Proverbs 8:1,4. 1Does not wisdom call? Does not understanding raise her voice? 4“To you, O men, I call, and my cry is to the children of man.”
God’s wisdom is always invitational. God wants nothing less for us than for us to come to him and be wise. In Proverbs 8 Wisdom is like a woman who is calling out to us, inviting us to follow her. God’s wisdom invites us to come and see and learn.
At the birth of Jesus, the heavenly hosts appeared to the shepherds and invited them to go and see the newborn king:
Luke 2:12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.
Just as wisdom calls out for us to come and find her, Jesus cried out from that manger for those shepherds to come and find him. You see, Christmas isn’t primarily about getting presents; it’s about getting wisdom. Wisdom in the form of a weak and helpless newborn baby.
You see it’s not that Jesus will grow up and teach us wise sayings (he will do that). It’s not that Jesus will become a guru revealing to us the best way to live our lives (he will do that too). And it’s not that Jesus’ words will take us beyond anything we have ever heard before or will hear again (they do). It’s not the words, sayings, or teachings of Jesus that are God’s greatest wisdom; it is Jesus himself. The person of Jesus, not the principles of Jesus, is God’s greatest wisdom calling out to us through the cries of a newborn baby in a manger.
Before Jesus said or did anything other than being born, he was already God’s wisdom on display. The wisdom of grace and mercy. The wisdom of unconditional love. The wisdom of humility and meekness. The wisdom of self-sacrifice. The wisdom of the cross.
It’s not too late to hear wisdom calling out to you this Christmas day. Hear it in the cry of the newborn baby lying in a manger. No crying he makes? No. Like every infant he cried, and like the wisdom of God he continues to cry out, come to me. Come worship and bow down. Kneel before the Wisdom of God in the flesh. Look at him with unveiled face. See him in a manger as a baby, weak and helpless. That’s God’s wisdom – becoming smaller, weaker, lesser. Why?
For you. For me. For our salvation. For love.
You: What is wisdom to you? What do you consider a wise way to live?
You in Christ: Why do we need wisdom to be God in the flesh, not just words on a page?
Christ in you: How can you practice the incarnational, self-sacrificing wisdom of Christ today?
Pray: Father, I hear your wisdom calling out to me today in the birth of Christ. A birth that will lead to a death for me. I too want to practice your wisdom of self-sacrificing love today. Help me by your grace. Amen.
To Live is Christ 