What's the Point? Why would God become Man? 

What’s the point?

Last time we were thinking about the turmoil of this Christmas and how that isn’t a new idea. When we unwrap Christmas, we see that it is all about Jesus and he was born into an utterly chaotic situation.

Maybe that makes us ask the question: what was the point in Jesus coming? You see, Jesus was God himself becoming a man. He was special because he was fully God and fully man. So, why would God want to become a man?

Both the first Christmas and the one we’re all facing now in 2020 show just how broken humanity is. We live in a world that is filled with disease and sickness, we can’t go ten minutes without breaking out into a fight, we all face loneliness, sadness, pain, and ultimately death.

There are very good things about being human (e.g. Michael Bublé at Christmas), and that’s because this world is fundamentally one created by a good and just God. But for God the creator, who has spent eternity in heaven, to enter into his creation and become a man seems crazy!

Well, let’s unwrap Christmas a bit more to find the answer. When we peel back the wrapping paper, we see that God came precisely because the world and humanity are so broken. You see, this world is the way it is because we have rejected God, we have all sinned. The world and humanity are gripped by sin and we’re all facing punishment because of our rebellion.

But from the moment sin entered the world to Jesus’ birth, God had been weaving together a plan throughout history to change this. God was going to fix the brokenness of the world.

In order to do this, he had to deal with the sin that broke it. And to do that he had to take on our humanity, become a man, that he might die in the place of sinners deserving his judgement. This death would pay the debt for those who put their trust in him, removing our guilt and destroying the power of sin.

So, yes, it is crazy that God should become a man. Yet he did so, humbling himself to death, even death on a cross, for us. The famous verse from John’s gospel says the reason Jesus came was because: “God so loved the world” (John 3:16). The reason God took on broken humanity was because he loved broken people. Christmas reminds us of the unimaginably undeserved love shown by God, that he might die to save us.