John 1:14, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” 

The Bible records many memorable moves. The day when Adam and Eve were forced to move out of the Garden of Eden was indescribably traumatic and tragic. The day the children of Israel left their homes in Egypt was truly a triumphant move. The day God moved into the Tabernacle in the wilderness was an awe‑inspiring event, never to be forgotten in Hebrew history. But on a Judean night, almost two thousand years ago, God forever changed His address and made the BIG MOVE.

Where did he move to? Actually, there was a nine-month transition time in God’s move. The first phase of God’s move occurred the moment a teenage virgin named Mary said to the Angel Gabriel, “let it be to me according to your word” (Lk. 1:38). Gabriel informed Mary what her part would be in God’s move and how it would happen in Lk. 1:35: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy - the Son of God.” 

When Mary uttered the words “let it be to me according to your word” the miracle of all miracles occurred. The second person of the Trinity - God the Son - moved to become a fertilized ovum in Mary’s womb!

No wonder Paul exclaimed in 1 Tim. 3:16, "great is the mystery of godliness: God was revealed in the flesh!"

Max Lucado put it this way: "The omnipotent, in one instant, made himself breakable. He who had been spirit became pierceable. He who was larger than the universe became an embryo. And he who sustains the world with a word chose to be dependent upon the nourishment of a young girl. God as a fetus. Holiness sleeping in a womb. The creator of life being created. God was given eyebrows, elbows, two kidneys, and a spleen. He stretched against the walls and floated in the amniotic fluids of his mother.”

All heaven was turned upside down when the Second Person of the Trinity, God of very God, moved from the honors of Hallelujah Square in Glory to the humble space of the Virgin’s womb. And then on that first Christmas day, God moved into a manger in Bethlehem as the Word became flesh and cast His tent among us!

I think Sam Storms was correct when he asserts that John 1:14 “is the most amazing verse in Scripture. By “amazing” I mean incomprehensible, stunning, bewildering, beyond the capacity of the human mind to fully grasp.”

 “The Word became flesh.” Please understand what God says about Himself through the truth of the Incarnation of God in Christ. The Big Move that Jesus made on that First Christmas does not mean the deifying of man (that man rose to become God), but rather the humanizing of God (that God became man). The attempted deifying of man-without God-is the Biblical definition of sin. We must be clear that "God manifest in human flesh" is not the Divine nature filling a human person like a substance might fill a vessel, but rather the Divine nature interpenetrating a human nature so that you don't merely have God become man or man who is God, you have The God‑Man, who is as much God as if He had never been man, and as much man as if He had never been God, and the union of the two natures results in absolutely no loss on the part of either! No co‑mingling, no corruption, no confusion of natures! 

Why did God the Son make this Big Move?

The ultimate design of Jesus’ incarnation was to recover God's right of occupancy in man. Man was made to be a house for God. He was to experience and reciprocate the love of God, express the light of God, and extend the life of God. He was designed to enjoy intimacy with God and exhibit the image of God. But when the lie of Satan came into man's heart in the Garden of Eden, the Spirit of the Lord moved out. And when the life moved out the light went off. When the first Adam sinned, his spirit was vacated by the Spirit of God and his body became a death chamber, housing a dead spirit in a decaying and dying temple.

But Jesus made the Big Move. He who made us, became one of us, died for us, to live in us!  

God's design for man is incarnational. What is man made for? Man is designed by God and for God. Man builds a house to suit the occupant. A hive for bees, a pen for pigs, a stable for horses, a kennel for dogs. What did God have in mind when He created man? A house suitable for God to live in! Man's body was designed as a vessel and vehicle for the housing of his spirit and God's Holy Spirit!

The incarnation is not an isolated event in history. It continues through Christ second incarnation which is His coming to live in his people. God doesn't live in buildings but in redeemed bodies. Jn 14:23, "Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him."

When Jesus took a human body, he demonstrated that the human body is still a worthy Temple for the majesty of God, a divine residence for the display of God's glory. When one is born again the house of our body is returned to the Original Owner for immediate occupancy!

When the new birth occurs our sin-deadened spirit is made alive by the incarnation of Christ's life via the Third Person of the Trinity - Holy Spirit. Then my body becomes the Temple of the Holy Spirit. I become extremely valuable, not because I maintain that I am, but because I contain Him who is inestimably valuable; not because of who I am but because of whose I have become.  Christ in me the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27). It is no longer I but Christ who lives in me. Christ who is our life shall appear.

“O Holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us we pray, cast out our sin and enter in: Be born in us today!”

By the miraculous power of the Holy Spirit, Mary conceived Jesus, carried him, and then presented him to the world.

Likewise, we believers are to be bringing him into the world, fleshing him out before the world. This world doesn't need us, but it desperately needs Him who lives in us.

We Christians must consider our individual hearts, not as private enclaves in which to hide Jesus, but rather as beachheads, from which, with His authority well-established there, we may bring Him—with an exuberant shepherd joy—to all the nations of men.

We must choose daily to believe and sing the overlooked and neglected verse in Wesley’s hymn, “O Come Emmanuel:”

“Come, Desire of nations, come! Fix in us Thy humble home: Rise, the woman’s conqu’ring seed, bruise in us the serpent’s head; Adam’s likeness now efface, stamp Thine image in its place: Final Adam from above, reinstate us in Thy love.”

Jesus Great Move to take up residence, by His Spirit, in the reborn hearts of His people is Paradise Regained one person at a time - the new Genesis. All who invite Jesus to move into their hearts are called a "new creation” (2 Cor 5:17. On them is a new name (Rev 2:17); in them is a new song. But one day, time will be no more, and He who sits on the throne will say, "Behold I make all things new” (Rev 21:5). Then on us will be a new body, around us will be a New Jerusalem, under us will be a New Earth, and over us a New Heaven, and before us new revelations of the never-ending glory of the Son of God. And we shall be like Him for we shall see him as he is. And there we shall establish permanent residence – AT HOME WITH GOD!!!!

Have a “MARY” CHRISTMAS!