JESUS:The Arrival                                                                        9-25-05

Luke 1:26-38; 2:1-7 (John 1:14)

Audio

I would have preferred to save this message until Christmas Sunday, which this year with be Christmas Day itself.  Our current plans for that weekend are to have two Christmas Eve services on Saturday night and two services Christmas morning.  But all 4 services will be the same, so you can choose to come either Christmas Eve or Christmas morning.

But as we are looking at the life and teachings of Jesus in this current series of messages, I thought we had better have Jesus born before we look at His mission and His message.  So it’s Christmas in September today as we look at the birth of Jesus.

The Old Testament prophet Isaiah had written: Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. (7:14). This would be no ordinary child.  Not only would He be unique in the life He lived, He would be unique in His conception.

So rather than having Mary just wake up one morning and realize that she was pregnant, God sent an angel to tell her what was about to happen.  (read Luke 1:26-38).

I cannot imagine what this must have been like for Mary.  She lived in a time and in a society where the Law said a woman who got pregnant outside of marriage should be put to death by stoning.  She had lived an exemplary life, yet here she was, unmarried and about to become pregnant.

The fact that she did not protest would indicate that she, like others, was anticipating the coming of the Messiah, The Christ, The Anointed One of God.  Others also were looking for the Messiah.  Mary’s elderly cousin, Elizabeth, to whom Mary went following this encounter with the angel, immediately knows in her spirit that this is the mother of her Lord.  Simeon, whom Joseph and Mary encountered when they took Jesus to the Temple to present Him to the Lord, had been told by the Holy Spirit that he would not die until he had seen the Christ.  The prophetess Anna, after seeing the infant Jesus at the Temple, begins to talk of Him “to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.”

So many in Israel were looking for the coming of Messiah when Jesus was born, and Mary was one of them.

But how do you tell your fiancé that you are pregnant, and that the baby you are carrying is not his, but is the Son of God?  Put yourself in Joseph’s place.  You are betrothed to Mary.  She has been promised to you with a binding promise; to end the arrangement there has to be a divorce.  She is already yours, but since the marriage has not yet taken place, there can be no sexual union.  Yet she is pregnant.  That’s a difficult spot to be in.  So God sends His angel to Joseph as well.  (read Matthew 1:18-25).

Jesus’ birth was not miraculous.  His conception was – only an earthly mother – no earthly father.  I wonder what His genetics looked like.  But He grew in Mary’s womb for 9 months, just like each of her other children would. She was not a perpetual virgin, like some teach. Joseph took her as his wife, but had no union with her until she gave birth to Jesus.  The wording indicates that eventually they did come together sexually.

Nine months they waited – were there rumors?  Did people whisper?  Did the gossips do their thing?  Was Joseph’s reputation tarnished, and Mary’s as well?  Did they even have a typical, all-out Jewish wedding celebration?  None of those questions are answered in the N.T. writings.  But week after week her belly grew larger.

I can’t imagine that Joseph and Mary did not have some concern when the decree went out that everyone had to go to their ancestral town to be counted in a massive census.  The King James Version says that she was “great with child”.  She was nearing the end of her pregnancy, and now they had to make the long journey from Nazareth to their ancestral town of Bethlehem – about 70 miles as the crow flies.  But since they weren’t going to fly, it was probably more like 100 miles – walking, or riding a donkey.

Women were tougher in those days.  But I can’t imagine any woman being excited about walking or riding a donkey100 miles when 9 months pregnant.  Perhaps Mary kept saying to herself over and over during that long journey the words that the angel had said to her: Nothing is impossible with God.  Nothing is impossible with God.  “Joseph, I don’t think I’m going to be able to do this.  But nothing is impossible with God.”

The whole story is put very simply and concisely by Luke. (read 2:1-7).

1 Timothy 3:16 says Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great: He appeared in a body…

John 1:14 says The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

God became a man.  There are men who think they are God, or think they are on the way to becoming God.  But here it’s reversed: Almighty God poured Himself into a human body and walked among us.  He may have talked like God, but He didn’t look like God.  He looked like any other man of His day.

Next week we will be looking at why He came: His Mission.  We will see that He came to seek and to save the lost; He came to be our Savior.  He came because God wanted to again have the same relationship with us that He had with Adam and Eve before they sinned.

The Gospels give us only three or four brief glimpses of Jesus prior to His baptism and beginning ministry at age 30.  We see Him at His birth in Bethlehem, as we have just read.  That’s the first glimpse.

When the Wise Men came we aren’t quite sure.  They were not there the night of Jesus’ birth.  They did not come to the stable where He was born.  Matthew 2:11 says On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh.  So by the time these Magi from the East came, Joseph and Mary had found lodging in a house.  After giving birth, I don’t imagine you want to get right back on a donkey and ride for another 3 or 4 days.  So they were in a house for a time.

We see Jesus again briefly 40 days after His birth.  The Law of Moses required that the first-born son be presented to the Lord.  He was regarded as holy to the Lord, and was set apart for special service to God.  And Jesus was Mary’s firstborn son.

For 40 days following the birth of a son, the mother was not permitted to go to the temple.  But then she was to bring her son along with an offering to the Lord.  Here is how it went with Jesus. (Luke 2:22-40).

Verse 40 tells of His life from birth to age 12: He grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him. He grew physically, and intellectually, and spiritually.

I wish we had a fuller picture here.  I wish we had examples of His wisdom as a child.  He was without sin even as a child, so He never used His wisdom in a carnal way: never used it to show off, or to impress others, or to get the best of someone else.  “Filled with wisdom” – that’s an interesting phrase to me.

Verse 41 gives us our last snapshot of Jesus until age 30.  He is now 12.  He is traveling with His parents to Jerusalem for the Feast of Passover.  It is the time they celebrated (and still celebrate) the historical event of God setting His people free from their bondage in Egypt centuries before. 

God had sent plague after plague to Egypt, giving the Pharaoh opportunity after opportunity to set the Jews free. But each time he refused.  The final plague was the worst: the death angel would pass through the land at midnight, killing the firstborn son in each home – unless—unless they killed a lamb and placed the blood of the lamb on the doorposts of their home.  Then the death angel would pass over them and their son would be spared.

Jesus would later be that Passover Lamb, the One Who became the substitutionary sacrifice so that we could be free from the death-angel’s visit, so that we could eternally live instead of eternally die.  And Jesus went with His parents to observe Passover when He was 12.

There was a large group of family and friends who traveled together from Nazareth to Jerusalem.  And when they began the return journey, Jesus was somehow left behind.  Let’s read it in Luke 2:41 (41-52).

Mary and Joseph are real flesh-and-blood people.  They are parents.  They have been entrusted by God to raise His Son and care for Him.  Jesus did not come out of Mary’s womb talking.  He was a baby; He needed to learn to eat, to talk, to walk, to read, to do carpentry.  And He had an earthly mother and father who were to teach Him these things.  It was an immense task knowing Who He really was.

And now they had lost Him.  It’s no wonder one translation has Mary saying in v.48 Your father and I, in agony of mind, have been searching for You.

There is no disrespect in Jesus’ reply, but even now at age 12 He understands Who He is: “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”

Jesus understood He had a destiny.  He knew He was on this earth for a purpose.  Students: do you know your destiny? Do you know why God has put you here on this earth?  And if not, what are you doing to find out your God-given destiny?

Parents, do you understand that God has a destiny for your child?  Do you understand that your plans for your child may or may not be God’s plans for your child?  Jesus’ parents did not understand what He was saying in His reply.  But Mary treasured all these things in her heart.  It doesn’t say that Joseph did, but Mary did.

There is a difference between men and women, a God-given difference.  I sometimes hear women despair that men aren’t more like them.  We are all to be in pursuit of God, but that looks different for a man than it does for a woman.  Joseph is not condemned because he wasn’t like Mary.  She looked at Jesus differently than he did – just because she was a woman.

Women: treasure things in your heart.  Treasure your children and what they do, even when you don’t understand.  And earnestly intercede for them, for them to be all that God desires that they be.

And then look at what it says about Jesus: Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them…And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.

He was obedient to them, He continued in obedience to them is what it actually says.  It is a continuing action that is spoken of here.  And the word “grew” is the same thing – He continually grew in these things.

I want to challenge our young people today, our students.  What evidence of spiritual growth are you seeing in your life?  Are you growing in wisdom?  They way to get your parents to grant you more privileges is for you to grow in wisdom.  Why would they grant you more privileges when you have not demonstrated that you can handle more privileges?  But if you will continually grow in wisdom they will first of all be amazed, but then they will know they can trust you.

But Jesus also grew in favor with God.  Isn’t that an amazing statement?  Jesus, the Son of God, GREW in favor with His Father. Oh that that would be your desire and mine: to grow in favor with God. 

That word “favor” is used in an incident early in the Book of Genesis.  We are not many generations removed from Adam and Eve, yet mankind had grown violent and wicked.  And God was going to send judgment upon the people.  But then there is this statement in Genesis 5:8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.  How was it that Noah stood out from the crowd around him?  What was it that brought about God’s favor?

The very next verse says: Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.  He wasn’t perfect, because later we find lying drunk in his tent.  But he walked with God – not in the way that Adam and Eve had in the Garden of Eden.  But he walked with God just as you and I can do.

He must have talked with God.  Today we call that praying.  He must have listened to God, for God spoke to him.  And He obeyed God, even when it seemed a bit irrational – “Build a boat, a really big boat because I am going to destroy the world by a flood.  Lots of animals are going to come and get on the boat.  People can, too, if they will believe what you are going to tell them.  But you had better get started.”  It didn’t sound too reasonable since there had never even been rain up until then.  But Noah did it.  And God honored his obedience and his faith in God.

Talk to God.  Listen to God.  Obey God.  If you do that, you too will grow in favor with God just as Noah did, just as Jesus did.

God has a plan for your life.  It includes worshipping Him; it includes bringing others to Him; it includes relationships with your Christian friends.  But it all starts with a relationship with Him through Jesus.  We come to God through Jesus.  Have you done that?  Before you can truly worship Him, before you can live for Him, you must first put your faith in Him as your Savior.

PRAY