Pastor’s Weekly Note, December 22, 2011
I wonder what it was like on the night Christ was born.
Was it a quiet night? Probably not, knowing that because of the sudden influx of people into the town of Bethlehem for the census, there would have been more activity than normal.
Was Joseph fearful? My guess would be yes. Here he was with a young bride, far from home, and she goes into labor. Would he know what to do? Would he be able to get someone to assist in the birth? Would he be able to care for his growing family?
There were probably many other things flooding his thoughts. Maybe he was thinking of what the angel said to him in his dream: “That which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” How was that going to take place? When would that take place? Why me?
What about Mary? She, like Joseph, is away from everybody she knows, she’s giving birth to her firstborn, and it’s in a stable, of all places. How will she be as a mother? How difficult the journey back to Nazareth is going to be, now that there will be three instead of two.
Maybe her thoughts go back to what the angel told her: “You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name 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 father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” And like Joseph, she’s probably thinking, Why me?
And then Jesus is here.
Scripture doesn’t go into great detail about the birth. About all it says is that the baby was wrapped in swaddling cloths and placed in a manger.
That had to be a weird environment. Taking up residence in a stable and putting a new born baby in a feeding trough. And yet, when you think of it, Jesus’ beginning fit his later years when he said “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20).
And then the shepherds were there. The angel didn’t tell them to go and see, they went on their own initiative. Luke 2:15b records their words: “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.”
Imagine their excitement. Imagine their wonder. Were they waiting for a Savior? Did they even recognize they needed one? Wherever they were, they hurried to Bethlehem to the stable and told everyone they could about what they had seen and been told. And then as quickly as they came, they left, but they were changed as they glorified and praised God.
How has Christmas changed you? We have been given the greatest gift, it far outshines any present you’ve ever bought for someone or have been given by someone else. And these simple shepherds were changed not because by mere words of an angel, but as it says in Luke 2:20, “And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.” They were able to verify the words of the angel, embodied in a tiny baby in a feeding trough.
May this Christmas find you rejoicing in that great gift of Jesus, changed because of what He has done in you, and excited for what He will continue to do in and through you. Merry Christmas!
Pastor Russ
