Just as soon as the Magi have left, Joseph has another dream where he is warned to take Jesus and Mary to Egypt, “For Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.”

And we are told, “This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt. I called my son’.” Hosea 11:1

In case you were tempted to think that the wise men had been late in missing the birth of Christ, it seems to-the-second that they show up and fund a very important trip to Egypt. Remember those expensive gifts? These would be the very things that Mary and Joseph would need in order to make a quick move to Egypt, particularly if you are poor.

God provides once again.

The first gifts of Christmas were magnificent, indeed! Considering that Mary and Joseph were poor since they didn’t even have a lamb to sacrifice at the time they brought Jesus to the temple, it would have been amazing to have seen this large caravan of revered Magi fall on their faces and present these treasures to the baby. I’m sure they had their neighborhood talking. But the gifts are significant.

Philippians 2:7-8  “But (Jesus)emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

Christmas looks forward to Easter. In Christmas we see God’s long awaited promise for the Savior’s coming. In Easter, our champion and perfect Savior says, “It is finished.” In Jesus’s resurrection we have assurance that God has accepted Christ’s sacrifice.  We have assurance that one day we, too, will be raised to new life if we have repented of our sins, put our trust in Jesus, and had the Holy Spirit change us.

In light of all we’ve learned, how might our holiday season look a little different this year?

How might you have greater rest, greater peace, and greater contentment than ever before?

Merry Christmas! May this holiday season make you more aware of God’s great love towards you!

I hope you have enjoyed this Christmas advent!

Yesterday, we reveled in the fact that God was sovereign over all the details of the Christmas story. The Magi got just where they needed to be at just the right time. It may seem strange to acknowledge, but the Magi had somewhere else they needed to be before they could find the christ-child.

The first place they were ordained to be was in Jerusalem at the palace of Herod. It may have seemed to the wise men that they were off-track somehow. I’m sure it was strange to them that Herod, being the king of the area, had no idea what they were talking about when they asked about Christ's birth.

Shouldn’t he know that such a great king had been born here in this area? How does he know nothing about him?

The Christmas story continues for we still have some wise men from the East to meet!

Some translations call them wise men, while others might call them Magi. In truth, we don’t know 100% where these men originated, their names, or even how many of them there were in number. We do know they came from the East. This is not a mere directional statement, but is more akin to how we might say in America that someone is from the “South", meaning they are from one of the southern 16 states that specifically bear that region's name. 

The term 'Magi' is more precise, it is a reference to a specific group of people. Magi were wise-men who were known as dream readers or scientists. They would have been learned astronomers. This is not to say that they would have been astronomers in today's secular sense of the term, for science and religion were not yet at odds until the late 19th century.

Luke 21 tells us that at the end of eight days Jesus was circumcised and given his name which followed Jewish tradition. It is likely that the couple stayed in Bethlehem where they were for the next 40 days as Mary would have been ritually unclean. The purification process was dependent on the gender of the child. If the child was of male gender, the mother was impure for seven days followed by 33 days of purification. If the child was a female, the mother was unclean for double the time(14 days with 66 days of purification.) 

It is important to note that the terms clean and unclean are not synonymous with sinless and sinful. Being clean or unclean was about one’s ability to enter into the temple. The temple was where God‘s presence once rested, it was to be treated with great respect, and there were rules as to who could enter and when. 

I told you that Easter and Christmas were inseparable and here again it’s hard to view one without the other.

These shepherds would have known the significance of this, but it’s hard to say if they could have made the connection.

Though we know John the Baptist most certainly did when he said, “Behold, the lamb who takes away the sins of the world.” John 1:29, 36

God provided a perfect passover lamb without blemish, His son, to pay for the penalty of our sin.

While the occupation of shepherd or shepherdess is seen many times in Israel’s history, Moses, David, Racheal, and Zipporah to name a few, it was considered to be at the very bottom of the social ladder.  Kind of like the sanitation workers of today, being a shepherd was seen as a dirty and smelly job. Shepherd were often seen as unclean and considered to be outcasts in many ways. So for God to go to those who were considered the least of all Israel and announce to them first the arrival of His son is amazing and beautiful. They, in their lowly state are invited to come and see the child on the very night of his birth,…not kings or princes, religious leaders, or the wealthy….shepherds.

Isn’t it wonderful that God’s invitation to know Him still goes out today to everyone who will listen, despite social standing, possessions, or rank. Friend, no matter who you are, you are loved.

Luke writes,” And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth, and she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him and swaddling clothes and laid him in a major because there was no place for them in the inn.” (Luke 2:6-7)

Inn here is the Greek work kataluma which means guest room. With the decree of Augustus, going to all of Israel that every family should register in their home town there would have been an influx of visitors. Bethlehem was not so large a large city to have need of many buildings that would qualify for our understanding of what an inn or motel would be today.  It is more likely that Joseph and Mary would rely on relatives that lived in the area to host them.

Luke 2 begins, “In those days. A decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. That was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria, and all went to be registered, each to his own town.” (Luke 2:1-3)

This is the second Caesar Augustus of Rome. In a twist of irony, the very census that is being used as a means for the Roman Empire to grow and advance its kingdom becomes the very thing that God uses to fulfill the prophecy that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem. This further validates God's Word and the godly kingdom that was to come through Jesus.

“What does it mean that God is WITH us?”

God is eternal, that is He has not beginning or end, has existed for eternity past and will exist for eternity future. Jesus is God’s son.  He is one of the God Head; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This means that Jesus also is eternal, and has always existed.

In fact Colossians 1:15-17, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

In Israel, a betrothal lasted as long as it took for the groom to fulfill his financial obligations to the father of the bride and to fulfill all the stipulations of the contract which could be very detailed. Sometimes families even specified what kind of celebration they expected during the wedding celebration. Which is one reason why it was such a disgraceful thing for the family to run out of wine at the wedding party as they did in Cana when Jesus did his first miracle. Depending on the agreed terms, this could take years, as it did with Racheal and Jacob(Genesis 29), or might even have been paid by the groom’s parents.  But for however long the engagement lasted, it was accepted as a necessary time to wait and test the character of the betrothed. The couple would be getting to know each other. A breach in one’s moral conduct at this stage would be seen as the proof of bad character and lack of self-control.

She still needs to have a very hard conversation with her betrothed.  I’m sure Joseph did not believe her story about the angel.  Who would? Perhaps he thought she was in love with another man? She had been visiting with family for three months and had come back pregnant. He could legally have her drug out into the street, publicly humiliated, and stoned to death, but the scriptures say, “He was unwilling to put her to shame, (and) resolved to divorce her quietly.” This would have dissolved the betrothal to him and possibly allowed her to marry whoever the real father of her child might be.

Marriages in Bible times were much more business than romance, something our modern sensibilities may not understand.

Mary visits with Elizabeth for 3 months. She is there for Elizabeth’s last trimester. By the end of this time, Mary, herself, would have been three months pregnant and may have started to show. She likely headed home before John’s birth because there would have been many visitors in the house in anticipation of the child and she still desperately needed to have a very important conversation with her fiancé.

So the time came for John the Baptist to be born. On the 8th day after his birth, came the time when all Jewish boys would be circumcised and named. The friends and family of Zechariah and Elizabeth gathered to celebrate and hear what the baby would be called.

In the Magnificat, Mary states her overwhelming joy and need to exalt God in praise- the God who she knows and trusts to save! She confirms the promise given to her. Mary is a young girl of little means and social standing but she has been given an unbelievable honor, one that will span cultures and generations of all mankind for, of ALL women, she is chosen to bear the Christ.

All of this causes her to cry out, “Holy is His name.” She talks about the great ability of God, His might and strength and power to humble those who are proud and mighty.  She acknowledges His ability to take the lowliest and most humble and elevate them to a place of status and honor.  No doubt she is thinking of herself, but she would also have in view what this means for all of Israel. For here she makes the connection to God’s great promise given to the father of their nation, Abraham.

At the very moment Elizabeth hears Mary’s voice, her baby who is John the Baptist leaps in her womb!   This is not a typical kick or roll but would have constituted something very unusual indeed. Here the baby John is worshiping and ‘dancing’ within her womb. The Holy Spirit has come upon both Elizabeth and her baby. Not only does the scripture state this directly but we see Elizabeth begin to talk about things she had not even been told about yet.  Imagine your cousin comes to visit you out of the blue and very unexpectedly.  You have been trying to process many things lately, pregnancy at your advanced age…your husband’s perplexing vision and inability to speak.  Elizabeth would have been used to him coming and going to serve in the temple for he was a priest. It is likely that at the point he can no longer speak they gave him some time off to recover or at least figure things out. 

How is this going to happen? We are told that God is going to do it, and because God was going to place His son in her womb “Therefore”, he says, the child would be holy.  The virgin birth is a miraculous part of the Christmas story but so little is really said about it I fear we might miss its importance.  In many ways, this part can be quickly ran over. We can be too subtle or cursory in our explanation  out of fear our children will ask MORE questions about what it means for Mary to be a virgin. There is a need to apply wisdom in this area, and engage in the right age-appropriate dialogue for the child and situation. However, don’t let your anxiety push you into missing an opportunity to understand and explain in greater detail our problem of sin.

Two miraculous pregnancies are part of the Christmas story, one with Elizabeth and the other with Mary. Zechariah questioned the more probable pregnancy(Elizabeth’s) which might be surprising given he was serving in the temple as a priest. He would have had the respect of others and be considered a wise and devout man. We are told that He and Elizabeth were righteous before God, so we can be sure he had lived a long, faithful life according to scripture. However, when it came time to believe the angels’ news we find him to be less trusting than Mary! Zechariah’s answer to the angel reads innocently enough, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man and my wife is advanced in years.” But there comes with it a lack of reverence. As a consequence, Gabriel tells Zechariah that he will be unable to speak,  “Until the day these things take place.”

The next woman mentioned is Ruth. Ruth was also graphed in. She was a Moabite woman who married one of the sons of Naomi.  She was a widow like Tamar, who also lost two sons before following her mother-in-law back to Israel. In Ruth’s famous words she tells Naomi, “Where you will go I will go, where you lodge I will lodge, your People shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried.”  ….

Essentially, may nothing but death part me from you.

Onto the “Begats”!  Begat means to bring something (or in this case someone) about. It means that when Abraham begat Isaac, that Isaac was the son, or offspring, of Abraham.  There is a long list (42 names) of who gave birth from Abraham to Jesus in Matthew chapter 1.  In fact, there are 3 larger groups; the first, Abraham to David, the second David to Josiah, and the third Jechoniah to Jesus.  This list is not meant to be an exhaustive list of all dependents but one we can follow through Israel’s history to indeed verify that Jesus was from the line of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David.  This is important to establish that Jesus is the Messiah since the one who comes must be able to show these lines if prophecy is to be fulfilled. For many years this list was precisely just that to me- a family tree.