The harder truth is that this was God becoming a man. I find it harder and harder sometimes to wrap my head around this truth. I held my new granddaughter for the first time this week. This little girl can only do three things - eat, poop, and wail. The Lord, creator of the universe was a helpless baby like that. God incarnate walks the earth for three years living penniless and homeless.
The cross takes that even a step further. God takes the abject punishment of a slave, naked and laid bare hoisted up on a tree. Mid-day as Jesus utters His last breath, there is some inkling that He spoke the truth. The sky becomes black and the earth shook and bodies rose out of the tomb. But there is still a body up on the cross. The body is laid in a tomb heavily guarded.
Then the resurrection testifies to the claim. Jesus appears to more than 500 witnesses, many of whom are alive at the time of the writing. Christianity is the only religion that is based on a historical event. That is the God of the universe took on human flesh for the sole purpose of dying an ignominious death to bear the personal punishment that our sins deserve. Thanks be to God for that gift.
