Something Fishy 

            I should have been ashamed of myself for waiting so long.  I knew it would only get worse as time went by, but it was such a nasty and disgusting job that I just kept putting it off.  However, when it became so murky in there that it was hard to tell if the fish were dead or alive, I knew something had to be done.  The goldfish bowl had to be emptied and cleaned.  Yuck!  The awful truth was this: That fish bowl had become so revolting it turned my stomach to look at it much less to think about putting my hand in there. 

            While watching the poor fish swim in their filth a strange thought popped into my mind, “What if I had to become a fish and swim around in there in order to clean it up?” Double yuck!!  (I’m afraid that would be going too far and it would just have to stay dirty.) 

            Then God reminded me of something.

            “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags...” ~ Isaiah 64:6

            If all the righteous acts of everyone in the whole entire world are filthy rags, how much more disgusting and wretched must the sin of the world be in God’s eyes?  In reality we were living in a vile “fishbowl”, swimming around in the filth of sin when God looked down and saw our depraved condition.  Instead of cringing at the sight and turning His back, He thought of a plan to rescue us from the dirt of our own making.  It required drastic measures.

          “In the beginning was the Word (Jesus), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God....The Word became flesh     and made his dwelling among us..”  ~ John 1:1 & 14a

          “And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross!”     

~ Philippians 2:8

            Jesus lived with us in the fish bowl of our sin, yet He was without sin.  He experienced the suffering of humanity first hand. God didn’t just reach His hand out to clean us up on the outside, He became one of us to show us how to live and clean us up on the inside.  How great is God’s love for us!!

            We celebrate that day.  The day God left the splendor of heaven to live with man. We call it Christmas.

            The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and         they will call him Immanuel - which means, “God with us.“

~ Matthew 1:23