The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.Colossians 1:15-16
This is our first time, so you’ll have to bear with me.
There we were, my wife Erica and I, sitting in the hospital waiting room wondering why they can’t simply schedule us for the time we are actually going to see the doctor. My mind was everywhere. Deadlines were coming up and I was running through my mental checklist trying my best at this work-life-grad-student-new-dad balance. Erica, well, she was focused. A little concerned about what the doctor might say. Was she doing pregnancy right? Is that even an appropriate question to ask? Did we have the right food in the house? The nursery needs a different coat of paint—blue, mint, or perhaps gray? What color can you really paint a room when you’re not planning to find out if you’re having a boy or a girl?
But there we were. Waiting.
The invisible God put on the skin and bones of the Christ child and the word became flesh. No matter where he went, no matter what he did, everything was created through God and done in God. In a sense, God gave us what we were looking for: an example, but more than an example. He showed us the face of his love.
Through Christ, God would redeem the world and save us to himself. Through Christ, God would activate his church one person at a time. He would breathe in that other piece of the Trinity—the Spirit—and send us to make disciples as we go along the way.
My wife and I are expecting our first child. Somehow, our firstborn will look like us. He or she will likely have some of our best characteristics and some of our worst, but I can’t wait to meet the baby. My prayer for our child, and my prayer for all of us this Christmas season, is that we would become more and more like Christ. That we would bear the image of Christ in our service, in our work, in our coming and going, so that in all things Christ might be glorified.
C.S. Lewis said it best when he said, “The more we let God take us over, the more truly ourselves we become—because He made us. He invented us.”
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