MORE THAN JUST A GOOD TEACHER

God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When he made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much better than the angels, as He has inherited a more excellent name than they.
(Hebrews 1: 1-4)

Anyone who has tried to live as a Christian has encountered those who resist the entirety of what being a Christian is all about. They resist the whole "God became man" part of it, for whatever reason. When the Resisters don't dismiss the whole of the faith (meaning even the principles involved), they downplay the full significance of Jesus by saying "Well, he was a good moral teacher, like Buddha or Gandhi."

But the writer of Hebrews reminds us that "just a good moral teacher" is not the full truth of Jesus. The Christ is far, far more than a mere good man. The Promised Shepherd, the one who would watch over us and guide us and protect us, is the Son of the Most High. Everything was made through him. Christ is the radiance of the Lord, and in the life of Jesus we see the "exact representation" of the Father's nature. There's something much bigger going on than "just a good man."

Why is there this impulse to diminish the nature of Christ?

I think we sometimes get uncomfortable with the idea of God being so interested in us that He chose to come among us. The idea that the "radiance of the Lord" did come, and even regularly comes, into our presence, that He walked among us, it's unsettling. It means that there are things outside our control, big things, powerful things. We accept that there are events outside our reach, but we're not so keen on thinking about something that is both within our reach but so vast that we cannot hold it.

When people visit the redwood forests in California, they like to take pictures of themselves beside the biggest tree they can find. Here is this living thing, that is so very huge it utterly dwarfs us. And yet it is alive. It is a wonder and marvel to us. We touch it. We spread our arms across its surface, to show how impossible it would be for one person to hug the entirety of its circumfrence. But that tree stays put in its forest. It isn't going to pull up its roots and follow us home and come into our residences. It isn't going to walk beside us in our daily activities. We're not going to have to accommodate that massive redwood tree on the road while we're driving, or when we're talking with our non-believing friends. We don't have to think about it as we go about our daily tasks. We saw it in the forest, we were awed and impressed, and then we came home.

But Christ is so much more than a redwood tree. He brings the vastness and majesty of the presence of God, the brilliance of God's radiance, the glittering pomp of that which is greater than all the angels of creation, and He comes among us - with all of that. Of course it is discomforting, disconcerting.

But that is the wonder of Christmas. This glory, this majesty, is coming to be with us, to dwell with us. And He is choosing to do it in the sweetest, smallest way possible, by arriving as a little baby.

In the last few weeks, some of my online friends have had babies. One couple had twins, slightly premature, so the boys were small. In the wonders of technology, he posted pictures of the newborns. I again marveled at the amazing nature of the human construction. Here were tiny, tiny hands, where the palm of one child was barely the size of the thumb of his father's hand. Looking at the pictures of the newborns, I am very conscious of how vulnerable these precious little ones are, how delicate and fragile.

The wonder of Christmas is that the majesty of Heaven, the Creator of the Universe, the holder of all power and glory became an infant.