As you may be aware, it is Christmas season. This means we just celebrated Black Friday,
Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, etc. etc. etc. This isn’t what it is supposed to be about
though. This is the Season of
Advent. Do you know what that is? Advent
begins four Sundays before Christmas and is a time of preparation for the
coming of Jesus. Let’s flashback a
couple thousand years and see what I’m talking about.
In Luke 1:26-38 we find Mary of Nazareth, a young, poor
girl. Here we learn that God sent the
angel Gabriel to talk to Mary, who at the time was “engaged” to marry Joseph.
The angel Gabriel told Mary that she had found favor with God. Let’s take a break there for a moment and picture
yourself in this situation. You are just
sitting in your room getting ready for bed and an angel shows up. Since I have never seen an angel I can’t tell
you if the angel walks in or fly’s in, but the angel shows up. I’m going to assume the angel is flying
because it sounds better to me. So an
angel fly’s into your room! Wow! This
angel then goes on to tell you how God is happy with you so He has chosen you
to give birth to his son. At this point
you are probably taking one of two approaches.
The first approach is “Wow, this is a crazy dream. I didn’t even know I was asleep yet.” The 2nd approach is to debate with
the angel. “Hey, Gabriel. I know about the birds and the bees and how
to make a baby. I’m still a virgin. I can’t be having a baby. You need to go back and check your facts.” This is more like the way Mary responded, but
Gabriel explained to her that the Holy Spirit would come and this kid would be
the Son of God. At this Mary responded
that she is the Lord’s servant. Now Mary
understands and is okay with it, but what about Joseph.
For Joseph we go to Matthew 1:18-26. We find Joseph with a problem. He’s planning on marrying a girl but he finds
out the girl is pregnant. He knows the
baby isn’t his and it doesn’t sound like he is very excited about being married
to her anymore. According to the Jewish
law he had a right to divorce her because it was clear to everyone else that
she had been unfaithful. This also might
have led to her being stoned to death.
This was not what Joseph had planned though. The Bible says Joseph was a righteous man so
he was just going to divorce her quietly and move on. Then an angel came to Joseph in a dream and
told Joseph to go ahead and take Mary because the child in her was from the
Holy Spirit, not another man. Then the
angel says that he is to name the kid Jesus because he will save his people
from their sins. Now Mary and Joseph are
both on board. So from here everything
should just be perfect, right?
Imagine for a moment that you are just a person living in
Nazareth down the street from Mary and Joseph.
You find out this couple is telling everyone they are having God’s
baby. They are telling people they are
going to have a baby even though they have not slept together. They even tell people that they have seen
angels. What do you think the people in
that town might think about Mary and Joseph?
Imagine if they had tabloids back then.
The cover of one magazine says “Exclusive story of virgin pregnant with
God’s baby.” The cover of the next magazine might say “Girl pretends to have
God’s baby to avoid stoning.” I’m
guessing that there would have been some conflict around town. Do you think this conflict would have stopped
when Jesus was born? I don’t.
The majority of Jesus’ ministry occurred in his early
30’s. Mary and Joseph still would have
needed to take care of baby Jesus, toddler Jesus, child Jesus, and teenager
Jesus. From the time before Jesus was
born his parents knew he was the son of God.
Think about the song we just listened to. Mary did you know? How much do you think Mary knew about the
future of her Son? I don’t see anywhere
that the angel came back to give them updates along the way. When I look at my kids I definitely can’t
tell you what their future holds. My job
is to do the best I can to prepare them for whatever plans God has. I think this was probably the plan for Mary
and Joseph too. Even though they
probably didn’t know every detail of the future Jesus would have, they did
their best to raise him and to prepare him for God’s plan.
As we begin this Advent season spend some time thinking
about what it would have been like planning for Jesus’ arrival. Think about the excitement that the people
would have had. Think about the hope
that exists when Jesus is born to save God’s people from their sins. I want you to have that hope and excitement
today as we prepare from Christmas. Not
excitement about presents, but excitement about the future we can have because
Jesus came to save us from our sins.
That is the reason we celebrate Christmas!
