The most formidable way to lead is to serve. And while the perplexing oxymoron of such a grinding statement absolutely cripples us, it birthed a Savior.

Where there is no hope, there is Christmas. And where there is no Christmas, there is no hope.

God chose to deliberately venture into and intentionally occupy depths far below and infinitely beyond that which any human has ever descended, and then to raise Himself back up to glory from those horridly dark places. And I pray that we never miss the fact that Christmas is God’s invitation for us to join Him in the rising.

God’s decision to reach out in such dramatic fashion as to lay all rightful privilege aside and be born into abject destitution tells us that His passion for us exceeds our desire for Him. And maybe we should commit to evening that up a bit.

This is the wonder of Christmas, that in the solitary form of an impoverished infant God has handed me everything that I could never create so that I can be everything that I could never be.

What excites us the most or likewise scares us the most is when something is exactly what it says it is. And when it comes to Christmas, we’re going to end up finding ourselves on one side of that line or the other.