Good morning,
They were filled with joy
It’s very easy for us to forget that when God makes a promise to his people, God’s Enemy does his best to give the people of the world a different account of what God will do than what God’s plan will actually look like. The plan that the Jewish people had for their coming Messiah was a part of what God had told them would happen, but it didn’t take long until what that promise meant was quite different than what they were prepared for. The Jewish people were looking for someone who would make them the controllers of the world. What they wanted wasn’t about a God who loved the world. What they wanted was a God who would give them what they wanted and would destroy all their enemies. They weren’t prepared for joy, they were looking for success. The God who loved the world didn’t begin to fulfill this promise with a parade. He began with and old couple who loved God, but were sad because they had no children. This old couple were startled when God told them he was going to give them a special baby who would someday get his people ready for their coming king. Then God sent a special angel to talk to a young peasant girl, Mary, to let her know that she would soon become pregnant even though the baby would begin without a man involved. Her response was, "I am the Lord's servant. May everything you have said about me come true.”(Luke 1:38) The Angel also told here that her old aunt was pregnant, so Mary hurried off to help her. When Mary entered the door, her aunt was filled with joy and she said, When I heard your greeting, the baby in my womb jumped for joy.(v.44) Mary began her response by saying, "Oh, how my soul praises the Lord. How my spirit rejoices in God my Savior!(vs.46,47) When the baby was born, the angels sang, the shepherd’s were astonished and two old people were filled with praise and excitement. Anna began praising God. She talked about the child to everyone who had been waiting expectantly for God to rescue Jerusalem.(Luke 2:38)
But it’s important that we remember that only a very few people were filled with joy. The Creator’s love gift to his world, his Son Jesus, was and is a dangerous threat to his enemies. When some excited wise men showed up in Jerusalem asking to see the newborn king, the king was upset. He called for the leading religious leaders who calmly quoted a verse about Bethlehem. The king told the wise men to check out Bethlehem and let him know what they found. The wise men went to look, but none of the religious people bothered. These non Jewish men who followed God’s directions found the house and the child and were filled with joy, but no one else showed up. When these God fearing men were told by God to go home without seeing the king, the king was filled with rage and ordered that any baby 2 years or under in and around Bethlehem must be killed. God told Joseph and Mary to flee with their son to Egypt and stay there till he told them to return. On top of that, as the years went by, people remembered the baby killings but forgot about the rest. It seems that today, Christmas is about giving and getting, running and fatigue, religious programs for some, and self centered living for almost all of the rest of us. Isn’t there a promise somewhere that Jesus is coming again?(2 Peter 3:3,4) Do we have any joy in what our God has done, is doing and will surely do again any day now, or have we been taken in by our cultures and fears and self centered living? Lord, please give us your joy this year as we go through Christmas with you in mind.
Luke 1: 44 When I heard your greeting, the baby in my womb jumped for joy. 45 You are blessed because you believed that the Lord would do what he said."
Roy Wisner
