The Christmas season is upon us. I’m annually reluctant to get into the Christmas Spirit; however, I wouldn’t consider myself a scrooge. God has a way of guiding my mindset into the significance of Christ’s birth in His own time. The tipping point usually involves a different catalyst each year. In years past, sermons, devotions, concerts, songs, and conversations have all served to bring advent into my own personal reality.
Often, that catalyst takes the form of Andrew Peterson’s Behold the Lamb of God record. One song in particular has a way of ironically bringing the glory of Christmas into focus through the lowliness of Christ. Jill Phillips is the talented vocalist and the first line of the song is the tipping point: “It was not a silent night.” Those words reverberate in my soul. Obviously, this is an immediate contrast with the traditional Christmas carol that is likely coming to the forefront of your mind as well, which merits further consideration.
Was the night of Christ’s birth a silent night? There is no biblical indication that the world paused as Christ was born. Given the passages that specify a disregard for Christ, I find it more likely that He arrived on a typical night. There were hurried travelers, weary miles, and idolatrous men. The clamor of the street and livestock could undoubtedly be heard. However, the first coming of Christ was never meant to produce a global silence. It was meant to put in motion the means of redemption that God planned from eternity and that baffles mankind to this day.
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Christ was born into obscurity through humility. Therefore, He is forever exalted and confessed as Lord, to the glory of the Father. The night of His birth was a typical night with an eternally atypical impact. Amidst the gatherings, shopping, and festivities of this season perhaps the ordinariness of Christ’s birth will be your advent tipping point as well.