Incarnation of Christ

In the early 19th century, a war-weary world was anxiously watching the march of Napoleon. All the while babies were being born. In 1809, midway between the battles of Trafalgar and Waterloo, William E. Gladstone was born in Liverpool; Alfred, Lord Tennyson in Summersby, England: Oliver Wendell Holmes in Boston; Felix Mendelssohn in Hamburg, Germany; and Abraham Lincoln in Hodgenville, Kentucky. People's minds were occupied with battles, not babies. Yet 175 year later, is there the slightest doubt about the greater contribution to history - those battles or those babies?

So it was with the birth of Jesus. The Bethlehem crowds had no inkling that the infinite Son of God was asleep in their little town. Only a few shepherds came to see Him, and they left glorifying God.

-Sermons Illustrated November/December 1988