Worshiping at the Side of the Christ Child
We should all think about the tremendous gift that Jesus Christ is to us every day of the year, right? While there are so many reasons to worship God, the birth of the Messiah has to be at or near the top of our lists. As Christians, we are taught about this as soon as we start attending Sunday School. As we mature, we delve deeper into the importance of Christ’s birth. We are taught that the prophet Isaiah heard from God that “The Lord Himself will give [us] a sign: the virgin will conceive, have a son, and name him Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14 HCSB). We also focus on the story of Christ’s birth in, for example, Luke 2:1–20. Not only did His birth fulfill the prophecy, not only did the heavenly host sing of God’s glory, but it also meant that humankind could once-and-for-all be reconciled to God through this tiny baby, the Messiah.
If, and when, we stop to think about what a monumental even that was, it should permeate our every thought, every day. Moreover, it should be the fuel that drives our desire to worship our Heavenly Father and our Savior with passion and depth. However, I must confess that I tend not to think about the birth of Christ until sometime after I have digested all of the food I consumed at Thanksgiving. I will venture a guess that I am not alone in my struggles.
So, what can we do? How can we use the Advent and the Celebration of Christmas to deepen our worship? How can that help shape us more into the image of Christ? I will attempt to answer these questions by relating my own personal, and recent, revelations.
First, our worship during the Advent can be deepened by realizing that the birth of Christ, the coming of the Messiah, is not just a “New Testament” event. I just completed my first seminary course, Old Testament I, taught by Dr. Gregory Smith. Although I have been a Christian since the age of nine and consider myself a fairly well educated man, I never fully contemplated that God had planned for this from the very beginning of creation. Dr. Smith pointed out that in Genesis 3:15, the use of “He” in this verse was quite possibly referring to Jesus. We also know from John 1:1–5 that Jesus, “the Word,” was with God in the beginning. What was most enlightening to me was how the history of the nation of Israel, in particular from their receiving of the ten commandments (or “the words”) in Exodus 20, including the laws or instructions in the Torah, i.e. rules for daily living, and the practices at the Tabernacle were all part of preparing us for the Messiah. I believe that if we can understand that God fully intended from the beginning to give us a Savior, we can more fully appreciate the grace, mercy, omniscience and omnipotence of God. Then, as we contemplate that the Word became flesh for us, we can use this time of Advent to appreciate fully the love and sacrifice that exists in the form of Jesus Christ.
Second, once we begin to think in these broader terms, I believe our worship can become a deeper, more powerful part of our spiritual lives. For one thing, I am more eager and more ready to worship God when I join with fellow believers on a Sunday morning for corporate worship. However, I have found that it also allows me to have more of a worshipful mindset throughout the week, particularly in my prayer life. On those occasions when I am in this frame of mind, I believe my worship is more genuine and more powerful. It causes me to want to be more obedient to God. It allows me to see the people around me, both friends and strangers, as Christ sees them: as someone who God created and loves more deeply than we can know, despite all our flaws. In this way, I believe we can grow in our efforts to be more Christ-like, as we realize during this time of year that Christ did not just come to save me, but to save all of us. To see others as Christ sees them — isn’t that what we should all strive to do?
