Glad Tidings
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” Luke 2:11-12 ESV
“Christ the Lord” is a name that needs some unpacking. The title of Christ is essentially the New Testament version of the Old Testament term “Messiah”. This Messiah was mankind’s Savior from sin that God had promised to Adam and Eve right after they first fell into sin. The entire world, particularly the people of Israel, had been eagerly waiting for thousands of years for this Messiah, or Christ, to arrive.
When the angel said that the Savior was also “the Lord”, this meant that the Messiah would be the Lord God Himself. God had promised the world a Savior that would be perfect and without sin, just as God Himself is perfect and without sin. That means no ordinary, sinful human being would be able to get the job done. The Son of God, Jesus, was the only person capable of taking away the sins of the world.
If someone said that God was coming to earth in a human body, most people would probably expect someone tall, muscular, and good-looking. He would make a grand, flashy entrance and be wearing incredibly nice clothes.
The real Messiah was almost exactly the opposite of that. The angel told the shepherds that the Savior of the entire world would be a baby. More than that, the baby would be lying in a feed trough for animals inside of a barn, wrapped in strips of cloth. “Christ the Lord” looked, by all appearances, like the most unimpressive person in the world.
But the point of Jesus wasn’t to be impressive, or popular, or flashy. The point of Jesus was to live the perfect life we never could, sacrifice Himself on the cross for us, and suffer the torment of hell in our place. Since Jesus humbled Himself for us to be our Savior, let us “confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Dear Jesus Christ, you are Lord, and we come to You on bended knee. Rule in us and rule for us so that we would not be taken captive by any other power. Amen.