STRANGE WAYS OF GOD

Isa.28:21 – NASB – For the LORD will rise up as at Mount Perazim,

He will be stirred up as in the Valley of Gibeon,

To do His task, His unusual task,

And to work His work, His extraordinary work.

The ways of God can be described as unusual and even shocking to the natural man. Who would think of things like God becoming a man, a virgin birth, birth of God’s Son in an animal’s feeding trough, the Son of God being executed like a common criminal? These are not the ways a human plan would unfold. Kings are born in palaces, protected by armies, and establish their kingdom with force. It became quite obvious when angels appeared to shepherds and not religious leaders that God’s plan of redemption for fallen man would be quite unusual and even strange. Christ revealed Himself to the least likely, called the unqualified, and used the undignified to advance His kingdom. Christmas is when we are brought face to face with God’s strange and unusual plans. The whole world is reminded of shepherds, mangers, and songs of angels every year. Maybe its the strangeness of all of this that gets our attention. Here is how a church father known as Gregory the Great describes this.

“Hence Isaiah, contemplating our salvation and [Christ’s] passion, well said: “That he may do his work, his strange work; that he may perform his work, his work is strange to him.” For the work of God is to gather the souls that he created and call them back to the joys of the eternal light. But it is not the work [of] God in his essence to be flogged, to be smeared with spittle, to be crucified, to die and to be buried, but this is the work of a sinful person who deserved all these things for his sins. But [Jesus] himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree. And he who in his own nature always remains incomprehensible deigned to be comprehended in our nature and to be flogged, because if he had not assumed the attributes of our weakness he could never have raised us to the power of his fortitude.… And he does his strange work that he might do his proper work, because insofar as he bore our sins in infirmity he led us who are his creatures to the glory of his fortitude in which he lives and reigns with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, through ages of ages.”

So have you been touched by the strange message of Christmas? Have all the stories of mangers, shepherds, and angels replaced the stories of reindeer, elves, and sleigh bells in your world? The message of the virgin birth and the manger scene was just preparing the world for the greatest and strangest work of all; CHRIST DIED ON THE CROSS TO SAVE SINNERS !!! CHRIST DIED ON THE CROSS TO SAVE YOU !!! That’s the strangest and most glorious message of all.