The Christmas that Was “Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told them.” - (Luke 2:20) A teenager once asked me the question, “If Christmas was surrounded by all these miracles why is it that 30 years later Jesus had such a hard time convincing everybody He was the Messiah?” If you will carefully read the first two chapters of the Gospel of Luke, you will find the answer – the Christmas that was involved very few people. When God told an old priest what He was going to do, the priest didn’t believe God. God informed the priest that He was going to do Christmas anyway but the unbelief of the priest shut his mouth. Zechariah had the greatest sermon to preach any priest has ever had but he was smitten with muteness. While the miracle of Christmas was happening he couldn’t preach his great sermon. God then shared the miracle with a very godly young woman who was to be the birth mother of God. Her response (called the “Magnificat”), showed how godly she was because in about 10 verses of Scripture she alluded to the Old Testament 23 times. But as godly as she was she kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. God then informed her fiancé, because it was on a need to know basis and he surely had a need to know. He then told some lowly shepherds what He was doing. Why tell them? He told them because before and after they saw the miracle they told everybody about the Christmas that was. Luke has given you 132 verses that tell you about Christmas. Do you tell people about the miracle of the Christmas that was?
Posted on: Thu, 07 Nov 2013 18:42:42 +0000