Advent Devotional - December 5, 2016

“The King of kings lay thus in lowly manger / In all our trials born to be our friend”

-O Holy Night

Jesus is the Lord. From everlasting to everlasting, he is God. As the Son, he is sovereign, utterly independent, and limitless. He was begotten, not made. He is the uncreated Creator and we are his creation. He came down from heaven for our salvation. All of God’s intentions to glorify his name by creating humans and saving them is centered on him. From the very beginning, Jesus has been the one. His kingdom will never end. He is King of kings.

Altogether, he is different - until he lay thus in lowly manger. When the fullness of time had come he was born of woman, born under the law. He became a great high priest who can sympathize with our weaknesses, a friend in our trials, and our victorious Savior. He became a human like us. He breathed the same air; his feet touched the same ground.

Jesus experienced everything we do. He was tempted like us in every way. In every way that sin has crouched at our door, in every way that iniquity has gestured a bad promise, he knows. He experienced it. He was there — yet he never sinned. He knows our need; our weakness is no stranger. And this is how he died for us. The wrath he suffered in our place was for sins he resisted in perfect faithfulness. He suffered the Father’s fury for transgressions that were not his own. Of all the ways he is different from us, it’s in his becoming like us that his love was shown.

The Jesus who is supremely glorious is the Jesus who became like us to die in our place. Let us fall on our knees in worship and behold our King!