Christmas Blessings from Unexpected Sources--Luke 2:22-38

            Our news outlets are all abuzz these days with stories about who the President-elect is appointing for various government positions. Everyone is asking, “Who does he want by his side? Who is he selecting to help him carry out his plans? Who does he believe he can trust?”

            As people who desire to serve God and do his will, we would do well to ask the same kind of questions about him. Who does he know he can trust? What kind of people does he select to help him carry out his plans? If we want to be used by him, what kind of people should we be?

            We’re going to answer those questions today by looking at a couple of lesser-known characters in the Christmas story – a godly man named Simeon, and a devoted prophetess named Anna. These believers make only a brief appearance on stage in the Christmas story, but even that brief appearance is enough to illustrate for us what kind of person God delights to use to do his will.

We find their story in Luke 2:22-38. Before we jump right into that text, let me put these stories into context for you by pointing out two striking features of the first two chapters of Luke’s Gospel.

Two Striking Features of Luke 1-2

            The first striking feature of these chapters is that God is communicating. Now you might think, “What’s so striking or unusual about that?” It’s striking because of the historical timeframe of these events in Luke 1-2.

            These events mark the end of a 400-year span of time that is known as “The Silent Period,” because during that time, God had not been giving any new communication to mankind. Many people don’t realize this, but 400 years elapsed between the time of Malachi (the last prophet of the Old Testament) and the birth of Jesus. During those years, God had not sent any more prophets to the people of Israel – as even the Jewish people acknowledged in their own historical documents!

            So for all of those years, there had been no new communication or revelation from God. Then all of a sudden, there was a great burst of communication from God to his people, as we read about in these chapters. We read about three angelic visitations to various people, and we read about several people being moved by the Holy Spirit to make prophetic statements. So out of silence, there is all of a sudden a great burst of communication.

            The second striking feature about these chapters is that God is communicating through and to people whom their society would not have expected to hear from God. Every character we meet in these chapters was one or two steps down the social ladder of their time. Whether it was their age, their income level, their occupation, their marital status, or a physical defect, every one of them had some factor in their lives that would have placed them in a lower social standing in the eyes of other people.

            Yet here they are, hearing from God and being called to play important roles in the fulfillment of God’s plan. What was it about these people that caught the attention of God? Why were they entrusted with the parts that they played?

            The common denominator that unites all of these characters is obedience to the commands of God. Even though their obedience may have been imperfect – as in the case of Zechariah, who doubted the words of the angel – it was nevertheless genuine and from the heart. So we learn, then, that it is obedience that God looks for when he selects those whom he will use to carry out his plans. We see this obedience exemplified clearly in the lives of Simeon and Anna, so let’s take a look now at their stories.

The Story of Simeon

            Speaking of obedience, the stories of Simeon and Anna come about because of the obedience of Jesus’ parents, Joseph and Mary. They crossed paths with Simeon and Anna when they obediently went to the Temple to carry out everything that the Law of Moses called them to do. Let’s read about this [READ 2:22-24].

            Let’s briefly make sure we understand these details of the Old Testament Law. When a child was born in a Jewish family, the parents were to appear at the Temple after a certain period of time to offer sacrifices to the Lord. The Law called for them to offer a lamb and a pigeon or a dove. If they were poor, however, they could offer two birds instead of one bird and a lamb. We can see in verse 24, then, that Joseph and Mary were giving the offering that was allowed for poorer folks.

            Now if the child was a firstborn son, a special financial offering was also supposed to be given. Firstborn sons had been given a special place in Israel ever since God used the deaths of the firstborn sons of Egypt to free the children of Israel from slavery.

            So Joseph and Mary had come to the Temple to comply with everything that the Law of the Lord had called them to do. Their obedience brought them into contact with a godly man named Simeon [READ vv. 25-26].

            Let’s make sure we don’t overlook this token of kindness from the Lord. God did not have to make any promise like this to Simeon. His plans could’ve rolled along just fine whether Simeon was alive to see any of it or not. But God kindly blessed Simeon with the opportunity to see the beginning of the salvation that Simeon had desired to see for so long.

            Simeon responded by praising the Lord and giving testimony about God’s promise [READ vv. 27-32]. Those final statements reveal that Simeon truly did know God well. He understood something that many of his countrymen struggled to understand – that the coming of God’s chosen one, the Messiah, was not just a gift for the Jewish people but for the entire world. Simeon knew that even the Gentiles were loved by God, so they too stood to benefit from the coming of Jesus.

            But this was not all that Simeon had to say, and his next words would take on a rather somber tone [READ vv. 33-35]. Wow – those are some heavy words to hear, aren’t they? No wonder we don’t find these words of Simeon on the front of Hallmark cards around this time of year!

            Yet perhaps we should remind ourselves of these words around Christmas, and perhaps we should encourage others to take heed of them as well. During the Christmas season, we tend to emphasize nothing but happiness, nothing but joy. But the Christmas narratives in the Bible are not so exclusive. The Bible will not let us forget for a moment that the blessed baby of Bethlehem is also the crucified Christ of Calvary.

            Jesus did not come into this world just so we could have a holiday about a cute baby. He came so that the thoughts of the hearts of mankind might be revealed. It is a very humbling thing to have the true nature of your heart revealed, and so naturally, we are going to respond one of two ways to this – we will either trust Jesus and embrace him to save us from the sinfulness of our hearts, or we will reject him and oppose what his teachings reveal about us.

            That is what Simeon meant by “the fall and rising of many in Israel.” For some people, Jesus has become the cause of stumbling and a fall into the disaster of rejecting God. For others, he is the one and only reason that we have arisen from underneath the burden of sin and stand confidently before the Lord today as his forgiven children.

            This is the message that we must proclaim all throughout the year – Christmastime included! The Holy Spirit knew exactly what he was doing to move Simeon to speak those words at that time, and he has preserved them for us in precisely this place so that we will know from the very beginning of Jesus’ story that we must make a choice of how we will respond to him.

Simeon responded with praise, because he was a man who was already obedient to God. Anna was just the same, so let’s read about her response now.

The Story of Anna

            [READ vv. 36-37]. These details highlight just how devoted Anna truly was. She had made a decision early in her life to devote herself to worship, fasting, prayer, and undoubtedly serving others as well.

            She was widowed from a very young age. Luke tells us that she had lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin. Jewish girls at that time typically got married when they were around 13 years old, so we can guess that Anna was around 20 when she became a widow.

            What a difficult thing to deal with so early in life! Anna could’ve chosen to get remarried and there would’ve been nothing wrong with that choice at all. But instead, she decided to devote herself to worshiping God, and she invested her life and that purpose for 64 years.

            You can imagine her joy, then, when she learned that the Savior had been born. Let’s see how she responds [READ v. 38]. Anna the prophetess became one of the first evangelists, we might say. And notice who she spoke to – “all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.”

            That phrase highlights an important principle for how to be the kind of person whom God uses to carry out his plans. How do we follow in the footsteps of such faithful people as Simeon and Anna? Where did they find the spiritual strength to be righteous and devout, and to serve the Lord with such devotion for decades on end?

            We find that the key lies in eagerly anticipating the fulfillment of God’s plans. Notice how verse 25 said of Simeon that he was, “waiting for the consolation of Israel.” And in verse 38, we read that Anna was among those who were, “waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.” Those phrases both refer to the plans that God had revealed in the Old Testament. Simeon and Anna believed the word of God, and they knew that if God said something was going to happen, it was as good as done! So in that confidence, they anxiously prepared themselves to be ready for the fulfillment of God’s plans.

            That’s the kind of active response that Luke has in mind when he says that these two godly saints were “waiting.” This is not the kind of waiting we do when we are on hold on the telephone with the insurance company – where impatience builds with every moment and our attitude sours and we begin to lose confidence that someone is ever going to pick up.

            No, we’re talking about the kind of waiting that children do on Christmas morning when grandma and grandpa are coming over with presents. This is “standing by the window” kind of waiting; this is “so anxious I can barely stand it” kind of waiting. This is when we are so confident that God will fulfill his promises that we shape our lives to make sure we are ready when that day comes so we don’t miss out on the tiniest blessing that we otherwise could have had if we had been ready.

            That is the kind of waiting that can sustain us until the day comes when God fulfills his promises. It’s the kind of waiting that the prophet Isaiah referred to when he wrote, “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint (Isaiah 40:28-31).”

            If the holiday of Christmas teaches us anything at all, it teaches us that God keeps his word! He said he would send a savior, and he did. He also has said that Jesus will come again to this world, and so he will. So we must ask ourselves, “Am I ready?” We prepare ourselves for that day by embracing Jesus as our Savior from sin by faith, and then as God’s adopted children, we live in obedience to his commands so that we will be fully prepared for Christ’s return, without any reason for shame and anxiously awaiting his kind rewards and the blessing of living with him.

God Has Remembered!--Christmas 2012 First-Person Sermon

(Note: this sermon is a first-person sermon in which I speak as if I am the character from the Biblical story. In this sermon, I spoke as Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist).

            Baruch Adonai Elohe Yisrael! Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for allowing me to be with you today. My name is Zechariah, which means “God has remembered.” What an appropriate message for the story of my life! Many of you probably don’t know me very well, but you probably know my son John, who became known as John the Baptist because of his ministry. I am so proud of my boy, and I am honored that God chose to preserve the story of his birth in Luke 1. More than anything, that story is a testimony to the faithfulness of God, which teaches us that He will always keep His promises. That is the lesson that I hope you will take with you today.

            As Luke records in his Gospel, my story took place during the days that King Herod reigned over Judea. Our nation was part of the Roman Empire at that time, but with such a vast territory, the emperor needed people to govern for him, so he placed Herod over the land of Israel and gave him the honorary title of “king.” In your language today, you might say that we had a love/hate relationship with Herod. He made some extensive renovations to enhance the beauty of the Temple in Jerusalem. As a priest, I was very happy to see the Temple maintained, but Herod only did these things to take attention away from his atrocities. He was a blood-thirsty man, and if even his own wives or children appeared to be a threat to his power, he did not hesitate to have them executed. It was said at that time that it was better to be Herod’s pig than Herod’s son!

            With such a man in power, you can imagine that we were dying to hear something—anything—from the Lord just to know that He hadn’t forgotten about us. He had not spoken to us for 400 years, since the time of the prophet Malachi. Now, He had clearly been at work to preserve our nation because He did some miraculous things for us during those 400 years. In fact, those events are what Jewish people today celebrate during the holiday of Hanukkah. But we wanted to hear from Him as in the days of old to have that personal contact with Him again. Little did I know that God was planning to speak to us again, and He was planning to start the conversation with me!

            Now, I am rather embarrassed to repeat this, but Luke records that my wife Elizabeth and I “were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statues of the Lord (Luke 1:6).” Please don’t get the idea that we were perfect, because we were far from it. We were simply careful to follow God’s commands, and when we failed, we were careful to make amends as the Law of Moses called us to do. We just loved God for all that He had done for our people and for the promises He had made about things that were still to come.

            We did carry a tremendous sorrow in our hearts, however, because God had never blessed us with a child, and at the time that Luke picks up our story, we were well beyond our child-bearing years. If our barrenness wasn’t bad enough by itself, we also had to deal with the attitudes of our friends and family. Since the Scriptures said that children were a gift from God, our people reasoned that if you had no children, then God must have been punishing you for something. We should have known better from the stories of Abraham and Sarah and Samuel’s mother, Hannah. They were all godly people who were childless for a long time, so we should have known better, but you know how a mindset can become entrenched once it takes root in a culture. It was devastating to deal with other people’s assumptions that we were hiding some kind of terrible sin because we had no children.

            That was the greatest sorrow of my life, but the greatest honor of my life was serving as a priest in God’s Temple. At that time, there were far more priests than were needed in the Temple on a daily basis, so apart from the major festivals like Passover when we were all on duty, we were on a rotation to work in the Temple for two weeks each year. Even with that schedule, there were still more of us on hand than were absolutely necessary, so for some of the tasks that we all wanted to perform, we would decide who got to do them by casting lots, which would be like rolling a pair of dice, or what you do today when you flip a coin or draw straws.

            One of the tasks which every priest longed to perform was entering the Temple to burn incense at the time of the regular morning and evening sacrifices, and on one of the days of my rotation, I was chosen for this task! I could hardly believe it when my name was called. This was literally a once-in-a-lifetime honor for a priest, and now my day had come! I was so excited I could hardly remember the prayer I was supposed to recite in the Temple, so started to rehearse it in my mind. Some of the other priests helped me prepare the spices and put on the proper clothing, and before I knew it, I was opening the door to enter the House of God!

            Normally, this process did not take long. The priest would stoke the fire that was burning under the altar of incense, and then he would cast the spices onto the altar and come back out to speak a blessing over the people who were gathered outside to pray. But in God’s plan, this day would not be an ordinary day.

            I knew I shouldn’t delay once I entered the Temple, but I almost couldn’t help myself. I wanted to take in all the sights of this place where few people would ever set foot, but I did my best to stay focused on the task. As I walked toward the altar, I was looking down at my feet so I wouldn’t trip and drop the spices, so you can imagine my shock when I came to the altar and looked up, and there, just beside the altar, was a magnificent being clothed in white, looking at me. I was so startled I almost dropped the spices after all of my careful walking!

            A dozen thoughts ran through my mind before this man spoke. Who was this? I knew instantly that he was no mere man, but I had never heard other priests speak of angelic visitors in the Temple. More than anything I was just frightened. Perhaps God really was displeased with me for some reason, and He had sent an angel to do something about it.

            But then he spoke to me and said, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John.” Now, if you had asked me to guess what an angel might say to me, that would not have been on my list! He said my prayer had been heard and my wife would have a son, but I must confess, I hadn’t prayed that prayer in a long time. Years had passed since we last prayed for a child, but God had heard that prayer, and now, in His perfect time, He was granting us what we had asked.

            But then, the angel went on to tell me that my child would have a very special role to play in God’s plan. He said John would be great before the Lord, and would be filled with the Holy Spirit even while he was still in the womb! And he would go before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah to prepare people for the Messiah’s arrival. Those were words from the prophet Malachi! The last promise God made to us before 400 years of silence was that He would send Elijah to us to prepare us for the Lord’s coming, and now the angel was telling me that in some way, my son would fulfill that prophecy.

            I could hardly believe what I was hearing, and I hate to say it, but I didn’t believe what I was hearing. How could Elizabeth and I have a son? We were too old; it just seemed impossible. I hope you will not judge me too harshly for my lack of faith, and most of all I hope you will not follow my example and doubt what the Lord has said. I would be happy if my story inspires greater faith in you, even if that means my error will be told over and over.

            After I expressed my doubt, the angel identified himself as Gabriel, the messenger of God. I remembered him from the book of Daniel, and already I began to realize the error of my ways. I had asked for a sign to prove the angel’s word, and I got one alright! He told me I would unable to speak until the day that his message began to come true, and from that moment I lost my ability to speak.

            By that time, I had already been in the Temple longer than normal, which created a stir among the people outside, so imagine their surprise when I came out and couldn’t tell them what took me so long! After numerous attempts at making signs, they finally figured out that something miraculous had happened (I always could imitate wings pretty well, so I think that finally tipped them off that I saw an angel!). It wasn’t until I finally got my hands on a writing tablet that I could explain things in detail.

            Well, since you’ve probably heard of my son, John, you know that everything played out just like the angel said it would. Elizabeth became pregnant, and during her pregnancy we received a visit from her young cousin Mary, who told us about her own miraculous conception. How incredible it was that God had chosen our family to bear not only the Messiah’s forerunner, but the Messiah himself! We were not an important family. We had no wealth, no power. My wife and I had the stigma of being childless, and Mary’s family was from Nazareth in Galilee. I think your term for them today would be “hillbillies.” Yet God chose us for such a special honor. It just goes to show you that God doesn’t look at people through the same kind of prejudice that we are tempted to use.

            When our son was born, we named him John, as the angel had instructed me. With that step of obedience, I regained my ability to speak, and all of our neighbors were amazed by everything that was taking place. As Luke records, they all began to wonder, “What then will this child be?” And who should be empowered to speak up and answer their question but me—the one who had been unable to speak for so long! The Holy Spirit filled me, and allowed me to give God’s commentary on the situation.

            It was only proper to begin with a statement of praise to God, so I said, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David.” The Old Testament prophets just loved that image of a horn, because for animals who had them, horns were the means of victory over enemies. In the Messiah, this is exactly what God would provide for us. And the Lord was doing this work through a descendent of David, just as He had said.

            The Lord was being true to His word, so I continued: “as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us; to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant.” The Lord gave me just the right words, and how I smiled at that word “remember.” That was the meaning of my name, and every time my name was spoken, it was a proclamation that God remembers! He remembers His holy covenant, or His promises to His people.

            And where did His covenant begin? With “the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.” God’s promises to my people began with our ancestor Abraham. He promised Abraham a whole nation of descendants, and He told him that his descendants would be enslaved, but that He would save them. My people had to endure 400 years of slavery before they were delivered, but God remembered His promise.

            Later, He told David that one of his descendants would be the Messiah, but we had to wait 1,000 years before Jesus was born. And remember, when Gabriel spoke to me, his message ended a period of 400 years of silence from God. It is so easy to think that God forgets because He doesn’t work by our timetable, but my name—my very life—is a testimony that God remembers His promises, and He will not fail to fulfill them.

            Finally, the Lord moved me to speak about what my child would become: “and you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways.” I remember thinking about the verse from Isaiah 40 that my son would claim for his own: “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord!’” And here is why he would do it: “to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins.” Everyone who knew the Old Testament understood that our greatest need was to be forgiven of our sins. My people had no enemies but those who were allowed to trouble us because of our own sins against the Lord. That’s why God empowered the Amalekites and the Philistines and the Edomites and the Egyptians and the Assyrians and the Babylonians and the Persians and the Greeks and now the Romans. Above all else we needed a final sacrifice, one which could wipe our slate clean before the Lord forever, and we knew that somehow the Messiah would provide it.

            This salvation would come “because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” How lost we were—like travelers wandering in the dark! But the Messiah would bring light to show us the way, to lead us safely through the valley of the shadow of death.

            How I wish I could have seen more of His earthly life with my own eyes, but I passed away before His ministry began. But I know what He did because I’ve seen Him in heaven. He is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! He provided the final sacrifice for sin through His death on the cross, and He rose from the grave to display His victory over sin, to provide forgiveness for all who will acknowledge their sinfulness to God and accept the payment that Jesus has provided.

            I know that as I speak to you today, the world has been waiting almost 2,000 years for Jesus to fulfill His promise to return. But let my story remind you that God remembers! He is not forgetful; He does not drag His feet. He is patient with us to give us time to repent. Do not doubt the Lord’s Word; just think of my name and be reminded that God has remembered!

God Sure Works in Funny Ways Sometimes!--Christmas message

(This sermon is a first-person sermon that I preached for Christmas. A first-person sermon is a sermon in which the preacher speaks from the viewpoint of one of the characters in the story. In this sermon, I was speaking as one of the shepherds in Luke 2:1-20).

Good morning to all of you! I’m so excited to be here with you at Christmastime to have the opportunity to tell you about what I experienced back on that first Christmas day. I know that many of you have probably heard about my story before from reading it in the Bible, but hopefully I can help you understand what took place just a little better.

I always enjoy every opportunity that I get to think back on the events of that day. The whole story is so extraordinary, I’m not sure I would have believed it if I hadn’t been part of it. God sure works in funny ways sometimes!

Let me get right down to the events of that Christmas night. My relatives and I were pasturing our flocks out in the fields surrounding Bethlehem. I did a little research on your area before I came today and I discovered that Bethlehem at that time was about the size of a town east of here called Pratt. Its claim to fame was that it was the hometown of King David, and that connection certainly played into the events of that first Christmas.

The whole area was chaotic on that day because of all the people who had travelled to Bethlehem to register for the Roman census. Most of my people resented Rome and its census, and especially the taxes that went along with all of it. We had a rather uneasy peace with Rome at that time. They had controlled our land for several decades, but they did keep things peaceful in our area, and they let us practice our own religion. Their puppet-king, Herod, even made some beautiful renovations to our Temple in Jerusalem. That was all better treatment than my people had received under the Greeks, but we still longed for our freedom.

Anyway, on that first Christmas there were probably three times as many people as normal in Bethlehem, and we had heard from some travelers that all of the inns in town were full. People were getting shelter anywhere they could find it. It was quite a scene, but for us shepherds, it was a fairly ordinary day. We were settling down for the night, and we certainly didn’t expect any excitement. Shepherding was usually a fairly boring job. Just imagine if you never built fences for your cattle, and instead you had to sit in the field all day and make sure none of them wandered off! The hours passed by pretty slowly at times, so many of us played music to pass the time. Many of us had a flute, or even a lyre, which was a small, stringed instrument. I like to think that I could have played the flute for any king west of the Euphrates—not that a shepherd like me would ever get to meet a king!

That night we were taking turns on watch through the night hours, and during my watch, there was a moment all of a sudden where I was surrounded by a brilliant light. It was like the sun had risen in the middle of the night, and in the same instant I saw a being in front of me. I had never seen an angel before, but I had heard the descriptions of them from the holy men in the Scriptures, so I knew this had to be one of the Lord’s messengers. My relatives had woken up from the light, and we were all terrified! What did this angel want with us?

But quickly after he appeared, the angel spoke to us and said, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people.” He had come in peace, and he had come to speak to us with a message of great joy for our people! But why hadn’t God sent him to the Pharisees or the Sanhedrin? Why was this angel here to talk to a bunch of shepherds?

You see, people didn’t have a very high opinion of us at that time. We took great pride in our work, but honestly it didn’t take extraordinary skill. You didn’t need much education or training to be a shepherd, so people weren’t exactly impressed with us. Oftentimes, people would give their children the job of watching the sheep. You might remember that King David was the youngest of all his brothers, and what job did they tell him to do? Watch the sheep! It was a job given to those who weren’t thought to be capable of much else.

Not only that, but the religious leaders like the Pharisees really didn’t think much of us because we couldn’t follow all of the traditions that they said were necessary for obeying the Law of Moses. How could we carefully wash our hands before eating while we were out in the field? How could we avoid diseased things when we had to care for our sick animals? We couldn’t follow their traditions, so they declared us “unclean” and wouldn’t let us participate in worship at the Temple.

I guess they had forgotten that some of the greatest heroes of our nation were shepherds! I already mentioned King David, and there was Moses, too! He was a shepherd when God called him to return to Egypt. The prophet Amos was a shepherd, too. Not only that, but the Lord in the Scriptures called Himself a shepherd for His people!

But none of that mattered—people still didn’t think very highly of us, but that was okay. Still though, I can’t figure out why God would send His angel to announce this news to us! We were pretty insignificant in society. God sure works in funny ways sometimes! I guess it all reminds me of what our brother Paul wrote in his letter to our brothers and sisters in Corinth: “For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God (1 Corinthians 1:26-29 ESV).”

The fact that the angel came to talk to us was pretty amazing, but what he said next was even more incredible! After he greeted us, he said, “today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Messiah the Lord.” The Messiah had been born! God had promised for so long to send Him to us, and now He was here! God had spoken of Him so many times through the holy men of old. Many years before, our father Jacob had said to his son Judah, “The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs; the nations will obey him (Genesis 49:10 NET).” And then God spoke to King David through the prophet Nathan and said, “When your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever (2 Samuel 7:12–13 NASB).” And then Isaiah the prophet said, “a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, On the throne of David and over his kingdom, To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness From then on and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish this (Isaiah 9:6-7 NASB).” And then the prophet Zechariah spoke of a time of trouble for Jerusalem, but he said “In that day [the Lord’s] feet will stand on the Mount of Olives…and the Lord, my God, will come, and all the holy ones with Him…and the Lord will be king over all the earth; in that day that Lord will be the only one, and His name the only one (Zechariah 14:4a, 5b, 9 NASB).”

We had been waiting so long for God’s chosen One, the Messiah, to come, and now, the angel said, he had been born! And then the angel said, “This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a feeding trough.” Yes, yes, okay—so first we find this baby in a feeding trough, and then where do we find the Messiah? But then it dawned on me—the baby in the feeding trough IS the Messiah!!! Wow! God sure works in funny ways sometimes!

What is the Messiah doing lying in a feeding trough? He is to be the king over all nations, and is this how He is born into the world? I’ll bet King Herod was wrapped in Egyptian cotton when he was born, but a manger, for the MESSIAH!? And what kind of family was he born into? They didn’t even have enough money to pay someone to open their home to a pregnant woman!? I know there were a lot of travelers in town, but a little bit of money will open some space pretty quickly! I guess what our brother Paul wrote to the Corinthians really was true: “you know the grace of our Lord Jesus the Messiah, that though he was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9 NASB).”

And how is it that we should see the Messiah as a little baby? We knew from the Scriptures that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2), but none of us expected to see Him as a little baby! Our rabbis told us that no one would know who He was until He burst onto the scene as a victorious conqueror. We were told that He would live in hiding until He was ready to reveal Himself, and then on one glorious day, He would reveal Himself with miracles and defeat all of our enemies with one fell swoop, and then set up His kingdom. How was it, then, that we could see Him as a little baby and meet His family? This really confused some of my people later on, after Jesus began to preach. They said of Him, “we know where this man is from; but whenever the Messiah may come, no one knows where He is from (John 7:27 NASB).” At least, that’s the way that people expected it to happen.

Well, it didn’t take us long to decide to go and see this Child. We made our way quickly to Bethlehem and checked the stables until we found this young couple with their baby swaddled and lying in a feeding trough. What a surprise that was! There was certainly nothing royal about this family, nothing stately or majestic. They were just a travel-weary young couple trying to make do with a new baby in a barn! God sure works in funny ways sometimes!

And the Child! There was nothing different about Him. I don’t know what I expected, but I guess I just thought He might be different somehow. But we knew all that the angel had told us, and we believed it. There was a small crowd that had gathered there, and we told them everything that the angels had told us. They were all very excited, but the boy’s mother just remained kind of quiet. She seemed to be glad that we had come, but you could tell she was just thinking about all of this. What a thing to wrap your mind around—that your child was the Messiah!

We stayed as long as we could, but we did have to get back to our sheep, so after a little while we went back to the field, but as you can imagine we didn’t get much sleep that night. We kept talking about all of these things and praising God for everything that He had allowed us to see and hear. I think the feelings of everyone involved with that first Christmas were summed up well by the Child’s relative, Zacharias, when he said through the Holy Spirit: “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, For He has visited us and accomplished redemption for His people, And has raised up a horn of salvation for us In the house of David His servant--As He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old--Salvation FROM OUR ENEMIES, And FROM THE HAND OF ALL WHO HATE US; To show mercy toward our fathers, And to remember His holy covenant, The oath which He swore to Abraham our father, To grant us that we, being rescued from the hand of our enemies, Might serve Him without fear, In holiness and righteousness before Him all our days. [He will] give to His people the knowledge of salvation By the forgiveness of their sins, Because of the tender mercy of our God, With which the Sunrise from on high will visit us, TO SHINE UPON THOSE WHO SIT IN DARKNESS AND THE SHADOW OF DEATH, To guide our feet into the way of peace (Luke 1:68-79 NASB).”

Every time I think about that first Christmas, the thought that comes to my mind is this—God kept His promise! He sure worked in some funny ways, but He did what He said He would do. That’s the lesson that I will always take away from Christmas.