A King has been born.  God has announced the birth to these wise men (of non-Jewish descent).  God placed a star in the sky for the wise men to find and follow, announcing & pointing them to the birth of the king of the Jews.  

Such an amazing story.  What about the star indicated that not only was a king born but that He was the king of the Jews?  And why would non-Jews be so intent on following a star that would lead them to this king...of the Jews?  

And who were these “wise men?”  What was their understanding of astrology?  Apparently they studied and interpreted the existence of the stars and this particular star purposely revealed to them that the “king of the Jews” had been born! Of course God intended to reveal the birth of this king to non-Jews because THIS king was a king who would bring blessing to all!

Along with fulfillment, the miraculous is all over this story too!  In addition to leading and revealing Jesus to these wise men, God intervenes to protect the life of Jesus, warning the wise men about Herod’s (who saw himself as the Jew’s king) real motives.

The Gospel stories don’t want us to miss the fact that Jesus is God’s promised Messiah intended for all people.

The wise men persisted until they were led into the presence of this king of the Jews in order to pay homage to Him.  They weren’t deterred by distance, dangerous travel, means, or even the fact that the star indicated the one born was the king “of the Jews”.  They remained determined and steadfast, convinced that this star was purposely revealed to them to point them to this king.  And so, they journeyed to find this king.  

Amazing that they weren’t necessarily even anticipating and awaiting the arrival of God’s promised Messiah.  Yet, God chose to announce and reveal the arrival of this king to these non-Jewish wise men from the east.

I don’t know about you, but I can put a lot of pressure on myself.  I (emphasis on myself) must search out, must be diligent in seeking to understand.  But these wise men weren’t searching as far as I can tell!!!  God seeks (He said He came to seek and save the lost).  It’s in God’s reaching out, God’s acting, God’s initiative, God’s divine intervention that He reveals Himself to me, to you…and it's our response to Him that matters (as it was with these wise men).  Will we choose to respond in diligent pursuit of worship to this king...the King of Kings, the One who came for all the world!

Merry Christmas Season!  ☺

God continues to reveal His Kingdom, this time through His choice in announcing the birth of the world’s Savior.  We have it all wrong.  In His Kingdom it’s not about “lording” it over the weak and insignificant.  To begin with, God doesn’t categorize His image-bearers in this way, we do.  

And so, He chooses a group of shepherds (“lowly” people in the world’s eyes) and proclaims the greatest news for all of mankind!

An angel is sent to these shepherds to share news the entire world so desperately needs.  The glory of the Lord is revealed “to the least of these” (“the last will be first, the first will be last” comes to mind).  The sign given to them comes from Luke’s earlier description of Christ’s birth, as he simply & plainly (without embellishment or hype) states the facts:  “she wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a feeding trough because there was no room for them in the inn” (2:1).  No glitz, no glamor, just an extremely humble (less than ordinary) birth and THIS is the sign given to shepherds who become one of the first people to see the world’s savior with their own eyes!  Becoming eyewitnesses of the way of God’s Kingdom.  God continues to reveal His glory to these “lowly” shepherds, as a great company of the heavenly host appears before them, praising God for sending his glory to earth to give peace to all who would believe!

They saw the Christ child with their own eyes and spread the word…

"God’s kingdom has come, God’s will will be done, on earth as it is in heaven"…and the message of God’s coming kingdom begins to spread!

“Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart”

The shepherds’ outlook was changed forever!  They respond in glory & praise to God for all they heard and seen!

Hope has arrived.  Rescue has come.  Salvation for the world was at hand.

Praying we are open to the extraordinariness of God breaking into our ordinary lives!  Also praying we become more like Mary…treasuring up all these things and pondering them in our hearts!  As we do, God will begin to change our understanding (our view) of life and as our perspective changes so will the way we live.  Knowing (pondering, storing up with "readiness"…) the “why” (God's great rescue plan in Jesus) changes both the “how" and the "who" (how we live and who we become)...God will then begin to transform us, as He always intended, into the very image of Himself, and, by His grace, we will begin to look more & more (in word and deed and character) like His Son, Jesus.

Merry Christmas Season!  ☺

Because Caesar Augustus “happened” to issue a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world, Jesus “happened” to be born in Bethlehem.

Joseph (and his family), living in the town of Nazareth in Galilee, was required by law to travel back to his home town to register.  Belonging to the house and line of David he would be required to travel to Bethlehem, the town of David.  And so, Joseph and Mary made their way to the town of Bethlehem in Judea.

There are no accidents with God.  He works within what appears to us to be the "normal" circumstances of life and Scripture is fulfilled.

We are also given a picture of who this Messiah (our Lord and Master) will be.  He came to serve and not to be served.  His humble entry into the world begins his humble life of servanthood for those he came to save…and a servant (that’d be us) is not above his/her Master.  Humbling!

Merry Christmas Season! :)

Following Matthew’s Genealogy (his rehearsal of the historical stories leading up to the coming of Jesus) he tells of the assurance given to Joseph concerning the child conceived in Mary as the fulfillment of Isaiah 7:14 which was the Immanuel sign given by Isaiah to King Ahaz.  This is the first of 5 scenes from Jesus’ childhood where Matthew sees an OT reflection in the event and wants his readers to see that Jesus was not only the completion of the OT story at an historical level (portrayed in the genealogy) but that he was also in a deeper sense its fulfillment.  In other words, not only does the OT tell the story which Jesus completes, it also declares the promise which Jesus fulfills.   In the OT journey, God has declared his purpose, shown his commitment to redemption, and made it known in all kinds of ways to and through Israel.  This purpose or commitment has been fulfilled in the coming arrival of this child, Jesus.  And Matthew, through this and the next 4 narratives of Jesus’ childhood drives this idea home.

In this narrative, God sends an angel to assure Joseph that the child conceived by Mary who is to be named Jesus (God saves) is also Immanuel (God with us).  Divine intervention assures Joseph, Joseph believes and accepts God’s miraculous plan taking place in their life, and the fulfillment of God’s salvation purposes are on the horizon!  

Fulfillment speech saturates Matthew’s Gospel.  His repeated references to scripture-fulfillment (from this narrative and each of Jesus’ childhood narratives alone) portray Jesus as the Messiah, the completion of the OT story and the fulfillment of the OT promise. 

God has been moving in history to provide rescue.  The time has come!  If we are open to what God has done and continues to do, we won’t be able to miss it!  Praise God!  : )


(thankful to both Christopher J.H. Wright and N.T. Wright for living lives of dedicated study and reflection with and for God)

The next scene takes us with Mary as she heads at once to see for herself Gabriel’s marvelous, miraculous God-sent news regarding her relative Elizabeth.

And again, Luke points his readers to another God-sent, Spirit-filled announcement as the Holy Spirit, blows into the life of Elizabeth, pouring out proclamation and exultation of the wondrous coming event of the Lord.   

Mary responds to this divine proclamation with spontaneous, joy-filled worship, rejoicing and praising her God who is faithful, steadfast and good, recounting his mighty acts of salvation and His continued faithfulness to fulfill His promises.

Divine occurrences and divine speech fill this part of the story of Jesus’ coming.  Again, Luke wants his readers to know with certainty that this is God moving in history, keeping His promise, Scripture’s being fulfilled, the Messiah’s coming!

In awe and wonder, to simply respond in spontaneous joy-filled worship for God’s loving, mighty, saving act in history that offers us a rescued, set-right life with Him, through King Jesus!!!

Merry Christmas Season!  ☺

The writer, Luke, determined to establish the stories of Jesus in their historical setting, continues along in his accurate account, pointing to details, names, places.  He’s locating for his readers the historical time and place of these miraculous occurrences.

But more than that, Luke intentionally mentions names and places of great significance.  These specific facts point to the fulfillment of Scripture in the coming person of Jesus, tying Jesus to the promises of a coming Messiah.  The time has come.  The long-awaited, highly-hoped-for and anticipated Messiah is being sent.

Galilee, Nazareth, “a descendant of David”, a “virgin” pledged to be married, the name “Jesus” (means God saves), “the LORD God will give him the throne of his father David and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end” (vv32, 33):  each intentionally mentioned detail reveals the undeniable truth:  this coming baby, as fulfillment of all prophetic Scripture, is indeed the Messiah.  Even the noted connection between Elizabeth’s coming baby and Mary’s conception points to Scripture fulfillment since a sign pointing to the Messiah’s arrival will be the arrival of another before Him sent to prepare the way for the coming Messiah.

Luke points to the mighty acts of God in describing the announcement as well as the upcoming events.  It was God-appointed, announced by an angel of God, and the Holy Spirit will hover once again in another miraculous moment of God-initiated, God-planned and God-enabled creating.  For nothing will be impossible for God (not now, not ever, is Luke’s point).

And Mary, up to this moment, has been going through another “typical” day in her life, without notice she is brought into the presence of the divinely supernatural with the appearance of the angel, Gabriel, and her life is changed forever.  Even though wrapped up in this glorious gift would also come much gossip and accusations, shaking heads and judgmental finger-pointing, Mary’s response remained humbly and faithfully obedient:  “I am the Lord’s servant, May it be to me as you have said.”

Oh that we would trust God and respond humbly, faithfully, and obediently.  In spite of the presence of ridicule or persecution, to also, like Mary,  remain confident in God and in his plan.  That we would trust Him through the process and with the outcome.  The world will certainly misunderstand and oppose the ways of God, whether that means neighbors, friends, family.  Standing firm requires knowing Who it is we live for and not losing focus..  

God, praying we live our days for you, bringing you glory in all we say and all we do.  Our eyes shift too quickly from your strength and your ways to our own.  Praying we live more aware of You, that our thoughts and actions will arise from a life that is singly focused on You.    

Merry Christmas Season!  :)

Let’s attempt to answer this question by supposing that God does exist and that He is good.  Well, then from the very beginning, when He chose to create a world, we can say that by his very nature He created a world that was good.

And because He is good (which includes loving & just) though He created mankind in His very image, He also gave us the freedom to choose who we would become.  We could trust Him and the fact that He is good and live a life with Him built on love & trust or we could question His goodness, decide He’s holding out on us and choose to do things our own way, make our own rules for life, certain that we can figure it all out for ourselves.

Envy, jealousy, competition, being on top, lording it over (and their entire downward spiral) have been the results of mankind turning their backs on God and trying to define life on their own. 

While God could step in and “make us” behave rightly it would be at the cost of our own freewill.  That act in itself would automatically negate God as being good, instead His actions would describe a tyrant who instead lords it over his creation, first demanding then forcing them to behave the way He wants.  Behaving in this way would go against His very nature.  If He’s a good God then everything about Him is good…including the way He “rules” His creation.  If He desires for His people to live sacrificial lives of love it is only because that is who He Himself is and if that is the kind of being He is then His very nature dictates that all He does would be in accordance with His own goodness.  And at whatever point his actions contradict His very nature they would disqualify Him from being called good.

Yet, knowing the direction mankind would take, knowing the depths of destruction that would result, He set out from the very beginning to bring hope, rescue and redemption to all of creation but He did it in a way that doesn’t violate His very nature.  He did it by coming to His own, living among them, sacrificing Himself in our place and triumphing over sin and death so that through Him the world can be made right again. 

All around us we see that something has gone terribly wrong in this life.  God nudges us with the realization of this and whispers, there’s another way.  Come to me, believe in me, I came to make all things new and right once again.  I am the hope for all the world.  In me the world can find peace once again.  I’ve won the ultimate battle against evil and will bring hope and rescue to all the world through everyone who will believe and follow me!  But I will not rule with an iron fist that defies my nature of being good and loving.  Instead my kingdom will come the same way a little bit of yeast mixes into the whole batch of dough (Mt 13:33).

If at this point you’re saying, “ok, but why?”  Let’s say God exists and that God indeed is good.  But now I’m wondering why?  Why even create us and this world to begin with?  What was the point even of that?

Again, let’s go back to God and His nature.  In Scripture we get a picture of at least three things about God that would point to his desire to create.  What is the picture that’s being painted that would suggest the reason for His desire to create anything? Not only are we given a picture of a God who is good, it also describes One who is the perfect definition of love AND who exists & flourishes in perfect community (God, the Father, God, the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit).  His very nature of goodness, love and perfect community would birth the desire to share Himself with others, those He would create in His image, so that He could extend His perfect love and goodness by extending His community to include those He would fashion in His image and out of His great love.  And so His desire to share perfect community with those other than Himself sets His creativity into motion, which would include His costly self-sacrificial plan (spoken about above) if there were to be a redeemed people He could dwell with who would freely love Him back through a life that worships Him (their loving Creator) and His goodness and who reflects His very image. :)