Good morning my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
It’s Monday… the day after Christmas. All around the world crazy things are happening today. Very quickly that which was long anticipated is being put behind us! Christmas trees will be undecorated and thrown to the curb. Christmas gifts will be exchanged for something more desired. Christmas food is all leftovers now. Christmas music will disappear from the radio waves. And the Christmas joy that filled this past weekend will be replaced with all kinds of other emotions including regret, loneliness, shame, and maybe even anger or bitterness. And while all that is happening there is now a frenzied focus on preparations for New Year’s Eve! Do you see some of this where you live?
I left some of you this weekend sitting with the shepherds out in the fields as they talked about what they had seen in the sky and in the stable! I left others of you standing in the shadows in the stable watching one of the most unbelievable scenes in human history. I urged us all to make sure reflection and worship of Jesus was NOT pushed out of our Christmas weekend. Now today, the day after Christmas, what do you suppose was happening in Bethlehem? The overcrowded stress was no better, perhaps even worse as more people came into Bethlehem to register for the census! The shepherds had sheep to care for and maybe some precious near perfect lambs to bring into Jerusalem to sell to the sacrificial animal venders near the Sheep Gate. But what about Joseph and Mary? What was this, the day after the miraculous birth of Jesus, like for them?
I presume Joseph now felt an urgent need to find a safe place for Mary and her baby to stay for a few days while they completed their census registration. Mary had a baby to feed and keep healthy, so Mary needed food and water and warmth. And they had a very important decision to make: Return to Nazareth and begin their married life together with baby Jesus in their hometown or?
Or what? Perhaps it would be better to start fresh in a new town where no one knew anything about either Mary or Joseph or their unexplainable pregnancy. The Bible record says “Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19) You’ve noticed I’m sure, that I often urge you to PONDER the remarkable things of God. Ponder, reflect, meditate, asking God to help us understand. That’s what Joseph and Mary were doing, I think, the day after Christmas. The Bible is silent, my friends, on exactly what happened during those first few days after the birth of Jesus in that stable. But it should not be difficult for us to imagine the urgency of very practical issues which Joseph and Mary needed to find solutions for quickly. Did someone take pity on them and at least give Mary and the baby a warm and dry bed? Did Joseph do some carpentry work to earn a little money to buy food? What we do know is that on the 8th day after that Christmas night, Joseph and Mary did what all good Jewish parents have done since the days of Abraham, their ancestor. (Genesis 17) Luke describes it in one sentence: “On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise the child, He was given the name Jesus, the name the angel had given Him before He was conceived.” (Luke 2:21)
Where it happened, I don’t know, but I presume somewhere quiet in busy, bustling Bethlehem. Who was present to witness this historic moment, I don’t know other than Joseph and Mary. The infant boy was circumcised as a declaration that this baby was born into the cherished line of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and his 12 sons… specifically the tribe of Judah, the family line of David, of the Hebrew people. A prayer of thanksgiving to God was prayed over the baby for without doubt this baby was a God sent miracle! And then a proclamation of His name… Yeshua, Jesus! Can you see the smiles on Mary and Joseph’s faces? They both had been told by angels to give this baby that name, and they were proud to be obedient!
Consider this my friends: as the blood squirted out from that circumcision, they were the first drops of the precious blood of Jesus which would be shed one day, to accomplish God’s great Redemption Plan! These first blood drops confirmed the great, unexplainable miracle of the INCARNATION of God! God the creator of the entire universe and all that exists and every person… the only all powerful, all knowing, infinite, holy God, had somehow taken on human flesh in this little baby. This baby was fully human but also fully God!! Can you grasp that? Those circumcision blood drops and that umbilical cord stub in that little belly were celebrating that the miracle of incarnation was a success! But can your mind grasp it my friends? Almighty God the Son in the tiny body of a helpless human baby boy, with little tears pouring out of His little eyes as the circumcision knife declared this baby to be among God’s chosen people. I wonder if God the Father called all the angels in heaven to gather around and witness this second remarkable event in Bethlehem?
My friends, do you understand that those drops of circumcision blood pointed forward from Christmas to Easter? The only way humanity could be rescued, delivered from our sin bondage, would be first the Incarnation, and then the atonement, sacrificial death of God the Son, in the body of Jesus! 30 years later or so, after that first Christmas, when John the Baptist was one day baptizing people at the Jordan river, Jesus approached him and John pointed to Jesus and said: “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” (John 1:28) I’ve often wondered if there might have been a shepherd or two in the crowd that day witnessing the baptism of Jesus and that announcement from John? Might it even be possible that one of those shepherd boys who had come in from the fields that night with their dad to look for the baby in the manger, might they have been on the Jordan river bank when John the Baptist made that statement? And I’ve also wondered if it was possible one of those shepherd boys, more than 30 years later after that Christman night, might have been in Jerusalem that Passover weekend when Jesus was crucified? And if so what if he found himself standing not far from Mary, the mother of Jesus at the foot of the cross, and remembering the night they first met, that Christmas night, looking at that precious baby in a manger, in a stable.
My friends, on this Monday after Christmas, let’s not rush too quickly to New Year’s Eve… let’s ponder, as Mary did, the significance of this great miracle, the incarnation of God into humanity. And let’s thank Jesus for coming and making it possible for us to spend eternity with HIM. Here’s a very special song, one of my favorite Christmas songs, that helps us consider what Mary saw as she looked those first days, into the face of her baby, and those little hands curled around her finger. Mary did you know…?
Today’s Scripture is Luke 2:19-21.
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 262.441.8785
“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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