Looking Skywards

How would you feel if you got up on Christmas morning to find that your loved ones had bought you a parachute jump as a present this year?  Apparently, for not much more than £100, you can learn to jump from a plane and land safely at a local airfield!  Suddenly socks and jumpers don’t seem that bad a gift after all!

          However scary such a jump might be, it would pale in comparison with that accomplished by Felix Baumgartner just a few weeks back.  Did you see it on the news?  He broke the world record for the highest ever jump, having leapt out of his capsule some 24 miles up.  The whole event was screened live over the internet and people around the world held their breath as they watched him tumbling over 128,000 feet to the earth. Though there were many dangers to be considered, and indeed at times during the jump there were real fears at ‘mission control’ that he might have died, we were able to see him land safely to the adulation of the world’s media.  Since then he has appeared on chat shows all around the globe.

          One of the things that became obvious as I watched the film of that jump was what a long way down it was.  There is a long way between the heavens and the earth.  King David, the Psalmist, had no idea just how far it was, but it did not stop him writing “As the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His [God’s] mercy toward those who fear Him” (Psalm 103:11)

          That is particularly worth remembering as we come to the Christmas season. This month we celebrate again the coming of another man who left heaven for earth.  But he didn’t jump out of a capsule to return to the earth he had left moments earlier.  He left the heaven of heavens, the dwelling place of the triune God, where He had enjoyed perfect companionship with His Father for all eternity.  His arrival on the planet wasn’t watched by the world like Baumgartners was.  It was hidden from view, in the rural backwater of Bethlehem, an insignificant town in a despised part of the Roman Empire.  And He didn’t just take a risk when He came to earth, but came knowing, indeed planning, to die a cruel death on a cross.  Nor did He enjoy the adulation of the world for his coming.  He was “despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.” (Isaiah 53:3).  Whereas the name of Felix Baumgartner is praised today, the name of Jesus Christ is still used as a swear word across the globe, 2000 years later.

          But the coming of Jesus Christ into the world all those years ago is still celebrated all these years later, and will continue to be long after Baumgartner’s achievement is forgotten.  All across the world are men and women who have found salvation and eternal life through this Jesus.  His death on the cross means their sins are forgiven and, though sinners, they can be accepted by God.  That can be true for you too, this Christmas, if you will believe in Him!