​“Tell Them the Story of Jesus”

She woke with a start. A strange light filled her small room, a light that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. As she rubbed her eyes, trying to wake, a voice startled her. A voice so powerful, so filled with authority that it made her quake, and yet so compassionate and filled with love that she almost wept at the sound.

Gabriel, God’s right hand angel, had come to this young teenage girl, Mary, in the middle of the night to give her some news. She was the chosen one, he said. She had been chosen by God Almighty to bear the Christ child. The long awaited Messiah was finally on the way.

Of all women, she had been chosen to love him, to raise him, to nourish him and then to watch him die a cruel death for all humankind. Jesus was to be her firstborn.

In one of the greatest understatements ever written, the Bible says she was unsure when she heard this. It says that she was hesitant. After all, she was a virgin. She had never been with a man. To quote her, “No man has ever touched me;” but the angel told her that all would be well.

The child that would be conceived in her was to be of the Holy Spirit. The child she was to raise would be God himself. God incarnate, the Lord God made flesh. She was to name him Jesus, which means “the Lord is our salvation;” But folks could call him Emmanuel, “God with us.”

Then in an act only slightly less amazing than Christ dying on the cross for our sake, Mary gave her life away for God’s sake. She gave her young life over to God to do with as He wished: A miracle in and of itself; and indeed as Gabriel declared, the child was conceived in Mary.

Now Mary was engaged at the time to a young carpenter by the name of Joseph. When Joseph heard Mary’s story, he was understandably unsure as well. Suspicious might be a better way of putting it.

In response to the news, he made plans to break their marriage contract, quietly to keep from shaming her, but break it nonetheless. Then a message from an angel of the Lord in a dream convinced him that the Christ Child was indeed in Mary’s womb. So against all reason, tradition and cultural expectations, he swallowed his pride and stuck with her.

As time progressed in the pregnancy, Mary went to visit her older cousin, Elizabeth. You see, Gabriel had told Mary that Elizabeth was expecting, as well. Now Elizabeth was well past child bearing age and Mary knew this, but she believed nonetheless.

Sure enough, when Mary arrived and greeted her cousin Elizabeth, Elizabeth was great with child; and then in a beautiful moment in Biblical history, upon their meeting Elizabeth’s child leapt for joy within her womb as the Christ child, Jesus, within Mary came near. That child, John the Baptist, was to prepare the way for the coming of his earthly cousin, and his Heavenly King, Christ.

As the due date drew near, a census was called by the Roman Emperor Augustus; as always the government needed some tax money, so everyone had to go to the traditional home town, where the bloodline of their family started, to be counted.

Mary and Joseph headed for Bethlehem; the City of David, for Joseph was in the bloodline of King David himself.

In calling for the census, the Roman Emperor unwittingly played right into God’s hand by fulfilling an age old prophesy concerning the Messiah.

Mic 5:2
2 "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times."
NIV

The way was rocky, rutted and long, but in time the young couple made it to the little town of Bethlehem only to discover that all the rooms were taken. You see they were young and inexperienced in the ways of the world, and they simply forgot to make plans soon enough to get a room.

In time, though, after much perseverance, Joseph and Mary were offered an inn keeper’s stable as shelter; and it was in this place that Mary and Joseph settled down for the night for the birth of their firstborn. 

The birth was as all births before and after: physically exhausting and tremendously painful for Mary; agonizing for Joseph and terrifying for both.

Contraction followed contraction, followed contraction; pain built upon pain, hour after hour the agony continued until with a final flurry of painful pushing, the Christ Child, the Son of God, Our Savior came into this world of His creation.

Head first, then a shoulder, and with a slight twist, the second shoulder came and then in a rush, the author of all life, and the answer to all prayer was born. After a moment’s pause, his lungs convulsed, and God Almighty took his first breath.

Shortly thereafter, the Christ child let his displeasure be known at having been introduced to the world in such an unseemly fashion. He was cold and he was hungry.

Joseph swaddled him in whatever cloth was available for the purpose. He then picked him up, and laid him gently unto Mary’s chest where her pain of a moment before turned to the joy only a mother can know.

She kissed this new life of old that lay in her arms and brought him to her breast. God Almighty was hungry and held safely in his mama’s arms, he suckled until he drifted off to peaceful sleep.

I was planning to expand upon the story in this writing, but the Lord stopped me. The story is enough.

• If you have never heard it before, let me know, and I will tell you the story again.
• If you have heard and never accepted the truth of it, do so.
• If you believe it, tell others the story.

Tell them of the love and forgiveness, the joy and the peace, the life and life everlasting made possible on that cold night so many years ago when God came down in the person of that little child in Mary’s arms.

Be the light God made you to be and carry the light, the joy, the peace, the love and the grace of God to a world desperately lost in darkness.

Tell them the story. 

Love,
Pastor Tony

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