Christ Triumphant, Ascended, Gives Gifts to Mankind

“There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.  But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift.  Therefore He says, ‘When He ascended on high, He led a host of captives, and He gave gifts to men.’ (In saying ‘He ascended,’ what does it mean but that He had also descended into the lower regions, the earth?  He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.”  And He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.  Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way unto Him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.” –Ephesians 4:4-16 (ESV).

Throughout December these devotionals have looked at some of the prophecies concerning the Messiah.  At Christmastime we celebrated anew the account of His birth and those who first encountered the newborn King.  In other devotionals throughout the year, we have looked on occasion at Christ’s work and mission.  A lifetime of study could be expended on Christ, His teachings, work, and mission and we would barely plumb the depths and richness of His perfect life.  To finish out this year’s devotionals we will consider the triumphant Christ.  Having finished the work He came to earth to do we know He then ascended to the Father.  But He left us work to do.  We recall when He was age twelve, Jesus made a trip to the Temple in Jerusalem.  His parents, not finding Him among the travelers returning to Nazareth, went to seek Him  They found him in the Temple, talking with the religious leaders.  Mary questioned Him about why He had not been with them on the way home and He responded:  “Know you not that I must be about my Father’s business?’(Luke 2:49).  And with the work finished He had come to earth to do, He ascended triumphantly to Heaven to His Father’s House where He is at the right hand of God interceding, awaiting our coming, and awaiting the Father’s appointed time when He will return the second time to earth to set up His kingdom (see John 14:3, Acts 1:11, Titus 2:13).  And He assigned us, His followers, to “be about His Father’s business,” to work at winning others to Christ.

We were given gifts to do the work of Christ until His return.  We are to work in and through the body, the church, which proclaims one Lord, one faith, one hope, one baptism, one Lord and Father.  The gifts Christ bestows are to allow those who work in His kingdom to be (as indicated in Ephesians 4:11):  prophets, evangelists, shepherds, teachers.  We are to conduct ourselves maturely and grow “in the fullness of Christ.”  We are to “speak the truth in love.” This sort of Spirit-led life causes the body of Christ (the church, believers banded together in the work of the Lord) to grow and be built up in love. What an assignment He left for us to accomplish!  How are we measuring up to His expectations of the work and mission He left us to do?  How are we exercising the gifts He provided us to be used in His service?  As we face a new year, these questions should be paramount as we resolve to follow Christ more faithfully and serve Him more lovingly.

Prayer:  Lord, Help us to examine our relationship with You and measure it by the guidelines for Christian living and service as taught us in Your Word.  Help us to correct areas of weakness and to rededicate ourselves to the work You have called us to do.  May we do all as unto the Lord.  Amen.

Matters at the Temple and Testimonies about Jesus

“And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary His mother, ‘Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.’” –Luke 2: 34-35 (ESV.  Read Luke 2:21-38).

Mary and Joseph as pious Jews had matters concerning Jesus’ birth that had to be taken care of according to the law.  On the eighth day they followed the command to circumcise a male child when he was eight days old (see Genesis 17:12-14, 21:4 and Leviticus 12:3).  This was a ritual act in evidence of the covenant God made with Abraham and his descendants, and it indicated a devotion to Yahweh God.  In Old Testament times, the father might perform the rite on his child.  Later, the Jews had those who specialized in the operation, and it may have been to one of these that Mary and Joseph took Jesus.  Circumcision also indicated that the person would not be cut off from the covenant of God. 

After forty days, the Jewish time set for purification of the mother after the birth of a male child (see Leviticus 12), Joseph and Mary went to the temple and presented the required offerings, two turtle doves or two young pigeons.  This offering was for the poor; a more well-to-do couple would have offered a lamb.  Their desire to follow Jewish law prompted them to do this.  By all rights, they should not have had to take a sin offering, for the male child Mary bore was conceived of the Holy Spirit and therefore holy.  But their conformity to the law shows their pleasure in keeping the covenant.

And then two people in the Temple interact with the Baby.  First is old Simeon, who was “waiting for the consolation of Israel.”  a term which means a sign that God would soon come to comfort and rescue Israel.  Upon seeing Jesus, Simeon took him in his arms and blessed Him.  His psalm of gladness recorded in Luke 2:29-32 echoes some of the Messianic words of Isaiah.  But following his outburst of praise, Simeon turned to Mary and made a prophecy of his own.  He told her that her child would cause the “fall and rise of many in Israel.”  Fall indicates judgment upon the arrogant; rise foretells salvation for those who will accept it.  He also foretells future harsh opposition to Jesus and that Mary’s heart would be pierced as though by a sword.  We know that Mary watched her Son crucified.  How truly did Simeon’s prophecy come true!  

Next came old Anna, a prophetess, and long-time widow who was given to fasting and prayer.  She, too, recognized the Baby as the Messiah and told everyone she saw of “the redemption of Jerusalem.”  Now, not only Joseph and Mary knew why Jesus had come into the world, but the two devout elderly people who saw Him in the Temple as a 40-day old Baby recognized that He was the Messiah God had promised.  From Mary and Joseph and their business in the Temple, we learn the importance of piety.  From Simeon and Anna we learn the importance of living close to God and watching for His revelation. 

Prayer.  Lord, whatever acts of piety and devotion You call upon us to do, may we do them with sincerity and devotion, as in fulfillment of a binding covenant we make with You.  Amen.

Shepherds Find Jesus

“And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger.  And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child.  And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them.  But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.  And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.” Luke 2:26-20. ESV.  (Read Luke 2:8-20).

By the angels’ appearance to shepherds on a Bethlehem hillside to tell them of the Savior’s birth, they were announcing the news of the Messiah’s birth to the very lowliest of citizens.  Shepherds were considered unclean because of the nature of their work with the sheep.  They were not allowed to go into the Temple to worship nor could they serve as a witness in court.  Yet they were not prevented in being the very first to go to visit the Babe, the Son of God.  And as they went from seeing Him back to their fields and everywhere telling the marvels of what they had seen and experienced, they became the first messengers (giving spoken witness) of the Savior’s birth.  These actions of the shepherds show that the Lord came to the lowliest and humblest among us.  King of Kings, He still was sent to the lowly and downtrodden.  As the shepherds returned “glorifying and praising God” they were demonstrating that even the lowliest can bear the message of grace.

God’s grace was revealed to them through angel song and announcement.  We wonder how much of the prophecies of the coming Messiah they might have known.  Maybe as they watched their flocks on the hillside, and endured some of the brunt of society’s disdain of their lowly estate, they talked of the Messiah’s coming.  But imagine their surprise and wonder—yes, and fear—as the sky broke open with a dazzling light and the angel said to them, “unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord!”  On that hillside, they were available for the magnificent revelation.  But moreover, they accepted and believed what was told them and they immediately acted upon the angels’ bidding:  “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us! (v. 15).  They didn’t say:  “Wait until tomorrow”  or “We must wait until we can clean ourselves of the dust and grime of sheepherding.”  No.  “They went with haste!”  They had been told what to look for:  “a babe, wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger” (v. 12).  How many such sites might have been in Bethlehem, even as crowded as it was with the crowds registering for taxation?  Once they determined to go, He was easy to find. They had a sign to watch for, and evidently they found the place and the Babe without difficulty.  All of this gives us a sound principle of coming to the Lord:  When we turn our attention to seeking Him, He can be readily found.

The shepherds found the Lord.  They returned to Shepherd’s Field changed persons.  And Mary, too, had taken note, for she kept all the adoration surrounding His birth and pondered it in her heart.  Shepherds returned, telling the good news.  Mary meditated upon the wonder of the holy child.  A pattern was established that night for the spread of the gospel:  God made known the good news; shepherds sought and found Him and went praising God and telling abroad what they had experienced.  And Mary kept in her heart the depth and meaning of it all.

Prayer.  Lord, we see in the shepherds’ finding Jesus a pattern for all who seek Him to follow:  Listen, decide to seek, go to find Him, and having found Him, spread the good news to others.  May each of us remember this means of reception of the Truth and sharing.  Amen.

The Birthday of a King!

‘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.” –Luke 2:6-7 (ESV).

Now the birth of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords was on this manner:

Because there was no room in Bethlehen Inn, Mary with her husband Joseph were lodged in a stable.

This humble resting place may have been, we are told, a lime-stone cave in a hillside near the inn where animals were kept from the elements and where they rested after grazing all day.  Or it may have been, others say, the place where the people who were actually lodging in the inn stabled their animals while they were in the town. This would have been a room or area perhaps below the inn at ground level that was the room for animals.  We are told that the Jews, being very fastidious, cleaned the stable area every day.  Still, this was an unlikely place for the birth of anyone, let alone the King of Glory, the Lord of Lords, the Savior of the world, the Messiah.

And so it came to pass that the place of his birth was a stable.  The first resting place for the newborn King was a manger—a feeding tough.  We are not told, but we can imagine Joseph quickly cleaned any residue of animal food from the manger tray and laid it with soft, fresh hay.  That would have made a fragrant-smelling crib to receive the Babe, wrapped in swaddling cloths that no doubt His mother, anticipating His birth while they were in Bethlehem, had brought from Nazareth with her.  What does the manger point out for us?  It bespeaks the poverty, humility and humanity of Jesus.  The poverty:  “no crib for a bed”  we sing the words from “Away in a Manger.”  Of lowly parents and of lowly beginnings, even His birth identified Him with one who told His disciples later that He “had no place to lay His head.”  But there, on the night of His birth, His head was cradled on the hay.  His birthplace speaks of humility—Immanuel, God with us, was among the lowliest—born where a servant might have been born.  Paul wrote about this humility in Philippians 2:6-7:  “Who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.”  And as to the humanity of the Babe, He could cry, He felt heat and cold, He was subject in His body to all the feelings, emotions and needs of any human, although God.  He was both wholly human; wholly divine.  Later we would be told of Him:  “He was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin”(Hebrews 4:15)  The human side of Him would know that dimension.

Jeremiah wrote:  “I will raise up…a King who will reign wisely” (Jeremiah 23:5).  Song writer and musician William Harold Neidlinger gave us both words and music to the carol “The Birthday of a King”:

“In the little village of Bethlehem, There lay a child one day,

And the sky was bright with a holy light O’er the place where Jesus lay.

Aleluia!  O How the angels sang.  Aleluia!  How it rang!

And the sky was bright with a holy light,

’Twas the birthday of a King.

Prayer.  Today, as we celebrate the King’s birthday, let us allow the depth of truth of this blessed event draw us closer to Him.  May we adore and serve Him in true allegiance to the King of Kings.  Amen.

Journey to Bethlehem

“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.” –Luke 2:1-5.

The prophecy of Micah 2:2-3 came to pass in God’s timing, with the events of history in place so that the journey to Bethlehem for the holy birth was made by Joseph and Mary.  Who would have dreamed that a pagan ruler like Augustus Caesar would have been the human instrument to bring this about?  But he was. Who would have thought that such a despised ruling as an order to register for taxation could have been in God’s plans for Jesus to be born in Bethlehem?  But that was the happening that took Joseph and Mary to the town of his lineage, again at the right time.  We can agree with the statement that “history is His story,” or with President James A. Garfield’s appraisal that history is “the unrolled scroll of prophecy.”

Questions exist about the actual time in years when Quirinius served as governor of Syria.  Did he serve twice, or was there a mis-translation of a Greek word “when” and “before,” or, to consider another possibility, was Quirinius assigned as the military administrator of a troublesome province at that time?.  So “in those days” has been set at 7 or 6 B. C.  This should not trouble our minds too much.  What was important was that the Roman rulers allowed the Jews to return to their tribal homeplaces for the registration.  And therefore, near the time for Jesus’ birth, and so He would be born in the place where prophecy placed His birth, Mary and Joseph made an eighty mile journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem.

Artists’ pictures of Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem often show Mary riding a donkey and Joseph leading it.  They are the only two pictured in the travel scene.  It could have been that they made the long journey by themselves.  At twenty miles per day it would have taken at least four days to accomplish.  But since all the men of David’s lineage in Galilee near Nazareth would have had to go, as Joseph did, to Bethlehem to register, the couple may have joined a traveling caravan.  There would have been more safety in numbers and this is a reasonable assumption.  On the way, they probably had food they would have packed for the journey before they left Nazareth:  bread, cheese, fruits and vegetables, with a supply of water carried in flasks of skin and replenished as they came to wells along the journey.  Or perhaps they were taken in by friendly people along the way and given food and the night’s lodging.  If not, the ground would have been their bed at night and the stars overhead their assurance, as a poet has aptly stated, “God’s in His heaven.”

After a long and arduous journey, beset by dangers and threaded with tiredness, especially for Mary who was well into her pregnancy, they arrived in Bethlehem, a teeming, crowded city with people from all the provinces there to register in David’s town.  The journey was completed, but challenges still lay ahead for Joseph who was entrusted as the guardian of the Son of God.  Mary, soon to give birth, was now in Bethlehem, the town prophesied as the Lord’s birthplace.  The journey’s end was about to see the culmination of years of God’s preparation fulfilled.

Prayer.  Lord, in some of the journeys of life we are asked to make, help us to see Your hand at work, unscrolling prophecy and the fulfillment of Your Word.  Let us take courage from the determined journey of Mary and Joseph who were in God’s will as they had Bethlehem as their destination.  Amen.