When Christ came into the world, he said:
“Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,
but a body you prepared for me;
in holocausts and sin offerings you took no delight.
Then I said, ‘As is written of me in the scroll,
behold, I come to do your will, O God.’“ (Heb 10:5-6)
For more than fifteen hundred years the Jewish people had been making sacrifices in the Temple. Some of these were libations of water, oil or wine. Some were cereal or grain offerings. But the most were offerings of animals, turtle doves for the poor, lamb for those of more means, and calves or bulls for the wealthy. They did this because God commanded it. And yet, in the quote from Hebrews above, it is said that God neither desired nor delighted in these things. Linguistically, this is a Jewish way of saying that the sacrifice pointed to something that God desired more: obedience.
And thus, when Jesus came into the world Hebrews records him as saying that a body was prepared for him, and that with that body, that human nature, he would obey his Father and do his will. Scripture says, Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. (1 Sam 15:22; Prov 21:3).
In the Old Testament priesthood, the offering of the priest was always something separate and distinct from him: libations, grains, or animals. But in Jesus’ perfect priesthood, the priest and victim are one and the same. Jesus offered himself. He is the altar, the victim, and the priest. Hence, a Body was prepared for him, human nature in which he would offer a sacrifice of his obedience and his very body.
Christmas midnight is not a time to preach the whole Good Friday sequence. But note this, Christ’s whole life was a sacrifice. He left the glory of heaven and perfect praises of the Angels to walk our dusty roads and be often scorned by us, misunderstood and even killed. Yes, every beat of his heart, every word of his mouth, every miracle and act of his was a sacrifice, a glorious gift to His Father and also to us.
We see the humility and sacrificial nature of his life even here in the Christmas story, a story of poverty and temporary homelessness. A story that would eventually force his family to flee Herod and remain in Egypt for a time.
Let’s consider some aspects of the Christmas story that reveal his sacrificial love for us. The text says,
While they were there, the time came for her to have her child, and she gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
Don’t miss the poverty that is manifest here—it is a chosen poverty. St. John Chrysostom said,
Surely if [the Lord] had so willed it, He might have come moving the heavens, making the earth to shake, and shooting forth His thunderbolts; but such was not the way of His going forth; His desire was not to destroy, but to save… And, to trample upon human pride from its very birth, therefore He is not only man, but a poor man, and has chosen a poor mother, who had not even a cradle where she might lay her new born Child; as it follows, and she laid him in the manger (Quoted in the Catena Aurea – Lection 2 ad Luc 2:6).
The paradox of poverty is the fourth lesson in humility! We who are worldly think that poverty is the worst thing, but it is not—pride is the worst thing. And thus the Lord teaches us from the start that greatness and blessings are not found merely in what is high, mighty, pleasant, or pleasing. Blessings are often found in unusual ways and under unexpected circumstances.
The greatest blessing ever bestowed is not found in a palace, or in Bloomindales, or on beachfront property; He is not even found in a cheap Bethlehem inn. He is found in a lowly manger underneath an inn. It is poor and smelly, and He rests in a feeding trough. But there He is, in the least expected place, the lowest imaginable circumstances. In this way He confounded our pride and our values.
Are we humble enough to admit this and to stop being so resentful and crestfallen when things don’t measure up exactly to our standards?
He chooses this poverty. Whatever its unpleasant realities, poverty brings a sort of freedom if it is embraced. The poor have less to lose and thus the world has less of a hold on them. What does a poor man have to lose by leaving everything and following Jesus? Wealth has many spiritual risks. It is hard for the rich to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. Wealth is too easily distracting and enslaving. And even knowing all this, we still want it. In choosing poverty, Jesus confounds our pride, greed, lust, and gluttony.
The Lord does not just confound us; He also chooses this to bless us. St. Paul said,
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich (2 Cor 8:9).
He also said,
Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be clung to, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross (Phil 2:5).
Bede, the 7th century Church Father, wrote,
He who sits at His Father’s right hand, finds no room in an inn, that He might prepare for us in His Father’s house many mansions; He is born not in His Father’s house, but [under] an inn and by the way side, because through the mystery of the incarnation He was made the way [for us back to our Father’s House] [Catena, Ibidem].
Thank you, Jesus, for the paradoxical perfection of your poverty and your lifelong sacrifice. Through it you confound our human ways and bless us more richly than we could ever expect! Thank you for this lesson in humility.
Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,
but a body you prepared for me