It was not a silent night. No. For it had been silent too long. There had been silent weeks, months, years, centuries, in fact. It had been silent for 400 years. Silence from God. But just because God was silent, does not mean that He was absent. He was with us for 400 years, waiting, watching, but still silent. Though the people prayed and hoped, it seemed like it was going to be yet another silent night… but it was not.
...Suddenly, the heavens broke open! Stars themselves danced in the sky to declare that something miraculous had happened. Heavenly beings from another world celebrated, their voices carrying throughout the earth. It was a day of joy, wonder, and excitement for all the world. It was a day of peace and goodwill towards man. Though it was not winter, it was the first Christmas ever. But it was more than that…
...it was the night that God left His throne to become one of us.
An event so cosmic, so cataclysmic, and just plain crazy cannot be called a silent night.
Ancient prophets had spoken of the event generations before. Before the 400 years of silence, God had told them that one day a child would be born to rescue mankind. People were not sure what to expect. They were told that the child would be a King, and born in the little town of Bethlehem. They knew that much. But what a strange place for a King to be born. Bethlehem was such a little place. Most people figured that the King would be born against the backdrop of a palace, trained to lead his people to victory. At that time, the Roman Empire oppressed the people, taking away their basic human rights and worshiping false gods. Most people believed that the King would defeat the Romans and rule the Earth with a mighty hand and a mighty sword. They thought they would rejoice, as the true King judged those who were evil and made glorious those who were good.
Yet, most of those people were asleep on the night it actually happened.
Even with the angels singing their hearts out, the stars proclaiming the event, and even with kings and wise men coming from distant lands to honor the birth of the promised King…
...it was only the humble who heard them sing, who saw the stars, who traveled from so far away to see a child. A baby. An infant born in a barn.
Indeed on such a miraculous night, a night that would split the calendar in two, a night that all of history itself had been building to… most of the world was fast asleep.
The King that had come to save the world was born in shabby barn in the outskirts of a small town that nobody paid attention to. The God of the universe chose to dwell among us, not as royalty in a palace or as a mighty, army-leading general, but as weak, innocent, frail, and beautiful baby boy. His mother was a humble teenage girl that nobody paid much attention to. Her husband was a carpenter whose royal bloodline had been forgotten. His crib was a feeding-trough.
Why had the world missed this? They had been looking forward to the promise of a Savior King for so long? How could they have slept through the most monumental, impossible event of history?
Could it be that they did not understand what they had been looking forward to?
Perhaps, if they had, they would have understood that God is not an old man sitting on a throne in the sky waiting for the world to bow to him because of his power. He is not a judge with a gavel and wig anticipating the next criminal and the next sentence. Nor is he a great general raising an army to conquer the world.
The nature of God in human form is embodied best perhaps in that of an infant. More than that… an infant born in a barn with forgotten parents and only shepherds, angels, and wise men to bow to him.
He is humble.
He did not come to be served by men and women, but to serve men and women.
He did not come to conquer the world through force, but melt hearts through love and grace.
He did not come to judge the world, but to save it.
How?
By ultimately doing the most humble thing the God of the universe, the very embodiment of life itself, could do:
He died on a cross, naked, broken, ugly, bleeding… and powerless.
In 1995, Joan Osborn wrote a song “What If God was One of Us?” It is a beautiful piece of music, and became a One Hit Wonder. But the answer to that question was answered on that first Christmas night, over two thousand years ago.
What If God Was One Of Us?
He would be poor, weak, forgotten, and lowly. Because God does not like to be anything but a servant… meek and humble. Like an infant.
People, even today, all around the world are looking for God.
Just like the Israelites did all those two thousand years ago, they have heard promises of when or how they will find the God of the universe. They try everything they can, and follow every leader they hear about, and give everything to climb their way up the mountain of glory to find God.
Yet, like the people of Israel on that first Christmas night, they miss Him everyday. Even tonight, they will lay in their beds, and sleep right past God, just like they did two thousand years ago.
They will not find God in a palace, a big house, a cathedral, a church, a temple, a courthouse, or deep in isolation in a cave on a mountain somewhere.
That is not where anyone will find God.
If it is big, flashy, noisy, holy, or rich… it will be yet another silent night for the one looking for God.
If you are looking for God do not go to those places, you will not find God there.
Where is God? He will be found in the most humble of places, the places most in need of a servant… not a general, judge, or royal.
He is where the children are born. He is where the sick lay dying.
He is where the homeless try to keep themselves warm on a cold winter’s night, just as he was where the lowly, smelly shepherds were all those two thousand years ago.
He is where the rejected young girl, called a slut and whore, is hiding away, just as he was with Mary.
He is where the businessman, who lost everything, is walking, wandering how to tell his family. This is just like he was with Joseph, whose royalty was forgotten by the world around him.
Look around you. Find the weak, the broken, the meek, the poor… the humble.
That is where God is. Just as He was so long ago on that first Christmas night.
