"In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

“Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” Luke 2:1-14

And the Hits Keep on Coming

First off, Merry Christmas! We’re here, it’s Christmas day. We have been looking forward to this day all year and counting down to it all month. Today is when we get to see everything come together perfectly.

Remember all those prophecies about whose family the Messiah would come through? Well, it’s happening. If you have any doubts you can see all their names in Matthew 1 where he traces the genealogy all the way down from Abraham to Jesus (or can listen to Andrew Peterson’s song “Matthew’s Begats”).

Today we get to see all the promises coming together in one glorious birth. We get to see God keeping his word to his people: to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Jesse, Ruth, David, Joseph, Mary, and others. But how does God do it?

You and I both remember that Gabriel appeared to Joseph and Mary telling them about Jesus, right? And we know that way before that he promised that the baby would be born in Bethlehem. But did you ever stop and realize that Joseph didn’t even live in Bethlehem? Sure, it’s where his great, great, great grandfather David lived but that was 1,000 years earlier. It looks like Joseph actually lived about 100 miles from Bethlehem. So how and why did he get to Bethlehem for the birth of Jesus?

You Just Can’t Make This Stuff Up

On the one side, you have a pregnant virgin with an elderly cousin who is also pregnant, both of which have been announced by angels from heaven. On the other hand, you have a pagan ruler who wants to get as much tax money as he can from those he is ruling over. What do they have in common? God is God over them all. Somehow God put it on the heart of this Caesar that he needed to tax the people of Israel and the best way to do this is to get everyone back to their ancestral hometowns so that they can be properly registered. And it just so happens that this is the exact time that Mary

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"In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abijah. And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years.

  Now while he was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty, according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense. And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him. But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.” Luke 1:5-17

A Little Deja Vu

We are one day out from Christmas so it only makes sense that we would talk about John the Baptist today. After all, he is the one who prepares us for the coming of Jesus. When we take a minute to step back from this story and look at it in light of the rest of the Bible we are struck with some really interesting similarities regarding the way God works in history. 

Have you noticed that God seems to prefer working in similar ways at different times? Take this situation for example. You have an older couple that God has decided to work through who are beyond their childbearing years. Then, all of a sudden, you have a messenger from heaven tell them that they are going to have a baby boy. Sound familiar? Yeah, this is very similar to what happened with Abraham and Sarah. The difference in this situation is that it’s the dad who didn’t believe. 

The Mute Priest

Here we have Zechariah. He is taking his turn offering up prayers and incense in the temple. Then out of nowhere the angel Gabriel appears to him and Zechariah freaks out. Of course he did! I couldn’t imagine the shock that he experienced. I’m picturing him closing his eyes in prayer and then opening them to move on to the next candle he’s supposed to light and BOOM! there’s an angelic warrior right there with him in this sacred space. No wonder Gabriel has to tell him to not be afraid. 

Now I understand that he’s old and his wife Elizabeth is old but you would think that sending Gabriel to tell someone something would be enough to convince them of just about anything. I mean, we’re talking about an angel that just came from standing before God. But he didn’t believe… and Gabriel knew it. So, since he didn’t believe it, Gabriel tells him that he won’t be able to speak until his wife has her baby boy. 

It’s All Starting to Click

I’m assuming that as soon as Zechariah gets stuck with silence it all started coming together.

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"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
  There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.
  The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
  And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known."
John 1:1-18

Intentional Echo

If you were going to summarize the book of John in one phrase it would be “Jesus is God”. It seems like everywhere you turn in the book of John either Jesus is saying that he is God, one of the supporting characters is saying it, or, like we have right here, John himself is making it clear.

Even those who aren’t very familiar with the Bible can realize that John is intentionally using the same language as the creation account in Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created”. But why would he do this? He is letting us know that the God who created the whole world by the word of his mouth at the beginning is none other than Jesus Christ.

The Grand Arrival

Remember that we call this season that we are celebrating, “advent”. We explained at the beginning that it comes from a word that means arrival. So what we are doing this month is celebrating the arrival of Jesus into the world. Today we need to pause and think about the fact that when someone “arrives” somewhere it means that they were somewhere else first. Does that make sense? What I mean by this is very important. Jesus did not come into existence at his birth. In fact, Jesus never came into existence at all. Jesus has always existed. This month we are celebrating the time when the eternal God arrived in our world as a baby boy.

This Has Always Been the Plan

When Jesus created mankind in the garden we had fellowship with him. This is what God intended. God made mankind in his own image for a relationship with him. Unfortunately, you know what happened, man sinned and our relationship with God was damaged. But this isn’t the end of the story. God already had a plan to restore our relationship with him. And the rest of the Bible tells us the

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The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
  As it is written in Isaiah the prophet,
“Behold, I send my messenger before your face,
who will prepare your way,
the voice of one crying in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight,’”
  John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey. And he preached, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” Mark 1:1-8

Intersecting Roads

If you have ever read through the gospel of Mark you will realize that he moves quickly through everything. In fact, the word most connected with Mark is “immediately”. It’s like he doesn’t have any time to slow down, he’s got to get to it right now. In light of this, when we see him quoting Scripture like this we shouldn’t be surprised. In this one quotation he’s actually quoting from 2 different books of the Old Testament. He doesn’t have time to stop and tell you how they’re connected, but thankfully we do.

The first part of this is from Malachi 3:1 “behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me”. In this context, God’s people have been crying out for justice, asking God where he is. God replies by telling them that he will come and he will bring justice with him. And, so that they can be certain, he lets them know that he will send his messenger first. What we have to remember when we read this is that God is sending this messenger to prepare for his actual coming. Mark is telling us that God is personally coming to his people and John the Baptist is going to prepare the way for him.
Next is a quotation from Isaiah 40. We should notice that Mark strings both of these together as if it was one coherent quotation. He is telling us that Malachi and Isaiah were talking about the same thing. So what’s happening in Isaiah?

In Isaiah, the context is pretty similar. God’s people were crying out to him for relief. Don’t forget, this word is coming to a group of people that were constantly under oppression. They wanted deliverance. They wanted to finally feel like God’s people again.

Isaiah 40 is a word from God to his people. He tells Isaiah to speak gently to them to give them comfort. But why should they be comforted? They should be comforted because they are God’s chosen people, loved by God. The next couple of chapters spell out the blessings that God has for them. He reminds them that he is the God who is there for them. You cannot compare him to false gods and idols who are nothing. He is the great God over all the earth and he is going to save them.

First Things, First

God wanted his people to know that he is coming to be with them, but first he was going to send someone to prepare the way. Look and see what Mark is saying here. He is telling us that Jesus

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"Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:
   “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall call his name Immanuel”
(which means, God with us). When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus." Matthew 1:18-25

The Time of Fulfillment

It is finally happening. In our journey through the Bible looking forward to Jesus, we are finally stepping over into the New Testament. These last 5 days we are going to be looking at the beginning of each gospel account in preparation for Christmas.

When you read through Matthew’s version of the story you can’t help but be impressed by how much of the Old Testament he quotes when referring to the events surrounding Jesus’ birth. Remember, Matthew was Jewish and was writing to a predominantly Jewish audience, so it makes a lot of sense that he would remind them of the Old Testament prophecies. The most exciting part of this being the fact that all of those promises that God made to his people are finally coming true. What an amazing privilege that we have to see it all playing out in front of us.

The Righteous Fiancé

The first thing we need to remember here is that engagement worked a little differently in the New Testament time period than it does today. When we see that Joseph and Mary are engaged we need to realize that this was a legal agreement that required an actual divorce in order to break up. It was a way more serious commitment back in those days.

As the narrative unfolds we find out that Mary is pregnant and that it isn’t Joseph’s baby. If he wanted to, Joseph could have taken her in front of the courts and had her severely punished. However, he is a righteous man. He seems to really love and care for her. Let’s not let it go unnoticed that even before God reveals to him the reality of the situation, when he still thinks that he has been betrayed by Mary, he planned on showing her grace.

The Forgotten Prophecy

While Joseph was thinking about what to do with Mary, God sent an angel to him to give him instructions. Now to be honest we know less about this vision than we do about Mary’s angelic visit in Luke 1. Here, all we know is that an angel of the Lord appears to Joseph in a dream telling him about what’s going on with Mary. What he tells him is unbelievable and humanly impossible. He tells him that there is no earthly father for her baby. “That which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit”. What?! This is such an unbelievable message that it required an angelic messenger to make it believable.

In Luke’s account, we get to see Mary’s side of it. Let’s be honest, Mary’s surprise would have to be 1,000 times more surpr

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"Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.” Malachi 4:5-6

 The Ultimate Cliffhanger

When I was growing up there were several TV shows that our family would watch together. You younger readers might not understand this, but it used to be that there were only a couple of TV networks and it seemed like everybody watched them. And there was no recording (unless you somehow figured out how to program your VCR) and no binging. You knew when your show would come on and you were home for it. The best shows were the ones that kept a continuous story going from week to week and they would build up to the end of the season. For weeks they would advertise the “season finale” and you couldn’t miss it. Inevitably at the end of the last show of the season, there would be a huge turn of events and you’d be left in suspense, not knowing how it would turn out. They had you. Now you’d have to wait until the next season before you could finally get the answer.

So why are we talking about this? Well, there is a sense in which this is what God did to his people with the Old Testament. When the Old Testament ends you have this amazing promise of God’s restored kingdom. Our passage for today contains the last 2 sentences of the Old Testament, but in order to understand the context let’s look at the verses that come right before this.

The Great Day of the Lord

It’s important to remember that Malachi is writing to a group of Jews who had recently come back to their homeland. You see God’s people had turned away from him so he sent foreign rulers to take them into captivity. But now they were returning. Look at the amazing message of hope that Malachi gives to them:

This is a proclamation of victory for God and for his people. Those who do evil will be judged and those who love the Lord will rejoice. It’s a really beautiful picture. I can only imagine the joy and the hope that God’s people would have received from this. It is truly “great and awesome”.

But when was it supposed to happen? That’s what’s crazy, they don’t know. God doesn’t tell them when this is going to happen. Instead, he gives them a sign so that will know when it does happen. That’s where our text for today comes in. He tells them that Elijah the prophet is going to come and he will turn the hearts of God’s people back to him.

This is confusing for several reasons. First, Elijah has been gone for over 400 years. And secondly, these are the last recorded words of the Old Testament. After this God stops speaking to his people for 400 years. All they know is that they need to be on the lookout for someone like Elijah.

Elijah: Take 2

If you aren’t super familiar wi

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Thus says the LORD: “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.” Jeremiah 31:15

So Much More

People who really know who Jesus is will respond in one of two ways: anger or adoration. There is no middle ground. We see people try to do this in today’s world but it really isn’t a possibility. I get really frustrated when I hear people say stuff about how Jesus was a “good, moral teacher” because that just isn’t an option. Jesus claimed to be God. Good, moral teachers don’t claim to create and sustain the universe. C.S. Lewis famously said in Mere Christianity:

Now that we are on the same page we can look at this passage. This first comes to us as a prophecy in Jeremiah but then it is quoted in Matthew 1:18, where we are told that it has been fulfilled. But what happened?

The Star

As you know, when Jesus was born a star appeared. It’s crazy because it looks like the only people that recognized it was a group of “wise men” from somewhere in the east. They were so impressed by this star’s appearance that they set out to see the one who was born “king of the Jews”. What’s even crazier is that they weren’t even Jewish. They must have had copies of the Old Testament lying around and put it together that God was going to announce the coming of the king with a star.

Long story short, they show up in Jerusalem asking about the baby. Of course, they would go to Jerusalem, right? This is where the kings are supposed to live. But when they get there Israel’s king, Herod, has no clue what they are talking about, so he gets his own wise men together to figure it out. They come back and say that according to Micah 5:2, the king must be born in Bethlehem. That’s not bad, these guys traveled potentially 400 miles and made it to within 6 miles of Jesus on their first try. Herod then sends them off while trying to trick them. He tells them that they need to come back and tell him all about it so he can go and worship him too. The good news is that God wasn’t tricked. He knew all that was in Herod’s heart, so he later appears to the wise men to tell them not to stop and see Herod but to keep going.

Polarized Responses

These wise men saw the star and came to worship Jesus. They knew that the heavenly signs were pointing to a heavenly baby. They knew that he was so much more than a baby born to be king. That is why they dropped everything to go and worship him. Herod understood this too, but it didn’t lead him to wo

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“Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The LORD is our righteousness.’ Jeremiah 23:5-6 

A Timely Message

When you read this passage you can’t help but get excited. This is absolutely filled with hope. There is a king coming from the line of David who is going to bring salvation. The reason why this is encouraging for us is that we are looking back at it through the lens of a stable. We know that this is talking about baby Jesus born from David’s line in David’s town.

However, the Jews to whom this was originally written were in a completely different context. Some of them had been taken into captivity and some of them were getting ready to be taken. They have a “king” but he’s just a puppet set up by a conquering army, he has no power. Imagine you were in that situation. How much more meaningful would it be to know that God was going to send a real king? And not just any king either, this king would be like David (one of his actual offspring) and he would really rule and reign. Not only that, but he would bring peace. Remember that at this time God’s people had already been split into 2 nations (Israel and Judah) each with separate kings. The king that Jeremiah was promising would be a king to bring unity and peace. There would be no more wars with Assyria or Babylon. There would be no more deportations to foreign lands. God’s king would be in control.

A Godly King

You don’t have to look too far to realize that there is more going on here. Look at the attention given to “righteousness”. In just these 2 verses we see it mentioned 3 times. First, we see that God is going to raise up from David’s line a “righteous” branch. This is a really big deal for several reasons. It’s important because even before Israel had their first king God laid out how the king was supposed to reign. He wasn’t supposed to get a ton of wealth for himself, he wasn’t supposed to marry a bunch of women, and he wasn’t supposed to make a huge army. Instead, he was supposed to put his trust and confidence in God and his word. Look at what God says through Moses:

The Jews knew that their kings were supposed to reign like this. They also knew that very few of them had. When you read through Kings and Chronicles it’s easy to see that both Israel and Judah had a bad track record when it came to godly kings. Knowing this makes this prophecy so much sweeter.

Secondly, we see that this king is going to execute “justice and righteousness”. This is really interesting because it looks like he is emphasizing both sides of the coin. This new king that God was sending woul

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"But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah,
who are too little to be among the clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
one who is to be ruler in Israel,
whose coming forth is from of old,
from ancient days." - Micah 5:2

Some Prophecies are Harder than Others

Depending on who you ask, it is possible that Jesus fulfilled a couple hundred prophecies from the Old Testament. That is absolutely incredible. Some people will go on and on trying to figure out the odds of this happening so that they can show that no mere human being could possibly accomplish this and therefore Jesus must be God. I couldn’t agree more. In fact, one of my favorite illustrations comes from a book published by a guy named Stoner in 1957 called Science Speaks. He said that the odds of Jesus fulfilling just 8 of these prophecies would be the same as if you covered the state of Texas with silver dollars 2 feet deep, marked one with a checkmark, and blindfolded someone. Then they walked around and picked the marked silver dollar on their first try. Do you see what he’s saying? That’s just not possible.

When we look at the text for today in light of this we are faced with some really interesting questions. In the above scenario we are talking about an adult attempting to fulfill these prophecies, but what about the prophecies about stuff that had to happen before the Messiah was born? What about where you’re born? Or where you move as an infant? What about your ancestors? See what we are getting at here? No one has ever been able to plan the city in which they were born… no one that is, except Jesus. And the reason he was able to do this is because he was, and is, God.

The Not-So-Expected Prophet

Just like with many of these prophecies, this one looks really clear to us as we look back but, what did the Jews of Jesus’ time think about this? Did they know that it was a prediction of the Messiah? This is a difficult question to answer because it looks like it’s a mixture of yes and no.

First, let’s look at the “no”. During the time of Jesus, the Jews could be separated into 2 basic groups of people: those who were looking for the coming Messiah, and those who weren’t. It might sound weird to say this, but from the New Testament’s witness it looks like the religious leaders of the day fell into the category of the ones who weren’t. They had built up their own power and influence and they were not ready to hand that over to anybody—not even the Messiah.

On the other hand, we see faithful Jews who were raised on the Old Testament and longed for the Messiah to come. This makes sense too. These were the common Jews who didn’t have any of the power of the leaders. They were the ones who felt the most of the oppression by the Romans. Of course, they were looking for the Deliverer.

We see these people showing up as real seekers in the gospels. In John, there is an interesting interaction between these 2 groups of people. Jesus has gotten up and told them that he is God and that there is hope only in him. Some of them say, yes, “he is the prophet” or “he is the Messiah” but some say it’s not possible because Jesus is from Galilee (remember he moved a couple of times as a kid). Look at verse 42, “has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David, and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was?”

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“1 There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.

2 And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him,
the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and might,
the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.

3 And his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
or decide disputes by what his ears hear,

4 but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.

5 Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist,
and faithfulness the belt of his loins.

6 The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,
and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together;
and a little child shall lead them.

7 The cow and the bear shall graze;
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

8 The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra,
and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den.

9 They shall not hurt or destroy
in all my holy mountain;
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD
as the waters cover the sea.

10 In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious.” – Isaiah 11:1-10

The Heart of the King

First off, let’s pay attention to how God is narrowing the path to the Messiah. Twice in this little passage, Isaiah tells us that this hero is going to come through Jesse’s family. And you remember the story, right? Jesse was a faithful Israelite looking forward to a Messiah when out of nowhere a prophet comes to tell him that one of his boys is going to be the king. This is when Jesse parades each of his sons out in front of Samuel but then finds out that none of them are gonna work. He has to actually go out to the field to get David from watching the sheep so that he can be anointed as the king! How crazy this that?! Don’t forget: man looks at outward appearance, but God looks at the heart.

Like the Best Petting Zoo Ever

As we have seen over and over this is just another example of God narrowing and expanding the vision for his kingdom. He is narrowing it by telling us that it is going to come through Jesse’s family, but he is expanding it to include the whole world, “far as the curse it found”. We know that there is something wrong in the world. When we look around us there is so much violence. Not only do we see wars and fighting among men and nations, but we see it in the animal kingdom as well. When God created the whole world and said that it was “very good” there was no violence, just peace.

The vision that Isaiah is giving us is of that same kind of peace. Have you ever watched Planet Earth or the Discovery Channel? How do animals typically treat each other? More like food than friends, right? We

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