Advent 2019 – Day 16

From Nancy Guthrie’s (editor) Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus:

“For the Son of God to empty himself and become poor meant a laying aside of glory; a voluntary restraint of power; an acceptance of hardship, isolation, ill-treatment, malice, and misunderstanding; finally, a death that involved such agony – spiritual, even more than physical – that his mind nearly broke under the prospect of it. It meant love to the uttermost for unlovely men, who ‘through his poverty, might become rich.’ This Christmas message is that there is hope for ruined humanity – hope of pardon, hope of peace with God, hope of glory – because at the Father’s will Jesus Christ became poor and was born in a stable so that thirty years later he might hang on a cross. It is the most wonderful message that the world has ever heard, or will hear.” (J.I. Packer)