The Birth of
Jesus Christ Foretold
[Luke chapter
1, verses 26-56]
Today we
will take up where we left off last week in our in-depth study of the
Gospel of Luke, beginning at verse 26 of chapter one. As we begin,
the birth of John the Baptist, Jesus' predecessor, has just been
foretold, and the Temple priest Zechariah has been rendered mute by
the archangel Gabriel for hesitating to believe what Gabriel said
about Zechariah and Elizabeth conceiving because he thought they were
both too old. So, while Zechariah and Elizabeth were coping with his
inability to speak, we find the archangel Gabriel busy visiting the
future mother of our Lord and Savior.
“In the
sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in
Galilee, to a woman pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a
descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. The angel went to
her and said. 'Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is
with you.' Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what
kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, 'Do not be
afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child
and will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus.
He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The
Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will
reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.'
'How can this be', Mary asked, 'since I am a virgin?' The angel
answered, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the
most high will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be
called the Son of God.' 'I am the Lord's servant', Mary answered.
'May it be to me as you have said'. Then the angel left her.” (Luke
1, verses 26-38)
The
4,000 year old Hebrew calendar is considerably different from the one
we use today. Although there are similarities, the Hebrew New Year
starts in our month of March, and there are usually 30 days each
month. So we can conclude that Gabriel's visit to Mary was sometime
in September, although I can only speculate about the date. Mary and
Joseph were by all accounts very devout Jews, and so was Jesus during
his entire life. Interestingly enough, since our Lord and Savior was
evidently conceived sometime between early September and mid-October,
that would mean Jesus must have been born sometime during our month
of July. I remember when I was very young, I wondered around
Christmas time how the poor baby Jesus, along with his parents,
survived the late December cold sleeping in that barn, with the
infant Jesus lying in a manger in freezing temperatures. Well, the
answer is [1st]
they weren't cold at all, and [2nd]
it was summertime. Christmas in December is a human invention of the
emperor Constantine from around the year 300AD, when he consolidated
the pagan holidays with the religious ones into the calendar we use
in modern times.
Joseph,
the man who was Mary's husband and who raised Jesus (talk about being
held to a higher standard!), was a descendant of King David of the
Old Testament (see Matthew chapter one for the genealogy of Jesus).
Further down, Mary had “found favor with God”. The Bible doesn't
specify anything Mary had done to earn this favor, and maybe that's
the whole point of this part of it. Nobody can “earn” favor from
God, as if God owed them something. God doesn't work like that.
Christianity teaches that only by the blood of Jesus, which he shed
on a cross for each of us, can we be saved. God sent his only Son
Jesus to save us because without Jesus no one would be able to stand
in God's presence. Everyone would perish, and without exception! So
Mary did nothing by herself, but I think since she was carrying the
infant Jesus in her womb, the very presence of the unborn Christ very
likely saved Mary from any judgment by God, since the unborn Jesus
and Mary were already one physically as well as in spirit.
“...he
will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never
end.” What was the angel
talking about here? He was referring to the very beginning of what we
call Judaism today, going all the way back to Abraham in the Book of
Genesis in the Old Testament. Abraham's two sons were named Jacob and
Esau (for the complete story, see Genesis starting at chapter 17). To
make a long story short, Jacob became the father of what later became
the Israelites, the people who built Jerusalem, and whose descendants
live in modern Israel today, as well as the US and other countries
too. Esau, on the other hand, became the father of what became the
Arab nations in the Middle East that we know today. So the entire
conflict in the Middle east between Arab and Jew originated from
within the same family! Now you know why the wars in the Middle East
never end. It all stems from a domestic dispute from roughly 3,500
years ago! There's one other thing I want to point out here. Unlike
Zechariah, Mary took the angel at his word. She was obedient, not
only because she was told to, but because she wanted to. Mary
embraced her destiny wholeheartedly, something we can all take a
lesson from. And now let's continue where we left off, beginning at
verse 39.
“At
that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of
Judea, where she entered Zechariah's home and greeted Elizabeth. When
Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and
Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she
exclaimed, 'Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you
will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord has
come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears,
the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed
that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!' And Mary
said, 'My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my
savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One
has done great things for me – holy is his name. His mercy extends
to those who fear him, from generation to generation. He has
performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are
proud in their innermost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from
their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry
with good things but has sent the rich away empty. He has helped his
servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his
descendants forever, even as he said to our fathers.' Mary stayed
with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home.”
(Luke 1: verses 39-56)
Like
our initial study of Luke's gospel from last week, we have another
example of the Holy Spirit being mentioned approximately 33-34 years
before the Day of Pentecost (see Acts chapters 1 and 2 for the full
story of Pentecost). “When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the
baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy
Spirit.” Not only was Elizabeth filled with the Holy Spirit,
the very Spirit of our risen Lord, but the baby she carried was
filled as well. That baby was none other than the unborn John the
Baptist (more about him later in this series). Then Elizabeth said,
“As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby
in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that what
the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!'” From
Elizabeth's exclamation to Mary, we can clearly see that when God
says he is going to accomplish something through yourself, which can
and does happen to believers, you may as well go ahead and believe it
because it is definitely going to occur! When Zechariah was rendered
unable to speak in last week's study, we saw what can happen to those
who do not believe God when he speaks to them. Moreover, He does not
have to speak audibly for any of us to hear him. His Spirit speaks to
our spirit in a small, still voice that we must be very quiet to
hear. Otherwise, the Spirit of the Lord gets drowned out by our own
voice, and that's never a good place to be.
“
And Mary said, 'My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices
in God my savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his
servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the
Mighty One has done great things for me...” God is always
mindful of the humble state of all His servants. “Those who
exalt themselves”, Jesus said, “will be humbled, but those
who humble themselves will be exalted.” If you put yourself
first in this life ahead of everyone else, you will be last in the
life to come, and the reverse is equally true. Mary knew the primary
reason she was chosen by God to carry the unborn baby Jesus in her
womb was because of her humble circumstances, and because she carried
herself well and admirably in spite of what must have been a really
difficult life, especially by modern standards. Still, Mary chose to
embrace her circumstances and her calling, and that's the rest of the
reasons God chose her to begin with. “His mercy extends to those
who fear him, from generation to generation.” Once again, the
word 'fear' is not really the best translation of that sentence from
the original Hebrew or Greek; fear of the consequences of
disobedience to God, or having a deep reverence for God, would be the
more accurate translation. But the payoff for deep reverence for the
Lord is mercy – limitless mercy! That's what the blood of Jesus
represents, as we will see when we get deeper into this study of
Luke's gospel.
“He
has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the
humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the
rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be
merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever, even as he said to
our fathers.'” Here it is again – down go the proud and up go
the humble. Mary, rather than being proud of herself at being chosen
to carry the Son of God until birth, gives all the credit to her
ancestors, “ remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his
descendants forever”, a clear reference to her impending
marriage to Joseph. The 'Kingdom of God' is quite the reverse of
humankind's ways of doing things here on earth. The high and mighty
rule with an iron fist globally, while some of the nicest and most
humble people live in little apartments, small nondescript houses,
and even in tents and shanties, or vehicles of various types. The
harder and meaner you are, the richer you get in this life, but not
so in the next. That's why economic inequality has become such a
problem in modern times. The top 1% has hoarded the overwhelming
majority of the wealth for themselves, at the expense of everybody
else. Fortunately for humankind, this situation is about to change,
but the 7-year Tribulation period prophesied in the Bible (see the
Books of Daniel and Revelation) will have to come first, and that has
not yet started. So, until next week, keep Jesus in your heart and
mind. When we return, we will complete our study of chapter one of
Luke's gospel.
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