God who carefully weighed the mountains on scales, who measured out the heavens with his hand, who girded and framed the mountains with upmost perfection, who calms the seas and the roaring of the ways, who. In merely breathing causes massive, heavenly, majestic entities to flow forth (we have come to know these things as stars), the one who very by causes real to be real (Isaiah 40, Psalm 65, Psalm 36, also see Psalm 8 and Job 39; these chapters are money by the way!!!!).  Is it coming to you yet that our God is big.  Getting it yet?  Closer then, okay…. Let zoom a little further, this is the God who merely spoke and it was, it wasn’t like he took tools and whatnot to make the Earth; nope, not at all, he didn’t use tools, he could have I guess but God has some style, some moxy if you will, He chose to build our world by the simple words of His mouth.  It is almost as if God was hanging out with Christ one day, well maybe not day per say, because I don’t think those were created yet, well anyway where was I…. Oh so God and Christ were chilling and then God turns to Christ and laughingly shrugs “Hey Son, check this out ‘Let there be light’” [and it was so], then Jesus turns back to the Father and excitingly says, “oooooohhh yeah, that’ll definitely make those little humans feel tiny, all you did was say light and now it is so, nice.”  Getting it yet?  Even closer.  Okay lets get a little more serious.  This is the God who turned to the seas and shouted, “Shut-up!!!!” and they shut-up (Matt. 8).  Getting it yet?  Oh wait, I forgot to mention that getting it isn’t really possible and that this was just a glimpse of a majestic God, that grasping it is because of our finite minds is inconceivable. 
 Okay, so we now have an extremely small yet larger view of a very BIG God.  So keeping this picture in the front of minds, allow me to pose yet another brief statement.  This is a big one; The fullness of God came in the form of a helpless baby.  Did your world get rocked yet?  Mine has most definitely been quaked over and over by that statement.  Think about it again, God, the same God who did all those things we just defined, the same God is large beyond comprehension, was condensed into the form of a defenseless babe.  That’s amazing.  Perhaps that is what Paul means in his letter to Philipi when he says, “and being found in human form, he humbled himself…”.   The greek for humbled here is the word tapeinoo which can also be translated as “humiliated”. Now that’s big.  Our God humbled himself and confined himself to human form (while being fully God).  Stop reading for a second, pause and gather these thoughts…  Okay is it becoming real to you yet?  The fullness of God humbled himself and even humiliated himself to become a mere helpless baby.  And now we ask why? What was the purpose of this?  Was there some sort of predefined plan or was it merely some crazy form of improv?  I can tell you that our God does not improve and he has a plan for all things.  Perhaps the best answer is found in the rest of our theme verse:
“And being found in human form, he humbled himself…. by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. “
(Php 2:8)
This one brings tears to my eyes.  This is not just the reason for the season but extends a little further than that, it is literally the single greatest fact in all of history.  Christ, the very real full, and infinite God, who is bigger than even the most imaginative man’s wildest dreams decided to humble himself to become a man, and a baby at that, but not merely to say He did it but rather with a cause.  That cause to continue this act of humility even to the point of the most brutal, painful, and tormented death in all of history.  And he did so without complaint and without so much as saying a word.  He could have wiped us out, he could have freed himself from that cross, but instead he had a plan, a plan to set his beloved people free despite their all our declaration of war against him.  This is the meaning of Christmas, the true meaning being that Jesus Christ humiliated himself to be slaughtered be the very wrath of God in order that we might have life and have it more abundantly.
I say these things not in order to say merry Christmas, but so that we, together, might bow before our Lord and say to our God, thank you, my heavenly Father, for paying sending your son in order that he might pay a horrifying price, Amen…