What Did You Expect?

My wife is very expressive. It is one of her great traits. I am not so expressive. It is one of my...traits. We tend to joke about this area from time to time because we are very different. Luckily, Oliver is more like his mommy in this area.

Since I tend to not be as expressive, I hate to open gifts in front of people. I love to receive them, but do not like to open them in front of people. The main reason is, I’ve been known to be very unexpressive when I open something that maybe wasn’t what I wanted or expected.

I can’t help but wonder if the people of Jesus’ day were much like I am about gifts? Their ancestors had passed down the prophecy to them. It was always a waiting game, “Could it be this year?” At the time of Jesus’ birth, they had experienced about 400 years of no contact from God. What we know as that time between the two Testaments. God had not sent prophets to shape up the people. So, very few even knew that the time of a Messiah being born was a possibility. Especially, those outside the Jewish faith.

However, once He did come on the scene, how many people thought, “This is it? A child born in Bethlehem? In a manger? From a peasant family?” Joseph wasn’t the Rockefeller of his day, nor was he the Heisman winner of past. He was from a common family. Mary, she was no princess, by heritage. She wasn’t a former Miss Israel. She, too, was common.

Jesus came in common form, to common folks, for a common purpose. He may not have come in a form that some people were expecting. They may have gruffed at the fact that He arrived the way He did, to whom He did. However, regardless, Jesus was the gift that we needed, even if it didn’t look like it in the beginning. Jesus was what they expected, just in a different look. May we praise God for the things that we’re given which we didn’t expect!