From the Throne to the Manger

12/10/23 – 12/18/23

A Seeming Contradiction

By Michael Youssef, Ph D.  12/11/23

Christmas teaches us the paradoxical nature of the Christian faith. By accepting what we cannot fully comprehend, we declare that God is God and we are not.

Read 2 Corinthians 4:8-12.

As believers, we are given over to death so that Jesus’ perfect life might be revealed in our mortal bodies (see vv. 10-11). This seeming contradiction, or paradox, is just one we embrace to live in Christ.

Christianity is unlike any other religion because it is full of paradoxes like this, and each one takes faith to believe. To be a Christian in our scientific world, we must submit to the beautiful reality that God’s ways are above our own.

The Christian faith teaches us that we can see the unseen; that we conquer by yielding; that we find rest under a yoke; that we become great by humbling ourselves; that we are wise by being fools; that we are free by becoming servants; that we possess all things by having nothing; that we get by giving; that we are strong by being weak; that we triumph through surrender; that we fully live by dying to self.

God is God, and His ways are not our ways (see Isaiah 55:8-9). Each year, we celebrate this at Christmas. For what greater paradox could there be than the eternally divine taking on finite humanity? There is nothing more incomprehensible than the Creator taking on created form. The glorious, surprising, upside-down nature of the Kingdom of God is best expressed by a baby in a manger.

Prayer: Father, Your ways are not my ways, and I rejoice in that. Your ways are perfectly loving, all-wise, supremely just, and infinitely beautiful. Thank You for the wonderful, surprising gift of salvation—the gift of Yourself. I pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

“For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body” (2 Corinthians 4:11).