A Ugly Duckling Christmas

Last night was our Young Adult Christmas Party at Calvary Church.
The name/theme of this years event was "An Ugly Duckling Christmas"

We started off at the church coffee shop with appetizers by a french chef
in our church. They were amazing!
Of course we had to have Duck (seriously, flown in from France), so we had
Duck pate followed up with croissant ham things, chips and dip, veggie platters,
quiche, mini sandwiches, apple and grape cider and for background music,
Sufjan Stevens Christmas album.

Then we headed to the Honda Center to watch the
Anaheim Ducks take on the New York Rangers in NHL Hockey.
The seats were the cheapest in the arena, in the upper deck,
so I don't think any of us ever saw the puck.
There was a good fight on the ice though!

After the game (Rangers won 3-1),
we all headed over to the
Ugly Mug Coffee Shop (this was the "Ugly" part of the night) in downtown Orange.
We rented out the coffee shop from 9pm to 11pm
and sat around drinking coffee, singing some Christmas Carols
and conducting a duck themed gift exchange (Under $5).

The spiritual tie in for the night was Isaiah 53 from the Old Testament.
This chapter describes the ultimate "ugly duckling"...

"He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not."

The ugly duckling described in the passage is the Messiah, who would come into our world some 1,000 years after this prophecy was recorded in Isaiah.
His name was Jesus.
Jesus was the ultimate "ugly duckling"
coming into our world as a man who had
"nothing in his appearance that we should desire Him."

Don't you think God would enter into our world in a more majestic way?
As a rich ruler.
As a handsome noble King.
As a political and military genius.

Jesus chose to enter into this world as none of these things.
Instead his life on earth began in a small, dark, smelly cave/manager,
and continued in a sleepy, forgotten county of Nazereth
and flourished as a man who had nothing in his outward appearance
that would draw any of us to Him.

What humility.
What sacrifice.
What a Savior!