Once upon a time, there was a man and woman in a garden who trusted in the lesser things and not in the good Great One who created it all. The man and woman traded a perfect reality for a shadow of it because the doubts were growing. It was easier to trust what they could see and touch instead of the Great One -- He was loving and Great beyond what they could understand. His love comforted them and His greatness made them tremble. He could never be completely known.
And as is the way with the lesser things, less became More. Their love of it severed them forever from the Great One.
As they left the garden, the Great One promised: "It will not always be so! I will come to rescue you! And when I do, I'm going to do battle against the snake. I'll get rid of the sin and the dark and the sadness you let in here. I'm coming back for you!" (The Jesus Storybook Bible, p. 36).
God, the Great One, kept his promise.
"The God who flung planets into space and kept them whirling around and around, the God who made the universe with just a word, the one who could do anything at all -- was making himself small. And coming down... as a baby" (p. 129).This little baby had a Great Rescue to accomplish: "My life will break and God's broken world will mend. My heart will tear apart -- and your hearts will heal" (p. 292).
Jesus endured the horrible, endless silence of God turning his face away so that we would never have to. It was a plan set in motion at the beginning of time and the Great Rescue came to us as a humbled, helpless baby.
"Who Would Have Dreamed" - Prepare Him Room, Sovereign Grace Music
And who would have dreamed or ever foreseen//That we could hold God in our hands?//The Giver of Life is born in the night//Revealing God’s glorious plan// To save the world
