On Wednesday I went down to join the Mother’s Day Out kids for a few minutes and tell them a Bible story. When I was done, Julie Dion wanted to take my picture with the kids, so they crowded around. I told them that my kids were mostly grown up now so I don’t get to have little kids on my lap very often. It didn’t take very along at all before I had three kids all on my lap together. That was a treat. Children are so precious.
That’s a big part of the attraction of the Christmas story. It’s a story about the birth of a baby. And in a sense, every birth is a miracle. Newborns are so precious, so vulnerable. Every child presents us with a mystery. What gifts has God placed in this child? What sufferings will this child have to face? What mark will this child leave on the earth?
But as we see pictures and statutes of the baby Jesus all around us, on Christmas cards, in shop windows, on front lawns, I want us to be sure to remember that this child was so much more.
And I just want to pick out three important pieces of information in the angel, Gabriel’s, message. They tell us of great things to come as this little child grows to manhood.
Listen, now as I read the story, from Luke 1:26-38.
“In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, `Greeting, favored one! The Lord is with you.' But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, `Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.' Mary said to the angel, `How can this be, since I am a virgin?' The angel said to her, `The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.' Then Mary said, `Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.' Then the angel departed from her."
What can we learn about the coming Jesus? First, Gabriel told Mary that she should name this baby Jesus. The name has a meaning. It’s based on the name for God that Moses received at the burning bush, “Yahweh.” And then a verb is added, so that the name Jesus means “Yahweh saves.” It was a common name at the time. It’s the same name as Joshua, in the Old Testament; only in the New Testament it was translated into Greek first and got altered in form just a bit.
This little boy, the son of Mary was born with a tremendous weight on his shoulders. He was to be God’s salvation for his people. His name meant something profound. The Joshua of the Old Testament was a warrior who saved Israel from their enemies by giving them victory in battle and then who led them into a new land, the promised land of Israel.
Jesus would grow up to save us from ourselves, a much harder job. He would save us from our sins. He would save us from our self-centeredness. He would lead his people into a new life in the kingdom of God.
Can you feel the weight of those burdens already on that little newborn child? God Himself sent that little baby to be our savior.
If we call out to God to save us from ourselves: “God, save me from my sin.” “God save me from my self-centeredness.” “God, save me from the bad feelings I have about myself.” If we call out to God today to save us from ourselves, it is to this child, to the life of this person, Jesus of Nazareth, that we need to look to find salvation.
And when you see a baby Jesus in the next few weeks, remember that we serve a God who is profoundly concerned about those who are lost. When he sees anyone lost in any way, whether spiritual blindness, hopeless poverty, destructive family dynamics, addictions, or whatever, God cares. And he looks to send someone to bring salvation.
This name, Jesus, meant a lot.
The second important piece of information for us to learn about Jesus comes when Gabriel said that this baby “will be called the Son of the Most High.” Now there are lots of ways you can talk about someone being a child of God. In Old Testament times people honored their kings sometimes by saying they were God’s sons. There is a sense in which all humans are God’s children. But as people watched the life of Jesus unfold, they began to see that this was so much more.
This person, Jesus, had the power to heal the sick with his touch or even with his word. This person, Jesus, had the audacity to pronounce that people’s sins were forgiven. Only God can do that. This person, Jesus, seemed to know from time to time what people were thinking in their heads. This person, Jesus, dared to take authority to make pronouncements on sacred things, the temple, the Passover traditions, the observance of the Sabbath. And when he did, people could tell it was different. He spoke with an authority they hadn’t seen anywhere else.
Somehow this human, Jesus of Nazareth, was something more than any other human. How can you analyze that? Somehow God had mixed his divine nature with human nature. Somehow this Jesus was a real human being, but somehow had God’s nature, too. Why would God find humans so special that he would do that for us? How did it work? How did Jesus come to understand who he was? Those are mysteries that are above our heads.
Our modern minds are uncomfortable with the thought of miracles, of God doing things that seem to us outside of the normal process that can be measured by science. But here it is and we can’t explain it and when God is acting, I don’t know that we should expect to be able to explain it. But there are a whole lot of things we can’t explain on this earth. How does a dried-up kernel of corn know how to germinate and produce a whole corn plant? How did the universe get so huge? What is the nature of love, which holds families and sometimes communities together? What is the meaning of life? An open heart can recognize that God does many things we don’t understand.
When you see a baby Jesus in the coming weeks, try to comprehend the miracle, that God gave us a child who was part of himself. We serve a God who is not content to stand aloof, far above us. He took this incredible step of becoming one of us, walking among us, letting us see face to face what his heart is really like, merging his very nature with ours, binding himself to us for all time.
When you see a baby Jesus in the coming weeks, remember that this is the model that God calls us to follow in the way we love one another and those who are lost around us. God works through coming side by side, through sharing lives, through near total identification.
And, finally, the angel said that this baby would receive “the throne of his ancestor David.” The birth of this baby Jesus wasn’t something that happened out of the blue. It was an expression of God’s faithfulness to his people to keep promises made many generations before.
God is determined that he is going to bless the people of this earth. And when he finds someone who is willing to love and trust him and work with him, God jumps at the chance. Centuries before he had found this man, David, whose heart was just set on God, whose heart was free to dance for joy over God, who was willing to trust in his God as he came up against one enemy after another. And God made David the king of Israel and God promised David that some day he would do very special things through one of David’s descendants. And some of David’s earlier descendants had been great kings over Israel and some were at least pretty good. But on the day when Jesus was born, God did something entirely new. He began to establish Jesus, the son of David, Son of God, as the most exalted leader ever. Today that Jesus is the head of the church of Jesus Christ with people who love and serve him in every nation on earth.
So, when you see a baby Jesus this Christmas season, remember, also that we serve a God who is faithful to fulfill his promises, determined to bring blessings, even if it takes a long time. When God makes promises to his people, he comes through.
So, the story of the first Christmas is a sweet story. But remember that God was doing something very special on the day when Jesus was born. He gave us a savior. He came among us, combining his very nature with ours. He proved his faithfulness. AMEN
