By Becky Ahlberg
Thursday, December 10
Today brings another atypical Christmas passage, 2 Corinthians 4:7-9, 16-18. This “jars of clay” passage is one of my favorites for lots of reasons, but maybe never more so than today as I ponder a new thought: Jesus chose to become a jar of clay himself! Fully man, fully God. Now that is a treasure in a jar of clay!
What could illustrate the fragility of the life Jesus embarked upon more poignantly than a newborn baby? What life on earth ever embodied the images in this passage more than Jesus? “Pressed . . . but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed” (vv. 8, 9). What an apt description of the incarnation for Jesus. Despite the fragility of the human experience, he conquered death.
But jump down to verse 16, “Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.” Without discounting the challenges you face every day, can you let the story of Christmas, the reality of the incarnation, help you put them in the “light and momentary troubles” (v. 17) category that an eternal perspective can bring? That is the essence of hope.
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