Transcendent Father, unseen God,
You longed for us to know You.
You let us touch You with our senses
in creation and
at Mt. Sinai,
through the tabernacle and
through Your prophets.
But all the while You promised to share Yourself fully through
a person who was to come,
a man filled with Your own Spirit.
This specially Anointed One, this Messiah, would
live among us and
rule over us.
His Kingdom would extend
through every nation and
through all time.
He would bring all the blessings You had ever promised.

As the centuries passed, Your promises of this Messiah became
increasingly detailed and vivid.
We longed for His coming.

But when He arrived, we didn’t recognize Him.
He was not what we expected.
You are Almighty God, and
Messiah was to be Your full revelation of Yourself.
We expected Him to be
a commanding leader,
a powerful warrior,
an unstoppable conqueror.
We thought He would be like a roaring lion that
no one would dare challenge.
We thought He would be fearfully holy and
bring fiery judgment to all the wicked.

But instead, He arrived as the weakest and lowliest of all human creatures –
a helpless infant born of
an unmarried peasant girl.
He wasn’t a king – not what we considered a king.
There wasn’t anything regal about Him.
He was a rural laborer with an accent to match.
He wasn’t a mighty warrior.
He was a gentle healer,
a teacher with little formal education.
He didn’t live in a palace.
He was a homeless wanderer.
His holiness wasn’t fearful or awe-inspiring.
He befriended sinners, whom respectable people avoided.
He socialized with them and received them warmly.
The only people He condemned were
the ones we considered the most religious.
He scolded them for their pride and hypocrisy.

This Messiah didn’t prowl and roar like a lion.
In the end, He died like a lamb,
meek,
silent, and
defenseless.

He gave us a living picture of You,
but You were not who we expected.
We expected to experience Your
fiery,
ferocious,
all-conquering power.
Instead, we experienced Your
fiery,
ferocious,
all-conquering love.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: All-conquering Love
Recording
Printed Music & Lyrics