The rescuer has come: a take on Christmas and the message of Christ

    Rich Mullins once said that, "God is a wild man."  God is totally at home in the wilds of the earth, the deeps, the roughest mountains, the coldest winters, and raging seas.  He loves these places and called them good.  His love is wilder and more romantic than all the books and stories ever written or told.  His desire for friendship and fellowship with us is more genuine than the most naive and innocent young person, yet more grounded in the truth of who we are than the most worldly-wise street punk we can imagine. 
     Some of us are bewildered that Jesus was born in a stable, and his parents not given better accommodations.  Jesus was completely at home, in fact, if it had been wilder or more remote he would not have fretted an ounce.  His parents might have.  So in His grace He didn't make it too hard on them.  I wonder if years later when He was told of where He was born He didn't chuckle and say something like, "Just like my Father to do that." 
     I wonder if our silly focus on the stable or the animals around Him as being beneath His dignity, or as something that was so horrible, etc, is because we really continue to not see the reality of what He was coming to do.  The wildness of the whole story is beyond comprehension.  Before creating the universe, or as the Bible says, "Before the beginning of time," the triune God knew what He was planning, and the rescue of humanity was part and parcel of it.  The reality of a heinous and hateful villain terrorizing His creation and Kingdom was a part of this story He wrote.  Real pain and death and tragedy were not left out.  And most amazingly, He Himself became one of us, and the central person of the whole story of history.  And His dying for us and rising again were and are the pinnacle of this amazing history.  And He has sent His people to deliver this story to the ends of the earth, and often to suffer and die for their part in the story.  Stables and a few cows don't seem so wild anymore, eh?  God would lower Himself to become a man??  To then willingly DIE????  To be killed on a cross after being beaten, and mocked, between two thieves??? 
     Oh yes, God is a wild man, He is the wildest and most romantic rescuer that there will ever be, and He is the greatest thwarter of the most vile and evil villain.  And He is the most noble and gallant and trustworthy King.  Oh, THIS is Christmas.  This is the good news of God.
     My friends, let Him rescue us, and give to the Son of God the reward of His suffering: us.  He came for me.  He came for you.  He came for all of us.  He loves us.  He wants us to be with Him forever.