Our faith is filled with ironies, absurdities, and paradoxes…

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” -Isaiah 9:6

“And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” -Luke 2:12

“The Bible is full of contradictions” we hear the skeptics say. Perhaps I agree with them, although not in the way they mean. The Bible IS filled with ironies, absurdities, and paradoxes. For, only in our wildest dreams could we imagine a Man walking on water, or a blind man receiving his sight, or the many being fed with the little.

But the greatest paradoxes, these we find in the Christmas story. We see a virgin giving birth and God becoming a Man. In his book “Miracles,” C.S. Lewis writes, “The central miracle asserted by Christians is the Incarnation. They say that God became Man. Every other miracle prepares for this, or exhibits this, or results from this.” The Incarnation is the core tenet of our faith. It cannot be put aside. Our hope rests on the great bookends of the Incarnation and resurrection of Jesus. A Christianity without miracles is no Christianity at all.
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Again, to quote C.S. Lewis, “A ‘liberal’ Christianity which considers itself free to alter the faith whenever the faith looks perplexing or repellent must be completely stagnant.” And to that I say “amen.” In this world of scientific pursuit and a constant attempt to explain away the miracles of the Bible, I am renewed and refreshed in my pursuit of the God of miracles. We serve the One Who calmed the sea, parted the waters, came to earth as a baby, and died and rose again so that we might live. Our faith is filled with ironies, absurdities, and paradoxes…and the greatest of these mean LIFE for all who believe. 

Merry Christmas!