He is for all mankind

   

I am at work, working at the place where I can bring things to do since there isn't anything to do. I just finished watching the Nativity Story, and wow.......once in a while, Hollywood gets it right. I'm not saying the movie is perfect, and some would have issues with the wise men being at the manger, but it comes close to being just right.

  I've watched it a few times before, but watched it with new eyes this time, and found it more thrilling than the other times I watched it. I found myself with tears in my eyes more than once. Yes, guys can cry, Jesus did. :-)

  I can't put into words everything that came to mind as I watched it, but here are a few thoughts. For the sake of better flow of words, I will not point out at every mention of a character that it was an actor playing a part...... I get that it was.

 
  Mary: I don't think we really get what it was like for her. Today, it is nothing for girls to be pregnant out of wedlock. Back then, it was a big deal, especially if they were engaged to be married and got pregnant by another man. She would have been an outcast, and could have been stoned. Her family and friends would have looked down on her and shunned her.

  In the movie, Mary goes to visit Elizabeth for several months and comes back obviously pregnant, shocking her family, friends, and Joseph. I'm not sure if that is how it happened, but regardless, everyone was shocked and disappointed in her.

  Joseph: Imagine the shock and disappointment he experienced. This young girl he was marrying, who he thought was so good and pure, pregnant. And the baby isn't his. The baby is God? Yeah right.

 After God spoke to him through a dream, he doesn't question her again but goes through with the plan of marrying her. A few other times God speaks to him in a dream, and he leaps to action each time.

  The Bible doesn't say much about him, or if he ever had any other doubts. Being human, he surely did. In the movie, he wonders aloud to Mary, "will I even be able to teach Him anything?" He surely still had doubts and fears.


The shepherds: the first people who were told of Jesus' birth were lowly, smelly shepherds. It had to have scared the daylights out of them when a bunch of angels appeared to them, but they immediately set out to see this baby the angels told them about.

Jesus: There is no way we can truly get what it meant for God to become a baby and come here. A vulnerable, helpless baby. There has been a lot of debate about when Jesus knew who He was, and no one knows. He most likely was just like any other baby. A baby who cried, who needed His diaper changed, who wanted held and rocked.

  A book I was reading said it was like God becoming a slug. That is how low He made Himself for us.


  One of the moments in the movie that got me the most, was when the shepherds arrived at the stable. One old shepherd reached out his shaking hand to touch the baby, then stopped. Mary smiled and said "He is for all mankind", and he reached out his trembling hand again and laid it on the baby.

  Maybe that is why this movie meant so much this year. I've spent my life trying to believe that. That He is for all mankind, including me. I have finally come to believe that I am no exception. That He came for me too, just as much as He did for anyone else who has ever or will ever live.

Ordinary BabyHe was just an ordinary baby;
That’s the way He planned it, maybe;
Anything but common would have kept Him apart
From the children that He came to rescue,
Limited to some elite few,
When He was the only child who asked to be born,
And He came to us with eyes wide open,
Knowing we’re hurt and broken,
Choosing to partake of all our joy and pain.

He was just an ordinary baby;
That’s the way He planned it, maybe,
So that we would come to Him
And not be afraid.

He was ordinary with exception of miraculous conception—
Both His birth and death He planned from the start;
But between His entrance and exit was a life that has affected
Everyone who’s walked the earth to this very day.
With no airs of condescension
He became God’s pure extension,
Giving you and me the chance to be remade.

He was just an ordinary baby;
That’s the way He planned it, maybe,
So that we would come to Him
And not be afraid.


  I like the song, but the one line really stuck out to me today "Anything but common would have kept Him apart From the children that He came to rescue, Limited to some elite few," Had He come as they expected, the common folk would have been shoved aside as the high society folks went to see Him, but He came as an ordinary baby to poor people in a poor town. Ordinary.


Bethlehem: God picked this lowly town for His Son, the Savior of the world, to be born. What an honor, but also what a price. The town had every male child two years and under killed.

  Jesus will come into our lives, just as He came to be born in Bethlehem, but just like Bethlehem, His coming will cost us something. Serving Him always does.

  He did indeed come for all of mankind. All of mankind. The thief, the murderer, the child molester, the politician, kings, presidents, kind people, mean people.... all mankind. No exceptions. Not even little old me.

The gulf that separated me from Christ my Lord
It was so vast, the crossing I could never ford
From where I was to His demands it seemed so far
I cried, "Dear Lord, I cannot come to where you are."

He came to me; He came to me
When I could not come to where He was
He came to me
That's why He died on Calvary
When I could not come to where He was
He came to me.

He came to me
When I was bound in chains of my sin
Oh He came to me when I possessed no hope within
He picked me up and drew me gently to His side
Where today in His sweet love I now abide.

He came to me; He came to me
When I could not come to where He was
He came to me
That's why He died on Calvary
When I could not come to where He was
He came to me.

Merry Christmas