Sixty years ago in Tokyo a hospital made a terrible mistake. They sent babies home with the wrong families. One baby born to a poor family went home with a wealthy family. Another baby born to a wealthy family went home to a life of poverty. The mistake was only discovered because of some health problems in the wealthy family that lead to some DNA testing among the siblings. When one brother showed no genetic kinship to the family they began searching for the reason.
The two men spent their lives in very different ways, the poor man was a truck driver and the rich man runs his own real estate business. Last week the a court ordered the hospital to pay the poor man - who wishes to remain anonymous - a settlement worth over $370,000, substantially less than the $2.5 million he sought. "I feel...regret and also anger," the impoverished man said after his settlement, "I want them to turn back the clock."
Contrast this to the birth of our Lord that we celebrate today. He, as Paul put it in Philippians2:7-8, "... made himself nothing, taking on the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man he humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross!"
He chose the poverty after knowing the wealth of heaven. C. S. Lewis likened the incarnational drop of going from heaven to earth as being like that of a human choosing to become "a crab or a slug." He chose to come live in this world of poverty with us. He chose to die for us to make us rich in ways we never could have dreamed. It was God's plan that he chose for himself and for us.
Today celebrate where and to whom you were born but also celebrate that you can be born again because he was born among us.
Merry Christmas,
Tim
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