December, 2004

Seasons Greetings!

The end of another year is fast approaching, and many Christians believe this to be a very special season. They say, “Jesus is the Reason for the Season!”  Jesus, the greatest gift of all, given to us many years ago.

Jesus, (Hebrew Name, Yeshua), was born in Bethlehem, Israel. He was born and raised an observant Jew, circumcised on the eighth day, according to Jewish Law, and consecrated unto the Lord by His mother, (Miriam), and his stepfather, Joseph.

Each year His parents kept the Feasts of the Lord, traveling to Jerusalem to celebrate them, and Jesus was regularly seen in the synagogue, reading from the Hebrew Scriptures. He spent much of His time teaching, and was recognized as a Jewish teacher of the Law. The number one priority in His life was the Jewish Nation, Israel, and His people, the Jews.

Since many believe that Jesus was born in the month of December, let us take a look at the way God chose to bring His Son, the greatest gift ever given, into the world. It is anything but the way that Christians have envisioned it down through the years. So, let us think about this realistically.

First of all, Jesus was born in a barn. This is a  very unlikely place for a king to be born. After a difficult journey for a woman in her ninth month of pregnancy, a stable is the last place that a caring husband would want her to be.

The Nativity scenes that we see decorating the landscape, during this season, are something less than accurate. None of them smell quite right. None of us fully understand the unsanitary conditions of having to walk very carefully around the droppings of animals, and then lay a newborn baby, fresh from the pains of delivery, in to a feeding trough streaked with the saliva of the animals that fed there.

We don’t fully understand the embarrassment that Joseph must have felt to watch his wife go through this pain in such surroundings. I can only imagine that he was thinking that the Son of God certainly deserved something better. I know my children were all born in such sanitary conditions, squeaky clean, if you will, that I honestly cannot imagine laying a newborn baby down in anything that would even resemble a feeding trough.

Nevertheless, God chose to have His Son born in a barn. This was a birth that could impress no one, and certainly no one would be threatened by it. Most could even brag about their better circumstances.

As far as the city where He was born is concerned, think about this! A famous city would have increased the ability of people to remember Him, and definitely would have improved His image. Bethlehem? There are not sufficient hotels, motels, and convention centers to make this an appropriate place to visit and honor the memory of a king. No, Bethlehem was not even large enough to warrant having the Son of God born there, but He was! No one could be intimidated by His birthplace, and that is for sure.

Then there was the question of His father. We believe in the virgin birth now, at least some of us do, but back then, they did not believe in the virgin birth. Jesus grew up in the midst of much whispering, and the stigma of having been born out of wedlock.

Think about this for a moment: What if the choice young girl of an outstanding church youth group suddenly appeared pregnant? Nothing about her life would ever indicate that such would happen, so everyone is shocked when it does. With great hesitation and embarrassment, the leader of the group finally musters up enough courage to ask her who the father is. And she responds, “The Holy Spirit!” The entire group would laugh her to scorn.

Do you suppose the friends and neighbors of Jesus never asked Him why He didn’t resemble Joseph? Do you suppose that His childhood friends never gathered and laughed at His claim that the Holy Spirit was His father? Do you suppose the Pharisees never brought it up to Him?

In Biblical times, one who was born out of wedlock, and his descendants to the tenth generation, were excluded from the Assembly of the Lord. They had no claim to parental care or the usual privileges and discipline of legitimate children. Though we all know that  was not what Jesus was, the world viewed Him differently.

If you were seeking to be recognized as God, you surely would not want this sort of thing on your record. Opponents would have buckets of mud to sling at you. The whispering campaign would be devastating! Nevertheless, the multitudes of people who had borne the taunts of the world, would now find One whose birth would not intimidate them. Instead, One who could redeem them. How vulnerable He made Himself to the caustic world! Born of a virgin! And as if that is not enough, we will see that His ancestry left Him few bragging points. You see, there were skeletons in His closet!

There is more to the record of His ancestry than a list of names. Just as our own ancestry might produce an undesirable or two, Jesus, were He not “God With Us” would be embarrassed by some from whom He issued.

The purity of the Jewish line was compromised in Ruth, the Moabitis, and Rahab, the Cananite. That is not all either! There was further shame. Rahab was a prostitute. Jacob was a cheat! Judah was a womanizer! David was an adulterer and murderer. Then out of the union of David and Bathsheba came Solomon, who in spite of his wisdom, had hundreds of wives and concubines, then turned his heart away from God.

We may be proud of royal or outstanding genetic strains in our ancestry, but this amazing Jesus forgoes such luxury so that his ancestry can never intimidate any of us. Also, the skeptic can never claim that He was merely the final product of a super race.

There is more! There is His Name! You may protest that the Name of Jesus is not a common name, and definitely not a weak one. We need to understand the background of His Name before we reach these conclusions.

First of all, His Name was not actually Jesus! His Name was Joshua. It was a good name meaning, “Jehovah is Salvation!” It was a very common name, not one appropriate for a king.

The name, ‘Joshua,’ comes to us through the Greek as ‘Jesus.’ It comes to us through the Hebrew as ‘Yeshua,’ which is what His mother would have called Him. Because the common name of ‘Joshua’ did not stand out from all the rest, it is a clue to His nature, for He was also called ‘Immanuel,’ which means “God With Us!” He chose to identify Himself with His people, not stand apart from them.

Notice, too, that He picked a desolate spot to enter the world. And then Gabriel gave  shepherds the important news.  You must understand that in that time, shepherds were not the best messengers to be carrying the news of His birth. They had lost the respectful reputation that they might have had in the time of David. At this point in time, they were a group that tended to be a little light fingered with other people’s property. They were not the most welcome group in town. People put very little stock in their words.

Next, think about His appearance! Jesus was not handsome. This you might find difficult to believe having looked at the painted pictures which have been supposed to represent Him all these years. Sorry, but Isaiah tells us how He looked. “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him.” (Isaiah 53:2)

He was so common in His appearance that often He was able to loose Himself in the crowds. Judas had to identify Him with a kiss, even after three years in the public eye.

This is a good clue to His approach to people. Jesus came in a form that was not intimidating to anyone. Everyone felt at ease around Him. His appearance in no way separated Him from the common, poor people to whom He was sent.

Here is something else to think about: Have you ever wondered what you would have done if the Messiah had been born in to your family? Here you have the most precious jewel in all of history, but what do you do with Him? That was what Joseph and Mary had to think about! They now had the Son of God in their possession. They took Him to Nazareth, after fleeing for their lives to Egypt. But surely Nazareth was not the place to raise the Son of God. The moral and religious reputation of Nazareth was so bad that the response of Nathaniel meeting Jesus of Nazareth was, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

Jesus consistently found Himself moving among, and identifying with, the least in life. Yet His Father owns the cattle on a thousand hills. How about we take a look at what happens when He begins to spend that money.

Jesus owned only what He carried on His back. No one was ever impressed or intimidated by that. He said of Himself, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head.”   

He simply did not view riches as we do today. In the Sermon on the Mount He cautioned us, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in Heaven”…

Jesus was not fooled by money. He who was able to pay taxes from coins found in the mouth of a fish, and turn stones in to bread, could easily have been the financial barron of all times.

His decision to remain devoid of the goods of the world freed Him from the hidden agenda of jealousy that would affect any conversation with anyone more or less wealthy than He. Therefore He was able to direct all of His energies and sensitivities toward the real needs of the persons to whom He was ministering, and He was able to act out of love alone.

Paul in II Corinthians 8:9 wrote, “Though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.” Jesus, by choosing to walk this earth unencumbered by riches, was choosing not to let anything come in the way of His giving Himself to people. He had not come to redeem things, but He had come to redeem people. He gave Himself fully for us!

Another thing we must think about is the one who went before Him. His advance man, if you will! Instead of sending someone all dressed up in a suit, shirt and tie, God chose to send a raving, tactless man, who dressed inappropriately for a minister, and was committed to organic foods. To top it all off, he closed his services by dunking everyone who had the courage to respond in water. Today, if we did that, we would have to spend much of our time explaining the actions of our forerunner. But the life of Jesus was marked by the use of the most unlikely persons. Praise His Holy Name!

Being an others-oriented person, a servant to others, made Him want to free them to be as real and honest as possible. He wants them to be able to make genuine decisions. We make so few genuine decisions in life. Most of the choices we make are affected by outside forces and demands. However, when it comes to the most important decision in life, our decision about God, He seeks only a genuine one. So we are approached in a way that lovingly frees us to make that decision genuinely. We can accept Him or reject Him. He refuses to violate our free will. And, brothers and sisters, that is pure love!

Have a wonderfully blessed holiday season! Shalom & Blessings,  Myrna