Daily Archives: September 23, 2013

Just An Ordinary Kid?

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JUST AN ORDINARY KID? 

“About that time Caesar Augustus ordered a census to be taken throughout the Empire. This was the first census when Quirinius was governor of Syria. Everyone had to travel to his own ancestral home town to be accounted for. So Joseph went from the Galilean town of Nazareth up to Bethlehem in Judah, David’s town, for the census. As a descendant of David, he had to go there. He went with Mary, his fiancée, who was pregnant.

“While they were there, the time came for her to give birth. She gave birth to a son, her firstborn. She wrapped Him in a blanket and laid Him in a manger because there was no room in the hostel.” Luke 2:1-7 (The Message).

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? A young man and his pregnant fiancée! It could be the story of any young couple in today’s world of free sex and blurred morality, in fact, very little morality when you come to think of it. Anyone reading this story for the first time would think that this is a story about our times.

However, Luke has already made it quite clear that Mary’s pregnancy was not the result of a one night stand or a young couple who couldn’t wait. She was a highly favoured teenage girl whom God chose to be the earthly mother of His Son. The baby who was so soon to be born was no ordinary kid. Yes, He was an ordinary human being like you and me and yet His conception was the union of the human and the divine, God stepping down for a season to become one of us.

Because of a government decree, Joseph and Mary had to make the gruelling journey to Bethlehem to join the head count in their ancestral home town. Why then, of all times? Mary’s pregnancy was almost full term. How could she make the long trip before the baby came? There was no train or bus service and certainly no plane to make the flight in an hour or so. This was a long journey on the back of a donkey over rough terrain which would take many days.

But they had to go and they went.

To crown it all, every nook and cranny of the town was filled with visitors. Every house with a spare room was full. There were no luxury hotels to make the situation easier for them. They had to take what shelter they could get and make the best of it. The only space in the local hostel was the downstairs room where the cooking was done and where the animals were sheltered at night.

And then, on top of that, Mary went into labour! What did she think about all this? Didn’t God know that this was not the place for His Son to be born? After all, He was the Son of God. At least God could have arranged it that they have a place in someone’s home where there was female help for this young girl having her first baby.

But God knew exactly what He was doing. Centuries before, through the mouth of the prophet Micah, God promised a ruler who would come from Bethlehem. “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from old, from ancient times.” Micah 5:2 (NIV). But Mary and Joseph lived in Nazareth.

They would have to be moved from Nazareth to Bethlehem at the right moment for the child to be born there. How could they be forced to make the journey at such a crucial time? Only a government decree would motivate them to relocate to Bethlehem. And why in such a lowly place? It was God’s idea to stage His Son’s entry into the world in a place so humble that no one could ever think that they were excluded from His grace.

This is just like God, isn’t it? He didn’t only come to earth but He came to a scenario that was below the level of human beings so that He could lift us up. Even His death was the death of the lowest of the low. He could not go any lower.

And now, He cannot go any higher, because He is the highest of the high!

 

Heaven Invaded Earth!

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HEAVEN INVADED EARTH!

“There were sheepherders camping in the neighbourhood. They had set night watches over their sheep. Suddenly God’s angel stood among them and God’s glory blazed around them. They were terrified. The angel said, ‘Don’t be afraid. I’m here to announce a great and joyful event that is meant for everybody worldwide. A Saviour has just been born in David’s town, a Saviour who is Messiah and Master. This is what you’re to look for: a baby wrapped in a blanket and lying in a manger.’

“At once the angel was joined by a huge angelic choir singing God’s praises.

‘Glory to God in the heavenly heights,

Peace to all men and women on earth who please Him.'” Luke 2:8-14 (The Message).

Why these shepherds? Why not Herod in his palace? Why not the ubiquitous Pharisees?

Why did the angel choir not rouse these important people from their sleep to tell them the marvellous news? After all, weren’t the religious people eagerly awaiting their Messiah? Why not the whole city of Jerusalem?

Imagine the front page article in the morning Jerusalem Herald? “Alien being announces birth of a Messiah! Last night an alien appeared to a group of shepherds on the hills outside Bethlehem with the story that a special child has been born in the town. Apparently this child, according to the angel, is alleged to be the long-awaited Messiah. A vast crowd of similar beings appeared to confirm the story with an eerie song in praise to God; so reported the shepherds.”

In keeping with the baby’s birth in a kitchen cum animal shelter, the only people to witness the angelic announcement were shepherds, men who did the most menial and despised job in Israel. Why? Think of it this way: Had the announcement been made to the wealthiest and most important people in Israel, everyone else would have been excluded. Tell the shepherds and, automatically, every class and level of society would be in.

Who else witnessed this other-worldly even? Apparently no one at this stage. No one else went running to the “maternity ward” to have a look at this new-born. In the middle of the night, while everyone else in Bethlehem was asleep, a group of shepherds and a young couple gazed in amazement at the sleeping child and wondered what the future held.

That’s how God works. The angels couldn’t keep their mouths shut in that holy moment. They exploded in an anthem of celebration, but only the shepherds witnessed the outburst. Then everything went quiet again. The little family was left to get on with the business of daily living and the parents the task of raising this boy to be an ordinary Jewish boy who had to grow up and learn like every other Jewish boy.

Luke doesn’t mention the drama of the visit of Persian astrologers who read the story in the star, and the subsequent escape to Egypt two years later. That was left for Matthew to fill in according to his purpose for his writing his story.

A strange mixture of the natural and supernatural in this amazing event! A pregnant woman goes into labour far from home and gives birth to a baby boy in a borrowed shelter.  An invasion of angelic messengers announces the birth to an unlikely audience, a group of sleepy shepherds accompanying their sheep on a nearby hillside.

Their story? ‘This ordinary child is no ordinary child! He’s actually God’s Son. How can you be sure? Check it out for yourself. You’ll find Him in the downstairs room of the hostel in Bethlehem, not in the maternity ward at the local hospital. He doesn’t even have baby clothes on. All they had to wrap Him in was a blanket. The crib Joseph made for Him is back home in Nazareth, so they put Him in the feed trough.’

That’s how heaven invaded earth!

 

Let’s See For Ourselves

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LET’S SEE FOR OURSELVES

“As the angel choir withdrew into heaven, the sheepherders talked it over.’Let’s go over to Bethlehem as fast as we can and see for ourselves what God has revealed to us.’ They left, running, and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. Seeing was believing. They told everyone they met what the angel had said about this child. All who heard the sheepherders were impressed.

“Mary kept all these things to herself, holding them dear, deep within herself. The sheepherders returned and let loose, glorifying and praising God for everything they had heard and seen. It turned out exactly the way they’d been told.” Luke 2:15-20 (The Message).

Good for you, guys!

These men weren’t satisfied to take the angel’s word for it. This was a one-in-a-million event, after all, and they were not about to miss out on the opportunity to lay eyes on their very-long-awaited Messiah. Although they were the lowest of the low in society, they knew all about the hope of a deliverer that was promised in their Scriptures. They wanted to be the first to see the child and to keep that memory alive in their minds for years to come.

It was in the dead of night when they dashed off to the sleeping town. How were they to find the child and His parents in a town splitting at the seams with visitors from all over the country? Luke doesn’t tell us how they found the child. He tells us that they found Him; no doubt because they at least knew that the baby was sleeping in a feed trough.

How long did they tarry, gazing in awe at this brand new baby in whose future life lay all sorts of possibilities? Perhaps dawn was breaking and the people of Bethlehem beginning to stir when the shepherds reluctantly left the little family and made their way back to their sheep. They greeted every person they met with the story of the angelic visit and the exciting news that they had just come from the hostel where they had found that everything the angel had told them was true.

They must have been bone-weary when they got back to their sheep. Thankfully, the flock was still intact despite being left unattended. Perhaps they agreed to take turns in minding the sheep so that the rest of them could get some shut-eye. But how could they sleep when those magical scenes kept flashing through their minds? Perhaps they sat around the fire reminiscing about what they had just witnessed.

Back at the hostel, Mary couldn’t sleep either. She said very little to Joseph. She was too overawed by these events. Perhaps by this time they had a steady stream of visitors — people who heard the shepherds’ story and wanted to verify it. They had a busy day ahead. Now there were three of them to be counted. All the time, Mary was storing this all up inside, mulling over it and wondering what it all meant. Some day she would understand.

After all these exciting events, people soon forgot. They settled back into the routine of their daily lives; perhaps vague memories returned when the Roman soldiers, always around to keep order, sometimes to harass them, irritated them to the point of murderous hate. Then they longed for the Messiah who would deal with them and restore David’s kingdom, so they thought.

But locked up inside this tiny child lay a destiny far greater than an earthly kingdom and a royal palace. In that moment when He made His appearance, heaven and earth came together as a promise that, in this child lay the answer to earth’s most terrible plight — hell had invaded earth and ruined its perfection.

He had come to deal with that and to set earth’s course back to God’s original plan, a place for mankind where God and man can dwell together in perfect harmony in a huge family that mirrors their Father, recreated in the image of His Son.