Praise the Lord for this
Wednesday. It is going to be a snowy day here in the Southern tier of New
York. We will not meet for our Wednesday evening gathering
today. The choir will not meet either. It is beginning to look a like
Christmas every where you go.
Praise the Lord for the way
He prepared the way for the Birth of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Our God is
the Lord of History. History is His story. He orchestrates His divine plan
and purposes according to His perfect will and design. Shakespeare wrote that
"all the world's a stage," and Luke
2:1-4 details how God set
this stage for His grand and glorious Christmas production! In fact, more than
seven centuries before we come to the scene of Jesus' birth, the prophet Micah
told us that the setting would be Bethlehem. When we consider that God was making preparations
for the birth of Christ, we have to think about the message of the prophet who
said, "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands
of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth …" (Micah
5:2).
`The Lord of history caused
Joseph and Mary to go to Bethlehem in the Lord's timing. As De Boylesve states,
"Augustus, while sending forth his edicts to the utmost limits of the East,
little knew that on his part he was obeying the decrees of the King of kings."
God's direction is evident even in the movement of the population. Caesar had
thought to feed his pride and eventually fill his coffers through this census
and taxation process, but God was using this to get Mary and Joseph where they
needed to be. W.H. Van Doren wrote that "to locate an infant's birth, 60
millions of persons are enrolled." God prepared a world and set the stage for
His Christmas production.
God
prepared the woman for the first Christmas. Some of the most amazing aspects of what God was doing in
preparation for the first Christmas pertain to a young lady named Mary. We are
reminded in Luke
2:4-5 that Mary was
espoused to Joseph. The espousal involved a period of nearly one year in which
there existed the commitment but not the cohabitation of a marital relationship.
It was a time when the couple focused upon their preparation and purification
for marriage. Mary and Joseph had not lived in the same household, nor shared
the intimacy of marriage, but by the time Jesus was born there was both a mother
and a stepfather who were together called "the parents" (Luke
2:27). In His
providential preparation, God saw to it that this would be no single-parent
household. Then the single most important aspect of all this Divine preparation
is highlighted as we are reminded that Mary was expecting, for
Luke
1:5 says that she was
"great with child." When Mary was told that she would have this son, she said,
"How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?" (Luke
1:34). Who can
understand the miracle of the conception and the incarnation of Christ?
Surely Mary could not, but somehow the Holy Ghost came upon her and the power of
the Highest overshadowed her (Luke
1:35).
The Lord indeed prepared
"the way" for the first Christmas. I love the Christmas carol, "Away In A Manger". The Lord God,
who became flesh in the person of Jesus Christ, prepared the Christ child — "the
way" in a manger. God prepared a way of deliverance in the person of Jesus,
"For," as the angel said unto the shepherds, "unto you is born this day in the
city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord" (Luke
2:11). That Christ was a
Savior tells us that He was literally, a deliverer Who has given us rescue and
safety through His great salvation.
Furthermore, in the person
of Jesus, God prepared a way of delight. The angel said to the shepherds, "Fear
not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all
people" (Luke
2:10), and this word
"joy" has the idea of cheerfulness and a calm delight. God made a way for us to
know Jesus and, through knowing Jesus, subsequently to know joy. Jesus is our
deliverer and our delight. He is God's glorious gift for you and for
me.
Had Almighty God not
intervened in human history and made preparation for that first Christmas in
every detail, there would be no holyday, no hope, and no joy to the world. I'm
glad that God prepared and orchestrated the entire event and that, in the
fullness of time, He brought forth His inexpressible gift in Jesus wrapped up in
the swaddling clothes and laid Him in a manger. Praise the Lord that we have a
direct access to that gift.
In Christ,
Brown
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