SERIES: Advent
TEXT: Luke 2:1-7
MESSAGE: “Our King’s Arrival”
“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son…” — Isaiah 7:14
“Remaining what he was, he became what he was not.” — Gregory of Nazianzus
How does the “Incarnation”, King Jesus’ arrival redefine history for us?
It should redefine it in three ways. It redefines how we view…(1. Truth 2. Love 3. Rejection)
1. Truth (v. 1-3)
“In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2 (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3 And everyone went to their own town to register.”
“Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, 2 just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word.” — Luke 1:1-2
“There are those who argue that Jesus is a figment of the Church’s imagination, that there never was a Jesus at all. I have to say that I do not know any respectable critical scholar who says that any more.” — Richard A. Burridge, Professor King’s College, London
2. Love (v. 4-7a)
“So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. 5 He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7 and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger…”
“That Mary wrapped the child herself points to a lonely birth.” — L. Morris
Dorothy Sayers, a British essayist & detective novelist, once said…“The incarnation means that for whatever reason God chose to let us fall … to suffer, to be subject to sorrows and death—he has nonetheless had the honesty and the courage to take his own medicine … He himself has gone through the whole of human experience—from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death … He was born in poverty and … suffered infinite pain—all for us— and thought it well worth his while.”
“For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.” — Hebrews 2:18
3. Rejection (v. 7b)
“…because there was no guest room available for them.”
“That there was no room in the inn was symbolic of what was to happen to Jesus. The only place where there was room for him was on a cross. He sought an entry to the overcrowded hearts of men; he could not find it; and still his search — and his rejection—go on.” — William Barclay
“Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: “‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? — Matthew 21:42
TAKEAWAYS:
1. Has the truth of God’s love become personal?
2. Are there any areas in your life where Jesus has no room?