The surprises that Jesus brings

No one with the wildest imagination could have conceived the idea of God entering into our world as one of us, starting from a woman's womb.  The Jews had been anticipating the Messiah, but they were expecting someone with sweeping power that would overcome the Romans for their race.  They didn't expect the Messiah that came.  We all have ideas of what God should be like and what He should do in our world.

Then came Jesus, with meekness and humility and determination to sacrificially die.  His teaching turned our heads up-side-down again and again.  For example, he says that in his kingdom, the last will be the first (Matthew 20:16), the least will be the greatest (Luke 9:48), love your enemy (Matthew 5:44), embrace servanthood (John 13:14), sacrifice for others (John 15:13).  All of these things go against our natural inclinations and oppose conventional values.  Then Jesus lived out all that He preached.

We can accept these confounding principles from Jesus and ask for his help to conform our lives to these.  Or we can insist on our own idea of what God should be.  Though Jesus rose again from death suggests He knew what He was doing.