Identifying with the Christmas Prophecy

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting   Father,   Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:6

Imagine having a child with these kinds of expectations for their life. Imagine the thought of generations to come referring to your child as the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father and Prince of Peace. As a parent, perhaps you would be overwhelmed with the pressure and expectations that encompass your newborn child. Perhaps you would be afraid to make a mistake as you reared your child from an infant to an adult.

Yet for centuries the Jews waited for this prophecy to be fulfilled thru the birth of Jesus. Mary's newborn would be the reality of this highly anticipated event. Interestingly, Jesus wasn't born with the kind of fanfare you would expect for someone who had such lofty expectations on his little shoulders. 

• He would be born away from the comforts of home 

• He would lack the accommodations fit for a king since a cave was all that was available 

• He would be birthed in a manger where animals fed.

Why would God allow this to happen?

Why wasn't Jesus allowed to be born to more privileged parents or within the confines of a gated community? Why couldn't Jesus be born in the most prestigious ancient medical facility that money could buy? To push the envelope  little further, why did Jesus have to be born like a human infant anyway, one who would experience crying, teething, having his diapers changed, and ultimately be dependent on his mother for human survival? Truth be told, this seems like a terrible atmosphere for the chosen one of the world.

Biblically, we are told it had to do with identification. Life is hard sometimes and God did not want us to have a Savior that could not identify with the struggles of the poor or life just in general. He had to be, for a lack of a better term, like us! Such an unceremonious birth would provide hope to anyone not raised in the best environment that external circumstances may be tough, but they do not have to determine your future. On the contrary, the life of Jesus reveals that you can overcome anything with God on your side. In Romans 6:5-6, we are told that Jesus even died, so that we could even identify and be united in his death. He can identify with us, and he wants us to identify with him and rise to the heights that God can bring us.  

In the end, God has always wanted us to be able to identify with Jesus. He always wanted us to be able to talk to someone who can relate to the joys and the pain life can bring. On occasion, people have the tendency to refer to God as distant and uninvolved in life. This of course, is not the case concerning Jesus, the Wonderful Counselor, the Prince of Peace, the Everlasting Father, and the Mighty God. No, our Savior is not distant; He is one of us.

And we are thankful.

This Christmas season, let us follow this example of Jesus. Let us do our best to listen and to identify with others, even if they are very different than us. Remember, in the end, Jesus came into the world for them as well. He came for the affluent, the middle class, and those who were raised with nothing. He identifies with us, so let us strive to identify with him!