Today, I am reading and commenting on  Luke 2-3.

OK, again something I have never thought about before.  When the angel appeared to the shepherds, he told them that he was bringing good news, and that good news was that a Savior had been born, the Messiah.  That isn’t the new thought.  Then the angel told them he had a sign for them that what he had just said was true.  The sign was that they would find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.  I have always read this, and hear it preached about as directions on where to find the baby, but that isn’t what the angel said.  The angel said that finding that baby would be a sign to them that his message. that the Messiah had been born, was true.  The angel was not telling them, “This is how you will know you have found the baby I am talking about.”  The angel was saying, “This is how you will know that the Messiah has been born.”  I am not sure what the implications are of this different perspective on what the angel said, but I think they are significant.

I also want to comment on something I noticed about Jesus staying in Jerusalem when He was twelve.  So, it says that Jesus’ parents found Him after three days of looking for Him in Jerusalem.  It occurred to me this morning that this was a foreshadowing of His death and resurrection.  In particular, it foreshadows the three days of anxiety which His mother, Mary, would experience after His crucifixion: anxiety which was relieved when He rose from the dead.  Again, I am not sure what the implications of that foreshadowing are, but they are worth thinking about.  Of course, this account has two very important implications.  The first being that Jesus is always doing His Father’s business.  The second, that when we look for Jesus, we should start in His Father’s House.  Combining the two, we find Jesus when we look at where God’s business is being done.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Luke 2-3.

The appearance of God’s messenger, the angel, to the shepherds illustrate once again the points I made yesterday about God’s messengers.

• The shepherds were terrified at the messenger’s appearance
• The messenger told them not to be afraid

There is another aspect all three of these incidents have in common: after the recipients of God’s message saw its fulfillment, they praised God.  The other thing that most people to whom God sends a messenger have in common is that they tell others about what God has done.  So, when God sends His divine messengers to us it is a terrifying experience, but they will reassure that we need not fear.  And, if we follow their direction, we will discover that not only do we not need to fear anything, but we will find joy and a desire to praise God.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Luke 2-3.

A few days ago in this blog I asked about how Jesus had the credentials to be allowed, and perhaps even invited, to teach in synagogues, which the Gospels report that He did at the very beginning of His ministry.  In today’s passage we get the only direct insight into that.  Luke writes that when Jesus was twelve He spent three to six days in the temple courts  learning from some of the leading religious scholars of the day.  At the age of twelve, those who taught there were amazed by the questions He asked and the answers He gave.  I want to go over the number of days Jesus spent in the temple courts.  So, Luke writes that His parents did not realize He was not with them until they were a day out from Jerusalem, then Luke writes that they found Jesus after three days.  So, the question becomes, did Mary and Joseph find Jesus three days after they left Jerusalem, three days after they realized He was missing, or three days after they got back to Jerusalem?  If the latter, Jesus was in the temple courts for five or six days, because perhaps the reason Mary and Joseph left Jerusalem without Him was because He spent the day before they left at the temple as well.  Not that the exact number of days has any significance.  More importantly, this story indicates that Jesus spent every opportunity He had learning from teachers of the Law, and He was such a student that the teachers of the Law welcomed Him studying with them.  I think that Luke intends for us to understand that Jesus continued in His studies of Jewish Law, thus explaining why He was welcome to teach in the synagogue when He began His ministry.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Luke 2-3.

I will always remember my father reading the beginning of Luke 2 every year on Christmas Eve before we opened our presents (we did that on Christmas Eve because we went to one of my Uncle’s house for Christmas Dinner with all of my Dad’s family).  I love the fact that God sent His messengers to announce the birth of His Son to shepherds in the field, not to kings or other members of the elite.  Then, when Jesus’ parents took Him to the Temple for to be presented to God, it was not the priests and Levites to whom He was made known.  No, it was Simeon and Anna to whom the Holy Spirit revealed who He was.  Like the shepherds, Simeon and Anna were not people of great notice.  Even today, God generally first makes His announcements to those of whom the world takes little notice.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Luke 2-3

There is a reason that the Luke account of Jesus’ birth is the “standard” used by most Christians at Christmas.  Every time I read this passage I am struck by who the angels were sent to make an announcement of Christ’s birth.  I want to review the various people whom the Gospel accounts tell us received a message regarding Christ’s birth.  Mary and Joseph each received a visit from an angel.  They were both intimately involved in this pending birth (Mary more so than Joseph and the nature of the message they received reflects this fact).  Elizabeth received word by the Holy Spirit and her son leaping in her womb. The wise men discovered the announcement by their study of the stars; Herod and others among the high and mighty received word by way of the wise men.  However, the shepherds, among the lowest of the low, received the message by way of a host of angels on the occasion of Jesus’ birth.  When God chose to announce the birth of His Son, He sent His messengers to those who mattered, but they were not those whom we, as humans, would have thought mattered.  He “called” the shepherds, the “common man”, and gave them the message right away.  He let the wise men find out by “reading the sign” that the father put up when the baby went “home from the hospital”, and he let the big wigs and important people find out from them.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Luke 2-3

To this day when I read Luke 2, I hear it in my father’s voice.  Every year on Christmas Eve we celebrated our family Christmas and that celebration started with my father reading Luke 2, all the way through the account of Anna. (We celebrated on Christmas Eve because we went to my uncle’s house on Christmas day for my Dad’s family Christmas dinner).  It seems clear to me that Luke’s source for this chapter is none other than Jesus’ mother, Mary.  All of the stories recorded in Luke 2 are the sort of thing that a mother remembers. 

I love the story of the angels announcing Jesus’ birth to the shepherds.  God did not send His angels to announce The Messiah’s birth to the Temple and the high priest, nor did He send them to the palace and the king.  God did not send His angels to announce Christ’s birth to the high and mighty.  He sent them to announce it to the nobodies in the field.  The shepherds weren’t the people with the “important” jobs.  They were doing a job about which most of their contemporaries would have said, “anybody can be a shepherd.”  That is who God thinks are important enough to announce the birth of Christ