urprise! It’s Christmas morning and here we are in Romans 8, the most surprising of all places. Advent has focused my thoughts on the birth of a Holy Baby, Jesus, the Son of God so it was a surprise to read these familiar words in a whole new way because of what “God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh” — ?? Sinful flesh…us?? It took a beat for my heart to realize this IS just how far God went “so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us.” In order to do that, God filled that Advent cradle with Himself “in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin” with the power to buy back our likeness to sin so we might “not walk according to the flesh.” There’s an old story of a European ruler who would sneak away and walk among his people incognito. It drove his security people nuts but his response was “I cannot rule my people unless I know how they live.”
God chose to begin His walk among us on that first Christmas morning disguised as an ordinary baby, living and growing up in ordinary ways…walking among us incognito…until in His perfect timing He could reveal the surprise likeness of God “in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.”
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