A Christmas Thought

“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given”

Isaiah 9:6

It is easy to look back at the Christmas story and to read it with a sense of familiarity, but for that first couple, it was anything but. Joseph had his life in Nazareth with friends and family close by. Mary was a mere teenager betrothed to a good man and her life seemed to be on a stable path. All that changed in a moment. The announcement of the Angel to Joseph set his mind moving and his heart falling at a pace that took his breath away. Mary had left to visit her cousin Elizabeth in the hill country and after three months came back with a baby bump. The mind doesn't have to travel far to imagine some of the questions Joseph had and the misgivings directed toward the woman he thought loved him. Mary had failed to tell him anything of the Angel’s visit three months earlier. Apparently, she decided to allow God to notify her husband of the miracle.

No one understands the work of God within us, and so, there's no reason to try to explain. It is better left for the Holy Spirit to reveal to those closest to us what God is doing in our lives. Joseph wrestled with this unexpected news until one night an Angel appeared to him in a dream. After the vision he decided to obey God and embrace the shame of an out-of-wed pregnancy in a small town in northern Israel. I can only imagine the meeting between the two, as Joseph walked into the room starry eyed. Trembling, he perhaps said, “you cannot believe what God just revealed to me.” Mary no doubt smiled and simply replied, “try me.”

Up to that point their lives were scheduled and mundane and respectable. But from now on they would tread a path of raw obedience to God with the condemnation of those closest to them. It is no different today. Those who embrace the Christ of Bethlehem are walking a path quite apart from the world. By the grace of God, we walk gloriously lonely roads. On the other side of eternity, we will be justified, but up until then, it matters little what anyone says or how this world condemns us. We who know Him, know that He knows us, and that's all that matters.

I hate interruptions. I like my days and weeks and months to be smooth as oil. I like the seas that I sail on to be smooth and the current friendly and the seagulls aplenty. I've got plans and goals and I like to sketch my life out, and so, when God interrupts, I am startled and set off keel. When I was a young man, God interrupted me in the matter of salvation. Looking back, it was a glorious moment. I will never forget the moment when the Savior made my heart His Bethlehem.