Yeah.
And you hear me? Am I on? Oh, yep. Not anymore.
He wants it on my coach.
Where did Joey go? Thank you for singing.
You're going to be a tough act to follow. I will say, Nathan, how many kings is my favorite Christmas song?
So I am familiar with it. Since… I'm going to be talking about, this is crooked and it will bother me.
There we go. I'm going to be talking about some misconceptions about the Christmas story.
I will ask you. And I won't ask you to answer right now, but which one of the songs that we sang is not really about Christmas?
One of them, one of the well-known ones that I love dearly.
It was not written to be about Christmas. I'll try to answer that at the end.
Last week, I talked to Fred and he gave me the KISS treatment, meaning keep it short stupid.
And I went, I've been planning this for over a month.
How do I do that? So I got here this morning and looked in the back of my car and my notebook wasn't there.
So maybe God's trying to tell me something. So I will do my best to… to get through this, but if I flounder, that's why. Let me take a moment to introduce my family.
Those of you that are parents and grandparents know that the the pride of having your kids here. My son Martin is here with His wife, my second daughter Julia, she's not really my daughter, but I don't have in-laws. I have daughters and sons.
And their son Logan is two rows behind them on the end. And Sophia sitting with them.
And then behind them is behind them My daughter Raquel and her husband chris Along with their daughter, Evelyn.
Sun Reed. Daughter Ella.
Who couldn't wait to be announced. And Owen is there somewhere, I assume. Yeah, he's down there on the floor probably. And they brought along two strangers from Illinois, Sarah and Ava, and why Sarah sitting back with Oh, what's your name? Logan.
Well, that's another story. So anyway, I'm glad to have them here. It's always… It's always fun to have your family around. So it just so happened to work out that they're all here. My son is my business partner.
I like to think of him. Is my best friend.
Don't know where that came from. My daughter and her family lived down about half an hour southwest of O'Hare.
So it's… kind of a treat to have them all here.
So anyway, where are my notes? What I've got anyway.
But I am going to go fast and try and cram this all in.
So if I'm not clear, that's I'm sorry. We're not going to be doing a lot of looking up verses. We will be in Luke 2 and Matthew 1.
I'll be flying back and forth, in a lot of cases just making references to verses.
If you want to write them down, you are welcome to do that.
If you want to contact me, you can do so through Breeze and I can send you the notes. Did I say that right, Luke?
All right, we can settle up later. So just a couple of things before I start.
At the heart of the Christmas story is the virgin birth.
And along with the virgin birth comes not just the way we see it, but we have to consider how other people would have seen it. And they wouldn't have seen it at all as happy and wonderful as we would have seen it, it would have been a very
Different… view of it. First time I told this story A younger father pulled me aside afterwards and kind of chewed me out for telling this in front of this his younger daughter who went home with lots of questions. And I said, you're welcome.
And… I thought there was going to be Sunday school this morning. The younger ones would not be here. And my granddaughter, who should be nicknamed Y, is here, so you're welcome.
Secondly, that same time, another guy came to me and said, well, this is all just your opinion.
And I said, well, some of it's my opinion, yes, and I will try to separate that out for you this morning.
Some of it is my interpretation. I would challenge you to not just reject my interpretations, but to compare them to the interpretations that are the more standard ones where we differ, and I don't differ a lot, but I differ in some crucial things.
And just because it's not what you're used to hearing doesn't mean that it's wrong.
I will. Make note of, and I thought I'd written down the reference, but in the book of Acts, it refers to a group of people called the Bereans.
And when Paul was traveling through Turkey and came down through the side of Greece, he ran into this area called Berea, and it says that the Bereans were more noble than others because they went home and searched the scriptures.
To see if these things were true. And I would say that if Paul can be double checked, so can the rest of us and feel free to double check me. And that's fine.
If I give you something to think about, I think I've done my job.
So when I first talked to Fred about this and I told him that I had some different opinions on the Christmas story. He said, well, should I be worried?
And I said, no. And I thought, well, where's the fun in that?
So let's make them a little worried. This. This is my Bible.
This is not the inspired Word of God. No pitchfork's coming my way.
What this is is an English language translation of the inspired Word of God. The Word of God as it was written in mostly Hebrew and Greek, is 100% inspired, 100% accurate.
The translations are not. And there are… mistakes that are in here.
I read recently of a printing of the Bible back in 1691 that got nicknamed the Wicked Bible.
Because back in the… Again, I didn't write this down.
Back in Exodus chapter 20, which you may know as the The Ten Commandments, they left.
Out of one of the verses. And it was the one on adultery. That was not inspired.
So that would be an unintentional error. Excuse me a minute.
But it got printed and published and put out with the Bibles and the publishers got fined greatly for it and I don't know if they went to prison, but they were not treated well. There are other intentional errors that are
That are in there and maybe error isn't the right word, but intentional mistranslations. Back in our previous church, we supported a woman who was a missionary to Papua New Guinea.
And she worked with the Iwam people. And one of the things she was involved in was translating the Bible into their language.
And when they got done, they printed it. And because we had supported her for so long, she came back to Sheboygan. And… told us about what went into it.
One thing that I remember, a problem that they had
That you want people don't know what sheep are. And you think about what a large role sheep play in the Bible.
And they're going, what do we do with this? We don't… If we call them sheep, they're not going to know what we're talking about.
And they struggled for a while and they settled on pigs.
And they… Wherever it says sheep.
They put pigs. I was thinking about it as Fred was reading from John 10 about I am the good shepherd and they would be reading, I am the good pig farmer.
And, you know, the pigs know my voice and you know I don't know how I feel about that, but I do appreciate their dilemma. They were trying to make it clear.
Then finally, there are intentional things that are done in the Bible and not really for good reasons. And one of them came up recently. I'm going to read from James 1.
Because in one verse, there are two misinterpretations that were done intentionally. And as I'm looking for this.
Nervous enough that I can't remember where James is. But one of them I think was done for very bad and shameful reasons.
The other one I find kind of funny. Maybe Jim won't agree with me, but… I… I don't think it hurts anything. Kind of humorous.
But James 1.1 says, James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm reading from the NIV.
To the 12 tribes scattered among the nations, greetings. The first one is servant.
Is a mistranslation. The Greek word is doulos and it means slave.
It does not mean servant. And you'll see that word servant scattered throughout the New Testament.
And it's a mistranslation in every case. Or you'll see bondservant, whatever that is.
The reason that they chose servant It goes back to the King James, and when the James translation was made, slavery meant something very, very specific.
And there are racial. Complications put in there. They thought the Christians are not going to stand for being compared to the slaves of those days.
I think that's a harmful translation. We are called to be slaves.
We are called Romans 12.1 to offer ourselves as living sacrifices. And let me tell you something. If you sacrifice yourself, you don't get to take it back.
You give yourself to God. If you take it back, then you didn't truly give yourself to God.
So I think that's a shameful translation. And it's harmful. The other one is the first word in the verse.
It isn't James. The Greek is Jacobus.
We would call it Jacob. How it got to be James, I'm not really sure. Sorry, Jim. But it isn't the book of James. It's the book of Jacob.
But somewhere along the line, and I'm told it goes all the way back to Wycliffe.
I assumed it just went to the King James Version. For some reason why that king might approve of… having the name changed, I don't know.
But James is an English word. It's not a Greek word. It's not a Hebrew word. Jacobus is the term. And this happens also with Mary. Mary is not the correct translation would be Miriam.
Sorry, I'm taking some of the fun out of life for some of you. But anyway, the reason why I say all this is because I think there are there are things in the Christmas story that are either mistranslated or have been misunderstood and just accepted over the years.
So I want to… Oh, finally.
Before I start, I want to remind you that this is not an American story This is not a 21st century American story. You have to set aside all your thoughts of cars and telephones and Good mail service and all that kind of stuff.
Because they lived very, very differently than us. One of the… the preachers that I like to watch is running a series on the nativity right now. And they show Joseph and Mary growing up and looking very American.
And young teenagers falling in love and it's not how things worked back then.
So try to set that aside. So let's talk about Mary and Joseph.
Cleave, and I don't remember Cleve's last name, but he was here two weeks ago and he guessed that Mary was somewhere between 12 and 14 years old. I think that's probably pretty accurate.
This is a little bit of a guess. But… Women.
Grew up to be mothers. Basically. And by the time they were able to be mothers, they pretty much became mothers, unless there was something wrong with them.
12 seems kind of young. I was a little startled by that, but probably, let's say she was about 14 years old.
Joseph, on the other hand. We have a hint in that when Jesus grows up, Joseph is apparently not around.
So Joseph must have been older. And that would make sense because a man.
Would wait for something else. A man would wait until you could afford to have a family.
To support a family. Joseph, this is going to sound gross to us.
Again, it's not an American story. Joseph was probably around 30.
About twice a rich. Sorry, young ladies.
It's the way things went back then. If you've seen Fidler on the Roof.
Remember the butcher. What was he, about 50? So, second thing is character. What kind of people were they? In Luke 1.30, we are told that Mary had found favor with the Lord.
It's a little vague, but it's a little vague If God, if we have God's favor, what kind of people are we? We are people that are obedient. We are people that honor God in our lives. And it is clear that Mary
Honored God. Joseph, similarly, is described as just Or faithful to the law, one version I saw said. So Joseph again was a man of good godly character.
It is not a mistake that these two were chosen. They were poor.
We know this from Luke chapter 2. After Jesus is born, there was a reference to Simeon and Anna, when they go to the temple, they go to the temple after It's either 33 days or 41 days, depending on whether we
Add two numbers together or they run simultaneously. Again, contact me on Breeze.
But…
After a woman had delivered a baby, she would have to go through these rites of purification and then they go back, they go to the temple to do that. And they had to offer a sacrifice. In verse 24, Well…
I guess I gotta back up. When the time came for the purification rights required by the law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, as was written in the law of the Lord, every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord and to offer a sacrifice in keeping
With what is said in the law of the Lord, a pair of doves or two young pigeons.
So if we compare that back to Leviticus chapter 12, which I'm not going to go to.
This… ritual is described there, and it says to bring a lamb.
But if you can't afford it. You can bring a pair of doves or young pigeons.
So they were poor.
Where did they live? They lived in Nazareth. I was surprised that I couldn't prove that Joseph lived in Nazareth.
There is a verse that says that, I believe it's earlier, and again.
I lost, I didn't bring my notes, so I'm… fudging things here a little bit, but it says that they departed from Nazareth. Mary, on the other hand, when the angel came to her, they came to this woman of Nazareth. So Mary's living there in Nazareth.
Joseph is probably in the area somewhere. And then after… Jesus is born. They go down to Egypt, and then it says they return to Nazareth. So they probably lived there.
So where is Nazareth? Nazareth is on the northern part of the country.
Kind of halfway between the Mediterranean Sea and the Sea of Galilee.
Also known as the middle of nowhere. Nazareth was not near the roads. It was not near the water. It was not near anything.
It was the Wild West of Israel. And Nathaniel, if you remember, when Nathaniel I forget who went to Nathaniel, but… He said, you know… You need to come and see this Jesus of Nazareth. And he said, Nazareth? What good thing has ever come out of Nazareth?
Nazareth had a bad reputation. It's out there kind of outside of the law area It's also a Roman area.
Which they don't like. So it's not the ideal place.
Just sort of building little bricks here that will bring them all together. What do we know about their family?
Joseph. Nothing is said about his family. Nothing is directly said about his family, but we'll come back to that.
Mary, we know that Mary had at least one sister because in John 19, 28, it talks about the women that were Standing near the cross and it refers to Mary and Mary's sister.
It's the only place where… completely references her.
However, if we cross-reference that in Mark, it also describes a group of women and it appears that Mary's sister is named Salome.
And if we cross-reference that with Matthew It appears that she had married a guy named Zebedee.
We may know as the father of James and John. So it's very possible that James and John were Jesus's cousins.
It's also possible that there was lots of women there and just Each book referenced different women, but it doesn't seem likely to me.
Mary had one more relative that we're aware of.
And that's a woman named Elizabeth. Elizabeth was the wife of a priest.
She's described as a close relative in some versions. I've thought about what is a close relative.
Particularly when you're several generations apart. Come to that in a minute.
This is probably an ant or a great ant, I'm assuming.
I don't think it can get much further than that and be described as a close relative.
So she had to be… somewhat close, and I will tell you that I believe she's from Mary's mother's side, I'll come to that in a little bit.
Elizabeth is described as a daughter of Aaron. And I take that to mean that she's a direct descendant of Aaron, which is interesting because Everything that we… know about
Joseph and mary indicates that they're descendants of David.
Who comes from the tribe of Judah. Aaron, of course, would be from the tribe of Levi.
So… Mary would be in some way, I don't know how a close relative could be a descendant of Aaron and Mary Notby.
Should mean that she is a descendant of the priestly line.
Elizabeth is described as very old.
This was a little troubling to me. Her husband Zacharias was a priest.
And the term of the priest ran from, I think it was 25 to 50.
So that means that she was 50-ish. And very old.
So what does that make me? Again, it's not an American story.
Mary and Joseph are both descendants of David. We were given genealogies in mathematical Chapter 1, there's one genealogy and there's another one in Luke chapter 3. And they're different.
And I've read all kinds of things of trying to explain how there can be two different genealogies, and they both end with Jesus.
The only way that it makes any sense is that one is of Mary and one is of Joseph.
I found nobody that agrees with me on this. I'm convinced that Matthew 1 is… marries.
And Luke 3 is Joseph's The reason why I'm convinced that Matthew 1 is Mary's is because that's the royal line.
That's the one that runs through Solomon and runs through all the kings of the Old Testament.
And then it gets down to the end and I'll read it to you
Could have been turning while I was talking.
Matthew 1.16, And Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus, who is called the Messiah. You see that little… A little clarification in there. Why does it mention Mary?
In this line that it reads down to Jacob is the father of Joseph.
And… And then bring in Mary. It's because this is Mary's line. I'm convinced of it.
In Joshua chapter 12. There is an obscure little story.
That doesn't seem to have any point. In that, they're dividing up the land and there is a guy who has five daughters, I believe, and no sons. And the daughters come to the priest and they go, hey.
You're dividing up the land. Moses said that even though there aren't any sons to carry on the family name.
I was talking with Sarah on the way down that the Dietzel name is dying out.
I don't know if that's a bad thing or not. But never mind.
But the family name is dying out, and that's important to them because the land went with the families.
As from generation to generation, the land we passed on, they're going.
We don't have any sons. We don't have any male offspring to pass on. And the priest said, yes, absolutely.
The line will continue through the daughters. This is what I believe is going on here.
Mary, we're told she has a sister. I believe she has a second sister, by the way.
I think that second sister lived in Kena. Otherwise, why would Mary go all the way to Kena for a wedding? Why would Jesus be there? Why would disciples be there?
And by the way, that wouldn't be all 12. Jesus, it says plus one, not plus 12.
That's James and John that are there, I believe. Because that is a family wedding.
But there's no sons. There's no brothers. And so we see back in Joshua this principle that God had put out that the line could carry through the daughters and probably through through the husbands, through the name of the husbands.
Again, that sounds uncomfortable to us these days. But that's the way things were back then. What about the occupation of Joseph. And we go, aha, we know what that is.
Because in Matthew 13 Going the wrong direction.
55 to 57.
Jesus has gone back to Nazareth. And it says… I'm going to jump back to 53. When Jesus had finished these parables, he moved on from there, coming to his hometown, he began teaching the people in their synagogue and they were amazed. Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers, they asked.
Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother's name Mary and aren't his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas?
Aren't all his sisters with us? And when did this man get all these things So he's a carpenter, apparently, except that word… doesn't necessarily mean carpenter.
The Greek word is tekton, and it basically means it could mean a craftsman, could be a builder.
I like to say Martin, he's a construction worker. And he was probably… not as skilled.
Construction worker. The reason I say that is because he was poor.
If he was the owner of Joseph's Fine Furniture. In Nazareth. He would have been a middle-class guy, and he's not. He's a poor man.
So this idea that, you know. Joseph was this well-respected businessman, which you see in the the different representations.
Is probably not the case. And by the way, I stopped at verse early.
In verse 57, it says, and they took offense at him.
So take that verse and now go back and read, isn't this The carpenter's son. Isn't this that guy's son.
That guy, he was nobody. And where did this guy come from? Who does he think he is, is what's being said here.
So… Joseph was a nobody.
And by the way, take note of, isn't his mother's name Mary?
We know about Mary, too. We'll come back to that.
All right, let's talk about Bethlehem because this is where I think the story goes kind of sideways.
Chapter 2, verses 1 to 4.
In those days, Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. This is the first census that took place when Quirinius was governor of Syria and everyone went to their own town to register.
So Joseph 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. All right.
So the story that is… are the… interpretation of this is that Joseph went to Bethlehem because he's a descendant of David.
You say, well, that's what it says. Does it? First of all, does that make sense to you?
The Romans would say… All you that are descendants of this guy a thousand years ago.
Need to go to such and such a city. Well, what about the rest of them? Where did they go?
Does everybody have to go where their ancestors lived a thousand years ago?
If you had to go to where your ancestors lived a thousand years ago, where would you go?
I have no idea where I would go. I don't know if it'd be in… How and somewhere.
Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. Probably not.
And if the Romans did ask that they do that, why would they do that? The only reason I can come up with is just to kill them all.
But that doesn't make any sense to me. I heard a very famous preacher about a week ago suggested, well, this is Herod's idea. Herod would understand the Jewish laws and understand that they would know their genealogies and they would know that. So he wanted to go there
Okay, still what's the point? Secondly, when the wise men come to Herod and say, you know, where is the king of the Jews born? I don't know.
And nobody said, hey, there's that big convention. The descendants of David over in Bethlehem. Oh yeah, that's right. We had to send them all. Nobody brings that up.
It doesn't make any sense to me to be Herod.
One other thing, I was in Israel a couple years ago and We had a Jewish guide, non-believer, and He had one night where he had… You just kind of, you know, ask me anything kind of thing.
I asked about the 12 tribes. I said, you know, are the 12 tribes still out there and are they going to, you know.
The Bible says there's someday going to be people saved from all the tribes. And he said, no, we're Jews.
I know that. What about the 12 tribes? He said, no, you don't understand. We're Jews.
Judah. The Jews are primarily descendants of Judah. Now we heard about Anne and Simeon, who were outliers. Saul was of Benjamin.
But… early in daniel It talks about the captives being taken off to Babylon.
And, you know, it was the prime of of the… Israelite leadership, which were primarily from the tribe of Judah.
The ten tribes have already been taken away. They are mostly gone. There's a few.
But they're mostly gone. So they are descendants of Judah. So how many people in Israel at this point would have in some way been descendants of David.
A large percentage of the country. So they all had to go to Bethlehem.
Imagine if half of this country had to go to one little city somewhere.
Also, I'll tell you that Bethlehem is… At that point, it was a very little town. It's a couple miles south of Jerusalem, the big city.
Again, when I was A couple years ago, I went down to Bethlehem. If you ever go there, I recommend you not waste your time. There's nothing to see in Bethlehem.
The only reason I knew when we had crossed from Jerusalem into Bethlehem was there was a checkpoint there. There was a gate that we had to go through.
The cities have literally just grown together now. That's how close together they are.
Bethlehem is not on the way to anything. So that road wouldn't have gone on anywhere. It goes into the desert from there.
The main road comes down along the Jordan River, turns, goes through Jericho Jerusalem and then off to the Mediterranean and then down into Egypt.
There's nothing down there. There's no reason to go through Bethlehem except to go to Bethlehem.
Spoiler alert. There'd be no reason for an inn to be in Bethlehem.
Nobody would go and stay there.
So…
What has gone wrong with this translation? Somehow or other, we got all caught up in verse 4.
And we missed verse 3. Everyone went to their own town.
To register. Joseph went to Bethlehem because he was from Bethlehem.
The last time he had been counted, remember he's probably 30. They did the census every 14 years back then.
So when he's in his mid-teens, he was counted in Bethlehem.
So he had to go back there. The Romans are going, we don't know who Joseph of Nazareth is, but we do know Joseph of Bethlehem. We have records of him. You've got to go back there.
So, what was Joseph doing in Nazareth? Remember that a man would get married when he was financially stable, enough to support a family.
A little south of Nazareth, Herod was building a city called Sephiris.
And I assume… my opinion. I assume that Joseph moved up there to work as a Probably essentially a day laborer.
Hauling stone probably in sephorus. He's moved up there for work.
Again, think about joseph. The carpenter with his shop and all that. He goes down to Bethlehem to register and stays there for over a month.
Martin and I can't hardly get away from work a week. Joseph leaves for months and then goes to Egypt and is able to go back to Egypt or go back to Nazareth.
Whatever he was doing wasn't super important. But there was work there.
So he's moved up there for the work. He's for once in his life feeling financially secure, contacts a matchmaker and the matchmaker says, hey, there's this young woman named Mary. And he goes, oh yeah, I've heard about her.
She's a godly, godly girl.
And the marriage is arranged. And now the Romans step in, say, go and register And I've heard things suggested as to why it was so urgent they had to run down there at that point.
But they have to go now. And Mary is very, very pregnant and they get down there.
Where did they go? There's no in. Joseph's family was from Bethlehem.
When we come to the point… Sure wish I'd written down things.
There it is. I'm sorry. Verse 5. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and expecting a child. And when they were there, the time came for the baby to be born and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger.
Because there was no guest room available for them. The word that is interpreted in.
Is used twice in the Bible. Let's use once here.
And it's used in describing the upper room where the Last Supper was held.
It's a guest room. It could be an inn. I don't believe it was. This is Joseph's family.
That has no room for… for Joseph and Mary.
Why would that be? Why?
If you had… Family come from family come from 70 miles away. 70 miles was about… You know, figured they had to walk And not on nice roads.
So maybe they can go 10 to 15 miles a day.
So what's that four or five days? Four or five days away, family comes and this very, very pregnant woman comes and you don't have room I mean, you come to my house, take my bed.
They literally took my bed last night. I was laying on the floor in the other room.
But… Why not?
What was it about Joseph and Mary that they wouldn't find room for.
Mary Herb. Story had… gotten there before them.
And they said, you're not bringing that woman. Into our house.
Houses back then. Israel is a very hilly country.
And they would build on the hills and they would build in such a way that the stable would be on the lower level and the house would be on the upper level.
The heat from the animals and the And the hay and all that would kind of rise and heat the upper levels.
So… the people are upstairs and they say, you can sleep in the stable with the other animals.
And they're down there.
And then what happens? These shepherds show up.
And the shepherds come and the people are upstairs and they're looking down here and they're seeing That must have been uncomfortable for Mary. But they're looking down on them and They see these shepherds come in and they say, we saw angels and angels said.
Come here. My granddaughter Sophia and I went to a living nativity about a month ago.
It was outside and it was rather cold and we sat on hay bales.
And… My favorite part of it was my favorite part of it After they got done with the shepherds, the guys playing the shepherds went off and they kind of wandered through the hay bales.
And they're saying to us. Have you heard?
The Messiah has come. Have you heard? And that's what the shepherds did. They came and they told everybody, but…
Verse 17, I'm still in Luke 2. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told about about the child and all who heard it were amazed by what the shepherd said to them. All who heard it.
That had to have included Joseph's family. And we know that because when the wise men come.
It's not two years later. Joseph was a poor man. He couldn't stay there forever. He had to get back. They stayed for the purification ceremony.
And then they would have to get back. So the wise men must have come right after they couldn't come before that or they wouldn't be poor anymore.
But… When the wise men come, it says they are in the house.
Joseph's family has gone from unbelieving to believing. So that is the point that I think is lost in all this.
The kindly innkeeper did not exist. There is nobody in this story up to this point who believes without God intervening.
Making sure they believe. Mary was told, Joseph was told.
Zacharias was told. The shepherds were told.
The wise men saw signs. But up to this point, we don't have any people that are believing. Now, we do get to eventually Anna and Simeon.
Who are righteous people looking for righteous people for the Savior.
They're exceptions. Isaiah 53 says that Jesus would be despised and rejected.
That started before he was born. He was despised by people. And he would have grown up that way.
It would have been so much easier for Joseph and Mary and Jesus, if after going down to Egypt, let's just go somewhere else where they don't know us.
We don't have to tell people the story of how you were pregnant before we got married.
But to go back to Nazareth, where we see 30 years later, they still remember. Remember, they said We know who your mother is.
We know who Mary was. She was that woman.
This was shocking stuff back then.
One little thing that I kind of skipped over, I meant to get it earlier, but this is a good place for it anyway.
One of my favorite parts of this whole story is The story about Elizabeth.
And Elizabeth… Seems to be a nice little part of it.
But think about this. Particularly you fathers of daughters.
You've got this daughter who is nothing but a joy to you.
And one day she comes in and she's just bouncing. In a way that teenage girls Only teenage girls can do.
I had a car full of them this morning and it was like… My head was rattling by the time I got here.
And she says, what, what, what? Her father has heard one word.
Pregnant.
And he says, what did you say? And she says a little bit slower. And again, all yours is pregnant.
And she rattles on and slowly she realizes My father is not sharing my joy here.
Her father's face is turned to stone.
And she stops. And he looks at her and he says.
I have no daughter.
And it turns his back on her. And all he hears is Mary and her mother and her sisters.
Sniffling and crying. All of a sudden Mary goes silent. She says, wait.
I can prove it.
And that little flame of hope lights in his heart. And he says, how can you prove this?
She says, the angel told me something else. Aunt Elizabeth is pregnant Aunt Elizabeth.
She would have barely known Elizabeth if she knew her at all. But she's old.
It's preposterous. And maybe his wife says.
It's preposterous enough that why would she make that up? So what do we see after the angel comes to Mary?
At that time, Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea where she entered Zachariah's home and greeted Elizabeth.
What was the hurry to get to see Elizabeth? Elizabeth was proof.
Imagine her father's face after traveling for days to go see Elizabeth remember They had to walk.
50 miles away at least. Took days. Boy, that must have been a fun journey.
And they get there and they get there They're walking up the path and all of a sudden here comes Elizabeth and she's six months pregnant at this point.
She is obviously pregnant.
And the relief that must have gone through her father's Heart, as he stood.
She was telling the truth.
I see in that that God's will will not be thwarted.
Her father undoubtedly… was going to cast her out.
Maybe you have her stoned. They did that kind of thing back then.
Joseph could have had her stoned. And the angel came to him and said, don't be afraid.
This is of God. Don't be afraid. God's will will not be thwarted. God's will will happen.
No matter what we do to mess it up, God's will will happen.
The other thing is that Mary, God's servant. God will protect her.
When we go off to do what God wants us to do, God will protect us.
Doesn't mean that we're invincible. I heard long ago that a Christian can't die unless one of two things happens.
Either we've completed God's will for our life or we're no longer in God's will for our lives. And then he says, no, you're done.
But as long as God has worked for us to do, we cannot die.
God will protect us. God protected Mary in that day.
So what have we learned here? Have I taken all the joy of Christmas out?
I hope not. Because… For time, I skipped over something in the genealogies. They come through two two sons of David. They come through Solomon and Nathan.
They were both sons of Bathsheba. I said I skipped it for time and I'm telling you.
But… Nathan, David's son Nathan.
There's only two significant Nathans in the Bible. There's this one.
And there's the prophet that came to David and said, you've sinned.
So why would David name his son after Nathan? And he's the son of Bathsheba, so that happened afterwards.
I see that as repentance. And then I see in Solomon, I see forgiveness.
And I see blessing. So we see real repentance.
Brings real forgiveness and blessing. We see in Mary that God's will will not be thwarted.
And that God will protect his people. But in Jesus we see that he was despised, that he was rejected.
But in his family, we see that there is hope. That we can turn and turn And believe.
But mostly, what I see through all this is that the joy is not in the manger.
If Jesus had come as a baby. Been born, been put in a manger.
Lived his life. And then one day gone back to heaven.
Where's the joy in that? Why would we celebrate that?
I mean, we can celebrate everything that God does. But what would have changed for us?
Without the cross, there's no joy in the manger. Jesus came as a baby.
Not to be a baby. Not to be a miraculous baby, but he came as a baby to grow to be a man to one day go and die for us.
That's the joy of Christmas. It's the beginning of that plan of salvation that God laid out way at the beginning.
I think before the beginning of time, that plan existed. But that's… That's the joy.
That Jesus came and died for us. All right. One more swallow.
All right, let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for Jesus. We thank you for his sacrifice for us. We thank you that he came not just to be a baby, but to be our Savior.
We thank you that through his life and death.
And shed blood. That we can have forgiveness.
Father, I pray that if there's anybody here who is maybe heard this a million times, maybe never heard it before.
Never heard that Jesus died for them. That you would not give them peace until they… turn their lives over to you.
Not to be servants, but to be slaves. To be your slaves because you are a great and merciful master that loves us and wants nothing but the best for us.
So Father, we thank you for this Christmas time. We thank you that we can celebrate, but do so looking past the manger and to the cross. In the name of Jesus, I pray.
Amen. Are we done?
No