12/19/2023
We usually think of destinations as places of choice that are better than our current locations. If you want a vacation on the beach, you choose a place like Destin, Florida or Myrtle Beach, for they provide what your current location lacks. If you want to snow ski, you choose a destination like the Rocky Mountains, because it’s better than the current location of flat lands.
When Laura and I traveled over Thanksgiving to Malaysia to see our oldest son and his family, we chose Kuala Lumpur as our destination, because it offered what our current location is missing . . . our grandson.
To go from one place filled with wonderful resources and amenities to another place impoverished and broken is not what we call a destination vacation but a mission trip. We’re still going there on purpose, but it’s not a destination of delight but a destination of duty (that can bring about much delight).
I’ve been thinking about this regarding the season of “yuletide carols being sung by a choir and folks dressed up like Eskimos.” Christmas is about destination. Some people choose to have a Christmas destination away from home in order to be someplace that has what their current place does not. It may be the destination of extended family … or the destination of someplace away from extended family. Maybe it’s Christmas in the Bahamas or a Christmas cruise.
More central than our Christmas plans, however, is God's choice for His destination into humanity. God the Son chose to leave the riches of heaven and make earth His destination so that we could have the destination of heaven. As Paul David Tripp points out, “The Christmas story is a destination story” (Come Let Us Adore Him, 85).
Unlike most of our destinations, Jesus’s destination journey led Him away from that which is better to that which is broken. “Though he was rich, for your sake he became poor” (2 Corinthians 8:9, CSB).
Jesus’s destination journey was a mission and not a vacation. “And when he had come as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death—even to death on a cross” (Philippians 2:7b-8, CSB).
Jesus’s destination to earth grants us access to the destination of heaven. “He also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6, CSB).
Finally, Jesus’s destination through His Spirit gives us His presence which fills us with peace. “He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you…. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you” (John 14:17b, 18, 27a, ESV).
I pray this Christmas season fills you with gratitude for the God who journeyed to earth, who made us His destination, so that He could become ours. Our journey joins His at the crossroad of grace. For that, we rejoice with heart and soul and voice. “Jesus Christ was born for this! He hath ope’d the heav’nly door, and man is blessed evermore. Christ was born for this! Christ was born for this!” (Good Christian Men Rejoice, Heinrich Suso (ca. 1295-1366).
