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One of the things that has grown my love for Christ in recent years is a deeper understanding of the great sacrifice it was for Him to come to this Earth. While I have long considered His death on the cross a testament to the depths of His love, the realization that this was the culmination of His sacrifice and not the beginning of it has been more recently imprinted on my heart. The emptying of Himself did not commence when He was nailed to a tree; it started when the Creator of the world relinquished Heaven to take on human form. His sacrifice started at His arrival, not His departure.

As we prepare our hearts to celebrate the occasion of His birth, I want to understand more deeply what He gave up when He took on flesh and dwelt among us. If God allows, I plan to share a reflection every Sunday of this advent season, each one focusing on something that Christ sacrificed when He came to this world. My hope is that as a result, our gratitude for Him may deepen and grow. 

The first thing that I want to focus on is found in 2 Corinthians 8:9, which states, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich” (ESV). When talking about the one and only God of the Universe, “rich’ almost seems to understate the enormity of what He owns. This world, the cosmos, everything that is or was or will come, is His. Although riches is often considered in finite terms – a quantifiable extent of abundance – for Christ, His riches in Heaven were limitless. There was nothing that was not His. He never experienced want or deprivation; He never had to “make do” with something that was insubstantial or inferior. All was created through Him and for Him (Col. 1:16); to His Kingdom there was no end (Isaiah 9:7).

Yet Christ didn’t cling to what was His. Instead, He not only gave up His abundance, but He took on lack. Think about it – Christ could have chosen a nice, middle class family to be His earthly parents, but those are not the conditions that were sovereignly ordained. He choose to be poor. He choose to be raised by a family who was so far down the economic ladder that they could not bring the normative animal sacrifice to celebrate His birth. His arrival was worthy of trumpets and processions, of celebration and elation. Instead, his earthly caretakers brought him to the temple with the minimal acceptable offering. And it wasn’t because they were being stingy; it was because this is what they could afford. Everything was His, yet He gave up His rightful claim to the riches of Heaven and of Earth, to take on a condition of scarcity and lack.

As we celebrate our Savior’s birth, let us remember that His incarnation came at great cost. Let us look past the excess and elaborateness that often characterizes this season and remember that the One who had everything, set it aside for your sake, and for mine. The humble servant came to humble circumstances perhaps in part to remind us that what we have is not nearly as important as Whose we are. While Jesus walked this Earth he did not have much in terms of worldly possessions – he didn’t even have a place to lay his head or call his home (Mt. 8:20) – but He did have this – He was doing the will of the One who sent Him (John 4:34). And because of His perfect obedience, because He was willing to lay aside the riches that were His to take on meagerness and poverty, we may experience true riches – a right relationship with Him.

If Christ had been born to a family that was more economically secure, we may not as readily realize the disparity between what He had on this Earth, and what He was willing to give up. But had Christ been born in a palace, He still would have sacrificed riches to come to this Earth, because the riches of Heaven can not compare to any found here. Yet Christ made it abundantly obvious – He became poor, from an earthly perspective and from a Heavenly one, so that we may become rich from the perspective that should matter most to us, the perspective of eternity. 

“Things couldn’t possibly get worse.”

While this refrain is common, it is also usually proven untrue. Often it is uttered just before things take a turn and a person finds themselves in worse shape than they had been previously. We have expectations of how life will go and when life fails to meet our expectations, we assume we have hit the roughest part of the road. Frequently though, the bumpy journey has only begun.

I imagine that this is how David felt when his son staged a coup and attempted to take over his kingdom (2 Sam. 15-17) . I don’t know that there is much that could prepare a parent for this turn of events and he had to wonder where along the path he took a wrong turn. However, despite the direness of the situation, as David fled for his life he followed his normal practice of pouring out his heart to God. As a result, he recorded the words in Psalm 3. This short, eight-verse outcry can provide great encouragement and instruction for when we, like David, feel like things are as bad as they possibly could be.

One thing that we can quickly note is that David took his concerns to God. The mere fact that he wrote this Psalm even as his life was threatened is worthy of commendation. Most of us would probably be worried about figuring out how we were going to escape and what we would do in exile. David, instead, took his thoughts and concerns to his Heavenly Father. He didn’t know what to do, but he knew Who he should turn to.

The second thing that David did is recognized God’s sovereignty over the situation. David didn’t live in some imaginative world where everything was butterflies and sunshine; he acknowledged how bad the situation was (v. 1-2).  Yet, he also was quick to acknowledge that God was in charge (v. 3). The direness of his circumstance didn’t reduce God’s divinity. David confidently trusted God and relied on Him in the midst of danger.

Additionally, although David’s life was being threatened, he acknowledged the good hand of God on his life. He forthrightly states that the fact that he woke up that morning was a result of God’s work in his life (v. 5). When things are overwhelming, it may be difficult to reflect on how God has been kind – yet David does so even for something that many of us would consider “to be expected.” David knew if God were to remove His hands of grace from his life then he would cease to live so the fact that he saw a new day was evidence of His mercy and love.

Lastly, David’s attention was not focused on his circumstances but on God who he trusted and served. He acknowledged that God would provide salvation (v.8) – even if David didn’t know the particular means by which He would do so. He saw beyond his condition and trusted that God was at work. He was running for his life and yet he could confidently say to God that “your blessing be on your people” (v. 8). David had a long-term view and knew that God had made promises for David’s kingdom and for the people of Israel. Despite all the forces that may seem to be acting contrary to these promises, David trusted that God would be proven to be true to His Word.

We may not ever face a circumstance as dire as David’s, but we all will face times where the future seems uncertain and we are tempted to be overwhelmed by what we encounter. In those moments, the lessons of Psalm 3 can be of great encouragement and hope. For when we feel like the world is closing in, we too can take our concerns to God, acknowledge His sovereignty over our situation, recognize His kindness on our lives, and put our focus on His promises rather than our conditions. In other words, when the world closes in, we can, and should, draw near to God. He proved Himself faithful in David’s life, and will do so in the lives of His other children as well.