Listen: Mary Did You Know
Read: Colossians 1:9-18
This song highlights the paradoxical nature of the incarnation. This “both/and” kind of language is beautiful and Biblically necessary. The Scripture is full of places that hold two truths together that seem, at first glance, to be contrary to the other. Our song’s lyric about Mary’s future deliverance is illustrative on this point. Who need deliverance – Mary or Jesus? Both Mary and Jesus needed deliverance, but not in the same sense of the word. Naturally, this is obvious to you as you listen and sing the song.
Let’s talk about “this child that you’ve delivered, will soon deliver you.” This line especially helps us to highlight the incarnation as vitally important, but not enough in and of itself to deliver us. Someone might ask, what do we need deliverance from? It is equally plausible that a person might misunderstand the incarnation to be the ultimate act of God’s love as He shows humanity the path to peace and love. No. The deliverance we need is not a better path to follow. Our greatest problem is our depraved nature of the human heart. We are sinners that need to be delivered from the bondage of sin, the consequence of sin, and the corruption of sin. We need to be re-created, or as Jesus puts it to Nicodemus, we must be “born again.”
The deliverance that we need is from sin. On one hand, Jesus’ incarnation is absolutely vital. We affirm and celebrate the glorious mystery of Jesus’ divinity. Let us stand in awe of the divine Son of God wrapped in swaddling clothes. On the other hand, we recognize that the incarnation itself cannot accomplish our deliverance. If the incarnation doesn’t deliver me from sin, then what does? Jesus’ redemptive work did indeed begin with the incarnation, but our redemption was accomplished through His sacrificial death on the cross. Let me encourage you to celebrate both incarnation and crucifixion this Christmas.
Aaron Irlbacher 