Stefani Carmichael got me thinking about the world Jesus stepped into on that first Christmas in her post The World Jesus Enters.
It was a broken world, like ours.
What about the people? What were they like? Did they need Jesus to come?
They were a lot like you and me, like the people we see at Walmart, in the line at the bank, and the ones we work out next to in the gym. People looking to rules, religion, or relationships for purpose.
This broken world has been filled with hurting, broken people for a very long time.
Let’s scoot back to the beginning where the story really begins.
The backdrop of the manger scene is the Garden of Eden. That is where our need for a Savior began.
God created this beautiful world, and created man and woman in His image. As part of His image, He wove into our DNA a need for relationship, connection, belonging.
Satan didn’t bring an army in and confront God head-on. Instead, he slithered in and convinced Eve that the face-to-face relationship she had with God wasn’t enough. His words cast a shadow in her mind about the goodness, love, and intention of God.
O how he must have celebrated as she and Adam bit into that fruit. The precious souls God created and loved had rejected Him. With that bite the beautiful world God spoke into being became enemy territory.
“The serpent told the human race that disobeying God was the only way to realize their fullest happiness and potential, and this delusion has sunk deep into every human heart.” – TIm Keller
The world God made grew dark, the people He loved grew blind. His people became deaf to His words and the enemy’s hold on them grew stronger and stronger.
The people made in God’s image, made for connection, belonging, and love, knew, even while sitting in the darkness that something was missing.
They yearned deeply for what they were made for, even though they had been in the darkness for so long that they didn’t know what to call it. They only knew something was missing and they couldn’t find it in themselves.
Some turned to worshipping idols, literally turning pieces of wood and stone into objects of worship. Some turned to worshipping life in this world, living in the moment, keeping busy, or filling their lives with pleasure. Some turned to worshipping control with rigid rule keeping.
All this worship was an effort to stop the yearning and longing. But only one Person could fulfill that longing for connection, belonging, and love.
Because God is the only one who can answer this longing, He is the only one who can set His people free.
That freedom began with a baby. Jesus, who takes away the sins of the world.
He saves us from our sins. Not just the ones we think are really bad, but our daily sins, our daily hurts, our daily messes. He is with us.
The baby in the manger makes it possible for every heart to have peace with God.
So who in this broken world needed Jesus to come?
The hurting, the broken, the running, the far away, the pretenders, the wounded, the helpless, the guilty, the trapped, the ones needing to be rescued.
We need Jesus. And we are the reason He came.