A Unique Person: God
Luke 2:3-20
The developing saga of the coming of baby Jesus was more than a little bit strange. Here is Mary: engaged, sexually pure but nevertheless pregnant. Zacharias and Elizabeth, old as dirt (and Elizabeth unable to conceive), were the parents of a bouncing baby prophet. And then there’s this business of angels showing up and talking to people, foretelling impossible events.
But God can do anything (Luke 1:37). If these really are angels sent by God, and if they’re getting the message right, then this miracle baby is the long-awaited Promised One. You can almost see Mary and Joseph looking at each other as they compared notes, and mouthing, slowly, simultaneously, the word “Messiah?”!
The rank and file in Israel knew the Messiah was coming someday, but not much else about Him. And He’d have to get here somehow. It would be one thing to think that you would be the parents of the next king or long-awaited national deliverer, but Mary and Joseph were finding out that this boy was Something Else.
Jesus wasn’t just the Messiah, as He had been understood by most of the ancients. Israel’s collective imagination had fallen short of what and who the Messiah would do and be. What would he do? He wasn’t just coming to help, or to teach, or to sit on a throne and throw off occupiers. He was coming to forgive sin and defeat death. Who would he really be? He wouldn’t just be a mortal religious leader or hero.
What the angel told Mary in Luke 1:35 begins revealing His true identity. Here we find an unexpected revelation of the Godhead: the Most High, the Holy Spirit, and the Son (the holy Child) coalescing in one statement, and it is revealed that the Child will be called the Son of God. If nothing else the angel said had caused their jaws to drop, this would have done it: Emmanuel! God in the flesh! (Matthew 1:23).
How did our “Luke 2” friends respond to the Incarnation? Joseph married a pregnant girl at risk to his reputation. Together they obeyed the Roman law (and the Jewish Scriptures) and took a hard and public trek to Bethlehem. The shepherds risked their jobs and hurried to find Jesus, and checked who-knows-how-many mangers before finding Him. They told what they knew, Mary treasured and pondered, and bystanders wondered. The shepherds finally returned to work and life, glorifying and praising God.
Praise is our response to the worthiness of Jesus. Sometimes it is verbalized. It is always manifested.
– The ETB writer for the spring quarter is a South Carolinian who formerly served Southern Baptists in a closed country. We are honoring his request not to publish identifying information.