REVISITING THE CHRISTMAS STORY

Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on December 23, 2020 under AM Bible Study |

AM Bible Study Group: December 23, 2020 from Luke 1:26-38

Theme: If we fear God as we should, we will never need to fear anything or anyone else.

(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).

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Christmas is only a couple of days away. And since we’ve been studying our way through the Gospel of Luke, it would be a shame if we didn’t go back to its beginning and revisit the story that started it all.

I think you’ll agree with me that it’s truly the greatest Christmas story there is.

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Now; the Christmas story is not a myth or a fable. It’s a story rooted in real time-space history—meant to be understood by us in the same way that we would believe any other actual event in human history.

But it’s important to understand that it’s a story of history in which God intervened in the affairs of humanity. Before we look at the story in Luke 1, turn with me to Genesis 3—and to the very beginnings of human history. Our first parents—Adam and Eve—had sinned. They had been deceived by the devil who had come to them in the form of a serpent. And in Genesis 3:15, God made this promise to the serpent regarding the woman he had deceived into disobeying God:

And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise His heel (Genesis 3:15).

That’s the first hint in history of the Christmas story. God would provide—through the woman—a Seed who would defeat the devil and redeem humanity. Then, God clarified this promise centuries later through the prophet Isaiah. In Isaiah 7:14, the prophet wrote,

Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel (Isaiah 7:14b).

The name “Immanuel” means “God with us”. That’s the name of this promised Child—this promised ‘Seed’. And He would be a human being born from a virgin—that is, born of a woman without the agency of a man. And we receive further clarification of this later on in history—after it took place—in Galatians 4:4-5. There, the apostle Paul wrote;

But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons (Galatians 4:4-5).

And now, in Luke 1:26-38, we read the story of how—in the fullness of time—God kept this glorious promise. It’s a story that is deeply rooted in human history—but history into which God graciously intervened to provide for the salvation of fallen people.

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The story is about something that happened six months after another miracle had occurred—after Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, became pregnant in her older years. The young woman Mary was not expecting what was about to happen. It may be that she had simply been working on her daily chores—or perhaps daydreaming about her upcoming wedding to her betrothed husband Joseph. Verses 26-28 begins with these words;

Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And having come in, the angel said to her, “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!” (Luke 1:26-28).

Though this greeting would have caught Mary by surprise, the words of the angel would have been immediately understood by her. She would have thought back to the promise of Genesis 3:15—that the promised Seed would come from a woman; and also to Isaiah 7:14—and to the promise concerning the Messiah. It was the promise that every Jewish girl would have held in her heart as she grew up in the land of Israel; “Could I be the one? Could it be through me that, one day, the Redeemer would be born? Could it be that I—even I—might be the most favored among women?”

The angel announced to Mary that she indeed was that one. But she didn’t greet this startling appearance and this remarkable announcement with joy—not at first anyway. We’re told in verses 29-30;

But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was. Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God” (vv. 29-30).

And let’s not pass by those words too quickly. Let’s savor them. The angel told her not to be afraid because she found ‘favor with God’. That word ‘favor’ in the original language is another word for ‘grace’; and I wonder if it wouldn’t be appropriate to see this blessing of ‘favor’ to Mary as a greeting from God that reached beyond Mary alone and all the way to ourselves today. The birth of Jesus Christ into this world is an expression of God’s great favor and grace to us. We desperately need God’s grace of salvation; and the good news is that the Savior of fallen humanity has been born. After all, another angel later on—along with a multitude of angels—said that this was “good tidings of great joy which will be to all people.” No matter how hard things may be in this world, we now have hope!

Now; how would this happen? The angel Gabriel went on to explain in verses 31-33;

“And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end” (vv. 31-33).

Here, the angel Gabriel placed some facts before Mary about this wonderful Child that she would bear. They are truths about God’s promised Messiah. He gives here a five-fold description of Him:

• First, she was told that “He will be great”; and that is a statement about His majesty. He would be ‘great’ in the world of humanity—as one of us, but as the chiefest of us. He would be—as He often called Himself—the Son of Man.
• But more; she was told that He will be called “the Son of the Highest”; and that is a statement of His deity, because He’d be among us as “God with us”—the Son of God.
• Then, she was told that God would give Him “the throne of His father David”; and that speaks of His messianic royalty. He is the promised Son of King David.
• And then—just as was promised to David—she was told that He will “reign over the house of Jacob forever”; and this speaks of His eternality.

• And finally, she was told that “of His kingdom there will be no end”. Every other earthly kingdom has an end; but of His reign there will be no end. This speaks of His supremacy.

So; here we’re told of His majesty, His deity, His royalty, His eternality, and His supremacy. And if this angel’s description sounds familiar, you might recognize them as sounding very much like the words we find in Isaiah 9:6-7—words that we often read at Christmas time, but that were spoken some 750 years before the angel gave the announcement to Mary;

For unto us a Child is born,
Unto us a Son is given;
And the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called
Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of His government and peace
There will be no end,
Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom,
To order it and establish it with judgment and justice
From that time forward, even forever.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this (Isaiah 9:6-7).

Now; Mary was a very bright young woman. She would naturally have been captivated by the wonder of this announcement. And she did not doubt the angel’s word. But she did have a very good question about it. Verse 34 tells us;

Then Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I do not know a man?” (v. 34).

You can’t blame Mary for asking such a thing. She was a virtuous young woman. And Joseph was a virtuous man. And I even suspect that Mary could detect an element of ‘immediacy’ in the things that the angel was promising her. How then could such a thing happen when she and her betrothed husband had—themselves—not yet come together in marriage?

And that’s when we come to truly glorious words—words shrouded in mystery to the human mind; but words that nevertheless are worth believing and worth cherishing:

And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God (v. 35).

It’s not our business to try to know the details of something that we cannot, in our human frailty, understand or grasp. The conception of our Lord in the womb of Mary is something veiled in a divine mystery to us. All that we’re meant to know—all that we truly need to know—is that it happened. The Holy Spirit came upon Mary in a miraculous way; and the power of God overshadowed her in such a way as to do what was needed; and the result was that a Child was conceived in Mary’s womb who was the Son of God—God in human flesh. We may not understand it; but that does not have to detract from our receiving it! As it says in John 1:14;

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14).

Now this was something all so wondrous and remarkable that the angel knew that Mary would need some validating proof. And so, he told her;

Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren. For with God nothing will be impossible” (vv. 36-37).

And now you can appreciate the amazing timing of things. God knew what He was doing when He sent the angel Gabriel to Mary right then. It was as if the angel was saying, “Go and look for yourself, Mary; and know that nothing that God says that He will do will ever be impossible to Him—not even what He has promised to you!”

Now; miracle or not, this was a tremendous thing to ask of Mary. She would experience a significant misunderstanding from many of the people around her. Even her own beloved betrothed husband-to-be would—at first—misunderstand what happened. But Mary nevertheless submitted to the will of God. Notice her response to this remarkable announcement;

Then Mary said, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word” (v. 38a).

How grateful we should be that she submitted as she did. Because she did so, we have a Savior!

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The closing words of our passage—the words found at the end of verse 38—tell us what happened after Mary submitted to the will of God for her life:

And the angel departed from her (v. 38).

But that should not be the end of the story for us. Let’s never grow tired of hearing of what God did for us. Let’s relish every word of this story—and believe every word of it—and submit to every word of it to the saving of our souls. It tells us so much about our Savior!

EA