Monday, January 9, 2017

Dusty Feet: Thoughts on the Incarnation

So much sand.

I hated it.  Hated. it.

Every day on the walk to and from French class, the sand would edge in to my consciousness sooner or later.  I would think things like -

If I never see a beach again in my life, I'll be a happy girl.

and

Sand must have been part of the curse.

and

What's in this sand, anyway?!  Gross!  I don't even want to know.

It rubbed me raw.  I hadn't signed up for this.  I shouldn't have to deal with it.  Sand - of all the miserable things.

One day it hit me like a brick.

Jesus did this for me - for us.

He came to our world - to a place not unlike the one I was living in.  The sand.  The dust.  The sun beating down at midday.  The animals.  The crowded markets.  The public sanitation that left so much to be desired.

He walked through our sand.  He smelled our trash heaps.

Wholly God, yet the dust and sweat of earth clung to Him.

And He chose this.

Why?  Why - when as sovereign God, He could have chosen any place, any time, any way to come and be the Messiah - would He have chosen dusty feet in Galilee?

Such unthinkable grace.

How else could He show a broken world just how much He loved us?

This One who formed galaxies and atoms and life - this is the Savior who loved with a love so great it brought Him down to us, who grasped at none of the honor and grandeur that was rightfully His, who flung Himself into our midst, wrapping Himself in the most humble of human experience.

Right down in the middle of our dirt and our need and our sun-faded hopes, He came.

Dust on holy feet.  Truth with a human heartbeat.  God with us.

Could there ever be a reason to stop celebrating?

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