The Great Exchange

"For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many." - Mark 10:45

His Coming changed things. It turned the world upside down... or rather, right side up.

From the very beginning of the Christmas story things take a detour from the expected. King of Kings, yet His kingdom was not of this world. Not born in a palace but in a humble stable. His bed, a shared space with smelly animals. He grew up not in privilege, but of ordinary, average parents in an ordinary, average town. Even as He began His earthly ministry, He had no home to call His own, no permanent place to lay His head.

His Coming would change the world... our world... forever. Yet to many, His entry barely made a ripple.

Change was what He came to bring, His mission from long before birth. His Coming challenged the religious elite of the day, those who thought, believed, and taught that following all the rules and regulations (many of which they had designed themselves) would bring them close to God, make them righteous. He confronted them with the error of their ways, and the truth of His. "I am the way," He said."No one comes to the Father except through Me." He wanted them to understand...there is no righteousness apart from Jesus.

His Coming also challenged the cultural mores of the day. He broke bread with "sinners," tax collectors. Hated by their own people as turncoats and collaborators with the Romans, the tax collectors were despised and friendless. But... Jesus was a friend of sinners. He saw deep into people's hearts, and He changed them. This was true also of some of the women He was known to associate with... women of questionable character, shunned by society, yet there was no question in Jesus'mind that they were valuable to his Father. He met them, spoke with them, ate with them... changed them too.

He conversed with Samaritans, a woman no less, offering her "living water"... and her life was turned upside down. He took pity on a Roman centurion's servant because of the great faith professed by this Gentile, and healed the man's servant from afar with only a word. He came for His own first, but He never turned away a seeking heart.

He came to change things. And changed they would be.

He came to find... those who were lost.

He came to set free... those held captive by sin.

He came to give sight... to the blind.

He came to bring light... to those walking in darkness.

And...

He came to exchange death with life.

We see no greater example of this than at the cross. Here the greatest exchange took place. Jesus came to turn right side up ALL that went terribly,hopelessly wrong in the beginning... in the Garden with the first Adam. Adam had been placed in this paradise, given carte blanche to eat anything he wanted, even from the Tree of Life. There was just one exception. One, single, solitary exception. "You mustn't eat of the tree in the middle of the garden, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil," God said.

Well, we know how that went down,don't we? And with the Fall entered every hurtful, sinful, malignant thing we battle still today. But God loved us too much to leave it that way, and the plan for the exchange was put into play.

The sinless Son of God would voluntarily take the wickedness of the world upon Himself, would allow Himself to be tortured in our place... forsaken by the Father... ALL, so that we who were lost, hopeless, helpless, and doomed... might live.

He came to change things.

Think for a moment about that thief on the cross next to Jesus. (We ARE him, you know) We know little of him. We know little of the crime that sentenced him to that excruciating death. We don't know if there was a single, solitary soul standing at the foot of his cross, crying for him that day. Perhaps no one even cared, no one except Jesus, that is. What we do know of this man is his eleventh hour confession of faith.

"Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom."

"I tell you today," Jesus replied, "you will be with Me in Paradise."

And just like that... what was lost is found. This hopless, helpless, doomed castaway, becomes an heir to the kingdom of heaven.

Why we celebrate His Coming?? It's because of this Great Exchange... the sinner set free, the lost who've been found, the blind who now see, and the once dead who now live eternally... all because of Christmas and the cross...

and the love that would not give up.