Good morning my “Walking with Jesus” friends on this CHRISTMAS DAY 2023!
Around the world today children will run to decorated Christmas trees in hopes of finding gifts. You did it as a child and so did I, right? Soon there will be squeals of joy and laughter and probably, sadly, some disappointment. Then it won’t take long, and some gifts will be discarded as broken or put back in a box for return.
Have you given much thought to what that first Christmas Day was like in Bethlehem, about 2000 years ago? Here’s a question for us to consider: ‘What will anyone receive as a gift this Christmas Day, which will be truly LIFE CHANGING today, and will significantly change the rest of their lives?’
I assume the shepherds, out there in the windswept Bethlehem fields, were going about their normal duties of herding sheep, on that first Christmas Day. Probably they hadn’t slept much the night before, simply awed by angels in the night sky and their amazing discovery in a stable in Bethlehem! The bustle and noise of overcrowded Bethlehem only intensified with each day as more and more people came to register for the census and pay what they felt was an unfair tax levied upon them by Rome. But all around them stood armed Romans soldiers, so there was not much they could do about their tax frustration.
Perhaps travelers came to that Bethlehem stable that day, to get their animals, not looking for a newborn baby. If they did happen to catch a glimpse of Mary or Joseph and the manger, they likely presumed it was a homeless family seeking shelter even in a stable.
The angels, of course, had returned to heaven, reporting that they had accomplished their mission of announcing the unimaginable to stunned shepherds. The Bible gives us no record of what Joseph or Mary did on that first Christmas Day, but it shouldn’t be difficult for us to understand that they now faced some very practical and pressing needs… food, water, paying their tax, and deciding if they should stay in Bethlehem for a while, or return as soon as possible to Nazareth? Of course, staying in Bethlehem would require finding something more suitable for housing and some work for Joseph to provide for his little family!
I presume Joseph and Mary had agreed it would be better if they did not speak to anyone about the true identity of their baby. Like all newborn Jewish boys, he would remain nameless until his 8th day. Then he would be both circumcised and named. (Luke 2:21) Until then he was just a little baby doing what babies do and Joseph and Mary were newborn parents adjusting as all newborn parents do, except doing it far from home, in an unwelcoming, overcrowded Bethlehem, perhaps living in that stable for more than only one night or two, until they could find a place to settle for a while.
No matter where you live in the world in December 2023, you probably are aware of homeless people in your city. Regardless of the reasons they are homeless, most of them survive day to day thanks to the social services of the government of your country and city, as well as the generosity of kind people, especially at this time of year. None of that was available to Joseph and Mary in Bethlehem 2000 years ago. They had no family in Bethlehem, no friends, no church or support system of any kind. They were alone.
Mary had made a profound and courageous statement to the angel Gabriel 9 months before when Gabriel announced that Mary was highly favored by God and would become pregnant by the Holy Spirit and would bear a Son who would be the Son of God. Do you remember? Mary had said, “I am the LORD’s servant, may it be unto me as you have said.” (Luke 2:38) When Mary said those words to the angel Gabriel, on that frightful day, she of course had no idea what the rest of her life would be like! Now, holding one day old Baby Jesus in her young arms, sitting in a smelly stable, surrounded by animals and their dung, what was Mary thinking about the price she was paying for having said those words, declaring herself to be God’s servant?
Joseph too had been visited by an angel who explained to Joseph that Mary’s unexplainable pregnancy was a work of Holy God, and Joseph was invited to risk his reputation and his future by taking Mary to be his wife, have no sexual union with her until after her Son would be born, and then raise her Son as his own. (Matt. 1:18-25)
On this first Christmas Day, do you suppose both Joseph and Mary were counting the cost they were paying to participate with God in this preposterous Christmas miracle, and the life God was asking them to live in providing a home for Jesus? As Joseph walked around Bethlehem looking for food for Mary and her Baby, looking to see where he might find some work to earn a little money, looking for some shelter more reliable for his little family than an animal stable, what do you suppose Joseph was thinking about this Christmas Day?
1100 years before that Christmas Day, in this very same village of Bethlehem, a widow woman named Naomi and her widowed daughter in law Ruth had just returned home to Bethlehem from Moab where they had fled years before to escape the famine in Bethlehem. (Ruth 1) They were deeply discouraged and penniless.
I wonder if Mary thought about Naomi and Ruth, that first Christmas Day? I’m confident Mary knew their story well, about how God had provided a ‘Kinsman Redeemer” for them named Boaz, who in his God honoring compassion took these widows in, paid their debts, and married Ruth. You remember that story my friends, we witnessed it a few weeks ago.
As Mary held her one day old Baby that day in a Bethlehem stable, do you suppose Mary looked around wondering if Naomi had sat very near where Mary was sitting, 1100 years before, holding Ruth’s one day old baby? (Ruth 4:16,17) They had named Ruth’s baby Obed, and he grew up in that Bethlehem, to be the father of Jesse who grew up in that Bethlehem, to be the father of David, and that is why Mary and Joseph were in that Bethlehem stable… because Joseph was born into that very same family line!
David, Jesse and Obed were ancestors of Joseph in the town of Bethlehem, and that’s why they had come to register for the census, in their ancestral home, Bethlehem! Do you suppose Mary prayed, thanking God for that wonderful story and now asking God to do something miraculously similar in caring for Joseph and Mary, all alone with their newborn Baby in a Bethlehem stable?
I assume Joseph also knew that story well, and I presume Joseph was also praying, asking God to miraculously give him the strength Mary and her one day old Baby would need from him. Did the memories of that and other great stories of God’s protection and provision and blessing for His people, awaken HOPE and COURAGE in Mary and Joseph that Christmas Day when they were all alone in Bethlehem with one day old Jesus? Do those stories give you hope today?
Are we celebrating the wonder, the power, the miracle of God coming to earth as ‘Immanuel’, God with us, on this day we call Christmas? Are we fully trusting God, as both Joseph and Mary did, no matter what the circumstances of our lives are this Christmas? Will we respond to Christmas by declaring that our deepest desire today is that our lives will echo the angels’ words and bring “Glory to God in the highest and on earth PEACE to those on whom God’s favor rests?”
Here’s a song to help us contemplate the opportunities you and I have today to bring Glory to God by fully trusting Him with our lives this Christmas Day, as Joseph and Mary did, their first Christmas Day:
Today’s Scripture is Luke 1:38.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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