“How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given! So God imparts to human hearts the wonders of His heaven. No ear may hear His coming, but in this world of sin, where meek souls will receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in.” Phillips Brooks, “O Little Town of Bethlehem”
If you had been the author of the Christmas story, how would you have composed it? If the Son of God were to enter earth in a manner suitable to your imaginations, would you have chosen such a quiet entry as is depicted in the pages of Holy Scripture? Christ slipped into human existence silently, the “wondrous gift given” in a manner suitable to His humble mission. Certainly, the angelic hosts proclaimed His arrival, but their joyful proclamations ended as quickly and suddenly as they had begun, and their human audience was extremely limited. The overwhelming majority of the human race alive at the time heard no sound, saw no light, and stirred not a bit from sleep. Yes, though this manner of entry may have confounded our predictions had we lived before it happened, in retrospect it settles into our hearts as right, so perfectly right.
For in the same manner Christ enters the hearts of all who meekly and humbly bow under the weight of their sin and the greater weight of Christ’s glory. In this same quiet, invisible, unnoticed manner He entered your heart, if you know Him today as Savior. You remember that day, don’t you? You saw your need, you deep pressing need for a savior. You saw also the perfect glory of Christ, and of the salvation He won over sin by His death on the cross. You repented, you believed, and you received the promised entry of the same God, and in the same quiet manner. For Christ had said, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (John 14:23). God kept His promise to you, and He did it in the same manner as He first sent His Son to sleeping Bethlehem: quietly.
However, such a gift doesn’t stay quiet for long. Christ grew from infancy to receive a Kingdom that spans the universe. Like the mustard seed, like the tiny amount of yeast, what enters silently never stays silent but grows to consume everything. God is utterly consistent in His methods as He is in His character. Christ entered you silently and invisibly, but the fruit should by now be visible to the world around you.
"In this same quiet, invisible, unnoticed manner He entered your heart, if you know Him today as Savior."
Many of God’s best gifts enter the receiver this same way. This Christmas take the time to still yourself before God with His Scriptures open before you. Take in pure Scriptural truth line by line and savor each phrase as a connoisseur of confections would let each morsel of fine chocolate melt one by one on his tongue. God’s truth will enter you silently and gradually conquer the parts of you that hold out in resistance to God’s rule. Christmas truth is unlimited in its scope and transforming power, but like the Christ, it tends to enter silently. Give it a chance.
