Second Light of Christmas - Revealing

  It’s always important to get the whole story right? When investigating anything, from two siblings arguing to a crime that has been committed, when talking to witnesses a large part are their stories. The who, what, when, where, and how are all important. And when compiling a timeline of events of the situation, the overlap and dissimilarities are what help figure out what exactly happen. No two people see the same situation from the same vantage point, so there is going to be differences in the retelling, but it’s in the retelling with the differences that we can put the pieces together to see how events unfolded. That’s what we must do with the Christmas story, because when we do, something interesting pops out. So let’s do that today, look at the whole Christmas story to see something key in its two accounts.

But before we do, let’s bring ourselves up to speed on where we are in our Christmas series. Last week we began our series by looking at the build-up to the Christmas event. In this build-up, we took some time to look at some of the prophecies that were written hundreds of years before Jesus’ brith and how they were fulfilled in the events that surrounded that monumental occasion. We looked at the Who and the to Whom prophecies of Isaiah. Seeing the baby boy Jesus and his virgin mother, Mary. We then looked at the Kingly visitor prophecies that surrounded the arrival of the Magi. Finally we looked at the lineage prophecies that pointed to Jesus’ specific people and family. All this was to recognize that God had worked through the centuries preparing for the arrival of himself to earth. That Jesus’ birth wasn’t something that just happened, but it was seeded and awaited for, for centuries leading up to the moment it happened. This was the first light of Christmas, the light of Prophecy, where God told of the events to come and he was true to his word.

It’s here that we turn to the second light of Christmas, the light of Revealing. Whereas our first light looked to the build-up that led to Christmas, this second light looks to the moment in time that it happened. Now, when we talk about the Christmas story, what we’re actually talking about is roughly two years of events. Taking all the events in order, our timeline would be something along the lines of this.

Roughly two years before Jesus is born, a group of Magi in eastern lands see a star rising in the sky in the west. They interpret this star through the Hebrew Scriptures as being a star of a king that would be born to the Jewish people. They then prepare and leave for their journey. 

Within this two years, Mary, a young girl who is already betrothed to be married, is visited by the angel Gabriel and told that she has been chosen to carry the Messiah, this king that would be born. Mary agrees to being the mother of the Savior even though she is a virgin and would be ostracized by her soon to be husband and community. 

When her husband Jospeh finds out about the pregnancy several months down the road, he decides to end the marriage before it begins. But he is a righteous man and doesn’t want to throw her to the community to possibly be killed with stones, so he decides to quietly end the marriage. That’s when he too is visited by an angel. The angel tells him to take Mary as his wife, because she is carrying the Savior of the world. Joseph does just that. He takes her as his wife, but does not consummate the marriage while she is with child. 

That’s when Rome calls for a census of the land to be taken and though Joseph and Mary live in Nazareth in the northern area of Israel, they have to go south to a town called Bethlehem because that is Joseph’s ancestral home. They make the trip while Mary is very close to giving brith. They arrive in Bethlehem, but there is no room in any home and so they make their way to a stable with the animals. 

In that stable Mary gives birth. As she does, an angel appears in the night to shepherds who were attending their flocks in the fields. The shepherds were frighten, but the angel speaks comforting words of the Messiah, the Savior of the world, being born that night in Bethlehem. More angels arrive to sing the praise of God and the Savior, and they speak blessings and peace to the world that night. The shepherds are terrified but are excited to see the Messiah themselves and they rush to find the stable. They find it and see Jesus, then they leave to tell others, and later return to praise and glorify God for the brith of the Savior.

Eight days later Joseph and Mary take their new born son to the temple to have the purification rituals performed and have Jesus dedicated to God as every first born Jewish son should be. It’s at the temple that the family meet a man named Simeon. Simeon was a man to whom God told that he would see the coming of the Messiah. As Jesus is brought into the temple, Simeon takes the boy in his hands and starts to praise God for the deliverance of the world. Simeon saw in Jesus the salvation that humanity needed and he praised God and blessed the family. Then a woman name Anna, who was a prophetess at eight-four years old, saw Jesus and began praising God and telling others about this boy who is the Messiah.

After this day, Jospeh, Mary, and Jesus returned to Bethlehem. They moved out of the stable and into a home, unknown to them what was to arrive in Jerusalem. Sometime after, the Magi, with their caravan arrive in Jerusalem and make their way to Herod, the ruler of the Judean province. The Magi had followed the star to Israel, coming to worship the king of the Jews, but they did not not where to find him. Herod did not know either, so he called the scribes, those that knew the Hebrew Scriptures inside and out, for the location in which it was prophesied that the Messiah would be born. The scribes told Herod that Bethlehem was the town, the home of the Davidic dynasty. Herod sent the Magi off to the town, and urged them to return so that he may follow after them to worship the Messiah. This was a ploy to kill the child, because this new born king was a threat to Herod and his dynasty. 

The Magi then left and the star guided them to Bethlehem and to the home in which the family stayed. There they found Jesus, presented him with expensive gifts fitting for a King, but alluding to greater work that would be accomplished through this little child. They worshiped at the feet of Jesus and then eventually took their leave and left the Messiah’s town. But instead of returning as Herod requested, an angel directed them to a different path. When Herod heard that the Magi were not returning, he decided to kill not just the one child, but every male child two years and younger based on the timeframe that the Magi had given him as to when the star was first seen. 

Jesus would have been killed if not for an angel speaking to his adoptive father Joseph. The family took the gifts of the Magi and fled to Egypt and to the large community of Jewish people in that area. Years later when Herod died, the angel spoke to Joseph again and the family returned to Nazareth, and Jesus grew to the point where he left his home to meet John the Baptist at the Jordan and begin his public ministry that would eventually lead to his death on the cross and resurrection from the dead.

This is the Christmas story as told by putting both Matthew and Luke’s account together. The people, the places, the events as close to being in order as we can see them in the Scripture. This is the Revealing light of Christmas, from the star that shone brightly in the Western sky, calling men from the east to follow it to Bethlehem, to angels lighting up the night in front of shepherds in a field watching their flocks by night. This is the Revealing light of Christmas.

From the angel speaking to Joseph and Mary, to the Holy Spirit speaking to Simeon, and to Jesus himself being seen by Anna, this is the Revealing light of Christmas. Everything surrounding the birth of Jesus reveals to us who this baby was. He wasn’t just a kid born to a family. No, he is the God come down, wrapped in humanity’s flesh, born to the virgin, born in the town of Bethlehem, worshiped by both shepherds and Magi, praised and blessed by the righteous and prophets of God. 

Yet we see something missing in all of it. Something briefly stated in the story, yet profoundly important. We see that the Magi were there from the east; a two year excursion for them to endure to arrive in Bethlehem. We see the family, through personal trial and out of requirement, arrive in Bethlehem. We see shepherds, minding their own business but called to the Messiah’s side in the middle of the night, to arrive in Bethlehem. We see, though they did not go to Bethlehem, Simeon and Anna waiting where God told them to wait for the revealing of the Messiah, and they waited until they saw Jesus in the temple that day.

All these did not know the time or place that the Messiah would be, but when called they answered, and followed where God brought them. So what’s missing? What is absent from the Christmas story? It’s the ones who knew where the Messiah would be born that are missing. They’re in the story, but their missing from it as well. They’re the ones that Herod called to ask the question about the birth place of the Messiah. They were the ones that new definitively that Bethlehem was his brith place. If anyone should have been at the brith of the Messiah is should have been the religious people who knew where to find him. 

But they weren’t there. The Magi and shepherds were there, Joseph and Mary were there, Simeon and Anna were where they were supposed to be, but the religious leaders were absent.

Why weren’t they there? We get our answer in the Scriptures. Matthew 2:3 states that after the Magi arrived in Jerusalem seeking the baby King, this was response,  “When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.” Why didn’t they go, because it disturbed them to think that the Messiah was there. They didn’t want to go because what would it mean if they had? What would have to change? What would they have to lose? What comforts, what personal victories, what ideologies, and luxuries would be lost with the Messiah’s arrival? They were disturbed, because Jesus’ arrival meant they would need to change from what they desired to what God desired. 

This is the plight of humanity at the revealing of Jesus. Just Jesus’ presence requires humanity to step back, look at themselves, and make a choice to follow or not. To be engage with Jesus is to be confronted with who he says he is. Not to be told of who he is, not by a star, not by an angel, not even by the Holy Spirit’s leading, but to be engaging with the person of Jesus demands we make a choice. 

And for most people the choice is, not to engage at all. Don’t even go to Bethlehem, because in Bethlehem you might have to meet the Savior and your life will have to change, and that probably will be disturbing. Disturbing in the sense that your life will be different. Because no one who met Jesus left unchanged by him. 

Some accepted him and followed, having their whole world changed; others rejected him, left and their world grew ever darker. 

Because Jesus says he is the light of the world (John 8:12). That means if you follow him you’ll be in the light, but if you don’t you’ll remain in darkness. Jesus says he is that he is the bread of life (John 6:35) and a true vine (John 15:1). That means that what sustains us comes from him, but if we don’t come to him for sustenance we will go hungry. Jesus says that he is the good shepherd (John 10:11). That means in a world where corrupt people want you to follow them, he is good and guides you to good things. Jesus says that he is the door for his sheep (John 10:7). That means that he is protector against the things that want to come in and devour us. Jesus says that he is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). That means that there are no other ways, other truths, or other lives, there is only his. And Jesus says that he is the resurrection and life (John 11:25). That means that though this body dies, those who trust in Jesus will have life eternal in his love, joy, peace, and comfort. 

To engage with Jesus is to go in one of two directions either you embrace the child at Bethlehem, or you reject him, knowing that you’ve made that choice. The easiest thing to do then, is not even engage, is to not even go to Bethlehem, just like the religious people of Jerusalem did, and what most people do today. But Christmas is a yearly reminder to meet the child in Bethlehem. To encounter Jesus at his revealing. To meet the Savior, to be confronted with sin, and to accept the forgiveness of God, that this child brings to humanity through the cross. 

And so my challenge for you this week is two fold. If you haven’t engage Jesus, if you haven’t taken time to see who he says he is by reading his own words in the Bible, I want to challenge you to read the Gospel of John chapters 1-14. These chapters give you a lot of what Jesus says he is. Those chapters are a snap shot of who Jesus is. If you read one chapter a day starting today, you’ll finish on Christmas Day. See who Jesus is through his interactions with people. Engage Jesus as he would have you engage, and take seriously the child in Bethlehem.

The second part of the challenge is directed at those who have accepted Jesus as Savior. Pick up a second light for your paper advent wreath and light the candle of Revealing. Jesus was revealed to the Magi, shepherds, Joseph, Mary, Simeon, and Anna. Praise God for Jesus’ revealing this week, and be in prayer for those who have not experience that revealing in their own lives.

This Christmas season, let us rejoice that Jesus has been revealed to the world, and comes to restore humanity to a right relationship with its Creator. Amen.