GOD'S ULTIMATE PLAN

The innocence of a baby in a manger is overshadowed by the image of an innocent man hanging on a cross.  I love the song, “Mary Did You Know?”  But she knew.  Those people who had been faithful to God, waiting for Him to act on behalf of His people, they knew what the cost of their freedom would be.  They had read the prophecies and they knew.

Those who expected a warrior king to overthrow their oppressors were the ones in the crowd who hailed Jesus one day and then yelled crucify him the next.  Their vision was limited by their need to be free from oppression by the Romans; selfish motivation to be the victors in this world’s system.  But it is the world’s system that man crafted that was at odds with the world that God had created. 

His Son did not come to fix the world’s system made by man; He came to overcome it and destroy it.  He came to offer the Kingdom of God that was meant to rule and reign since the beginning of time.  The new wine of the new covenant can not be put into the old wineskin of the world system made by humans.  That system must die and be buried, not fixed. 

What had been created in the beginning was what was resurrected and is what will rule and reign for eternity.  Mary knew that; Joseph knew that; Zachariah and Elizabeth knew that; the wise men from the East knew that; Simeon and Anna knew that; John the Baptist knew that.

These folks were not fickle in their faith.  They held strong to their beliefs.  They knew and held the paradox of great joy in the cradle and great sorrow in the cross.  They knew God and God knew them and confided His ultimate plan with them, His plan from the beginning.  Time and tide would bring others as they received and believed and opened their hearts and minds to the teachings of Jesus and of the Holy Spirit; the same teaching they heard for years from the Prophets of long ago.

Today as it was then, it seems to be the ordinary, no one special people who know the brokenness of humanity first hand that are most able to see and hear God’s ultimate plan.  It is those who are poor in spirit not rich in self, who are humble in heart not haughty in head, who are merciful not mighty, who seek peace not power, and who seek God’s Presence not worldly position.  It is those ‘nobodies special’ that will make up the Kingdom of God, a Kingdom full of ‘special nobodies’ who are there to worship the God who came to earth as ‘nobody special’ and will come again as King of Kings and Lord of Lords…             

Maranatha & Merry Christmas!