The packaging matters.  When it comes to Christmas gifts, I am terrible at wrapping.  Yet, I know that the colored paper adds to the excitement.  It tells me to be ready for a surprise.

The packaging of God’s gift to us in Jesus is flesh and blood, the normal stuff of normal humanity.  There is no reason to assume that Jesus was pleasing to the eye or at all handsome.  He could have been dog ugly.  Nevertheless, he became one of us.  From the perspective of omnipotence, we know that God can save in any way God chooses.  If it were me, I would try to redeem from a position of power and might.  Such is my foolishness.  I am no longer so naive to not know about collateral damage.  Bulls in china shops tend to break stuff.  Knowing our fragile state, God chose the gentle path.  He became one of the most fragile, needy, precious and dependent creatures in the known universe: a human infant.  Imagine that: God at the mercy of us humans.

One of the fruits of the spirit is gentleness.  While the world, still under the shadow of the mushroom cloud, covets each others’ nuclear armaments, God shirked power.  While we reward the most shrill, most bombastic opinions and the brute gladiators of our day, God threw off all pretenses, and chose to save from within our common neediness.

See also: John 1.

Image: "boys and christmas mess" by cafemama