For we do not have a
high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one
who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.
- Hebrews 4:15
It’s
been a rough week in the Camp household—Andrew decided to ring in his second
birthday with a nasty case of Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV). Our normally
happy-go-lucky toddler was reduced to a pitiful shell of himself, content only
when being held by me or Lindsey. We in turn found ourselves exhausted trying
to take good care of him without neglecting our other responsibilities.
As
the week went on, something kept coming to my mind whenever I’d dry a tear or
draw up another dosage of Motrin, something I’d never really considered in
quite these terms: Jesus got sick too. As
an infant in Bethlehem, the King of Kings spat up when he ate too quickly,
squalled when he filled his diaper, and snuggled close to his mother’s breast
when he had a fever. As a toddler in Egypt, the Lord of Lords sobbed and
flailed when he didn’t feel good, wanting to be held one moment and then
feeling smothered the next. Even as an adolescent and a man, making his way
from Nazareth to Galilee and ultimately to Jerusalem, there were undoubtedly
mornings when the Son of God woke up with sniffles and coughs and headaches.
I
know this to be true because Jesus was not only fully divine, but fully human;
he was not only the Son of God, but the son of Mary. Every year at this time we
celebrate this miracle called the Incarnation—the Word becoming flesh and
living among us, the Son of God emptying himself by taking the form of a slave
and being born in human likeness. But I wonder if we fail to recognize all the earthy
implications of Jesus’s humanity.
In
our rightful desire to exalt Jesus as Lord, we imagine him as a teacher who
always had the right answer ready, a worker who never grew weary with his task,
and a leader who was always in control. Real life, human life, isn’t that easy.
Being human means dealing with aches and pains, it means battling fatigue and
depression, it means having to deal with people who can’t or won’t understand
what you’re trying to tell them. Human life is a never-ending series of both
triumphs and trials, flashes of transcendence accompanied by long spells of
temptation.
The
amazing blessing of the Incarnation is we know Christ experienced all of that.
He was not born impervious to the struggles we face; no angels protected him
from scraped knees or hurt feelings. The physical, emotional, social, and
spiritual tests we face every day are all familiar to him, because he faced
them too.
What
set Christ apart is that, facing the same challenges which send us stumbling
into sin, he stayed true to the Father, obedient even in the face of anguish,
humiliation, and death. And so today if you will place your faith in him,
repenting of your weakness and trusting in his strength, by the grace of God
you can inherit his reward: resurrection.
Life
is hard—but Christmas reminds us that Christ knows that as well as we do. He
didn’t study hardship from a distance, he experienced it firsthand. Jesus got
sick so that we could be made well. Jesus wept so that we could rejoice. Jesus
died so that we could live. So as you celebrate the truth that on a Bethlehem
night the Word became flesh and lived among us, may it be more than just
doctrine to you—may it give you strength for today and hope for tomorrow.
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