CHRISTMAS
MUSINGS
Last Sunday we lit the fourth Advent candle in anticipation of Jesus’ birth. This Sunday we celebrate Christmas. Many churches with multiple services are curtailing their services to allow families to spend more time together.
As for us, our Christmas menus are pretty well set. Yes, I said “menus.” We have a Christmas Eve get together, one on Christmas Day, and another on the day after Christmas. We’ve even purchased most of our presents!
Yet my mind keeps coming back to the Christmas story. This year I find myself astounded at the intricacy of God’s plan. Somehow God “manages” to accomplish His purpose in bringing Jesus, the Christ, to earth in a way that meets the needs of each one of His servants and brings them to rely on Him more fully.
Let’s just look at Mary. Mary, a fifteen year old girl, receives the puzzling announcement that the Spirit of the Lord would overshadow her and she would become pregnant with the Christ child. While she willing accepts the burden God places on her, her mind must have been racing. How was she to explain this to her family, to her fiance, Joseph, to her neighbors? Would they believe her when she said she had not been unfaithful to her marriage vows (Remember that Joseph originally planned to divorce her, the only way to break their relationship apart from death)?
Not so coincidentally, Mary has an older cousin in another town that just became pregnant through special divine intervention. Perplexed, and needing to get out of town for a while so she can figure out what to do, she goes to visit her cousin, Elizabeth. When she arrives, Elizabeth’s son, who we will later call John the Baptist, does his first prophetic act while still a six month old fetus, three months before he was born! John, the fetus, acknowledges Jesus, also a fetus, as the Christ!
Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit and recognizes her privilege in receiving the mother of the Messiah as the mother of the prophet. Mary is then filled with the Spirit and sings the song we know as the Magnificat. She stays with her cousin three months, or until she delivers, then returns home.
Joseph, meanwhile, is wrestling with his situation. Mary either tells him before she leaves town, or immediately on her return. Before long she will begin to show and he will either have to respond as a betrayed husband, by either having her stoned or divorcing her, or go through with the marriage, acknowledging Mary’s child as his own. In his case, God has an angel deliver him a message while he sleeps.
Thus a young couple is encouraged in their faith, and an older woman in her role in bringing in the Kingdom of God while God accomplishes His purpose of bringing Jesus to earth.
But the question remains: Why should God care about their feelings? Can’t He accomplish His plan without regard to their feelings?
I suppose He could. But then He wouldn’t be the God we worship, the God who revealed Himself as “Emmanuel,” God with us. God walks with us, alongside us, in the path He gives us, both accomplishing His ultimate purpose through us and encouraging us in our growing trust in Him along the way.
Welcome, Emmanuel!
Last Sunday we lit the fourth Advent candle in anticipation of Jesus’ birth. This Sunday we celebrate Christmas. Many churches with multiple services are curtailing their services to allow families to spend more time together.
As for us, our Christmas menus are pretty well set. Yes, I said “menus.” We have a Christmas Eve get together, one on Christmas Day, and another on the day after Christmas. We’ve even purchased most of our presents!
Yet my mind keeps coming back to the Christmas story. This year I find myself astounded at the intricacy of God’s plan. Somehow God “manages” to accomplish His purpose in bringing Jesus, the Christ, to earth in a way that meets the needs of each one of His servants and brings them to rely on Him more fully.
Let’s just look at Mary. Mary, a fifteen year old girl, receives the puzzling announcement that the Spirit of the Lord would overshadow her and she would become pregnant with the Christ child. While she willing accepts the burden God places on her, her mind must have been racing. How was she to explain this to her family, to her fiance, Joseph, to her neighbors? Would they believe her when she said she had not been unfaithful to her marriage vows (Remember that Joseph originally planned to divorce her, the only way to break their relationship apart from death)?
Not so coincidentally, Mary has an older cousin in another town that just became pregnant through special divine intervention. Perplexed, and needing to get out of town for a while so she can figure out what to do, she goes to visit her cousin, Elizabeth. When she arrives, Elizabeth’s son, who we will later call John the Baptist, does his first prophetic act while still a six month old fetus, three months before he was born! John, the fetus, acknowledges Jesus, also a fetus, as the Christ!
Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit and recognizes her privilege in receiving the mother of the Messiah as the mother of the prophet. Mary is then filled with the Spirit and sings the song we know as the Magnificat. She stays with her cousin three months, or until she delivers, then returns home.
Joseph, meanwhile, is wrestling with his situation. Mary either tells him before she leaves town, or immediately on her return. Before long she will begin to show and he will either have to respond as a betrayed husband, by either having her stoned or divorcing her, or go through with the marriage, acknowledging Mary’s child as his own. In his case, God has an angel deliver him a message while he sleeps.
Thus a young couple is encouraged in their faith, and an older woman in her role in bringing in the Kingdom of God while God accomplishes His purpose of bringing Jesus to earth.
But the question remains: Why should God care about their feelings? Can’t He accomplish His plan without regard to their feelings?
I suppose He could. But then He wouldn’t be the God we worship, the God who revealed Himself as “Emmanuel,” God with us. God walks with us, alongside us, in the path He gives us, both accomplishing His ultimate purpose through us and encouraging us in our growing trust in Him along the way.
Welcome, Emmanuel!
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