Then his father, Zechariah, was filled with the Holy Spirit and gave this prophecy:
“Praise the Lord, the God of Israel,
because he has visited and redeemed his people.
He has sent us a mighty Savior[g]
from the royal line of his servant David,
just as he promised
through his holy prophets long ago.
Now we will be saved from our enemies
and from all who hate us.
He has been merciful to our ancestors
by remembering his sacred covenant—
the covenant he swore with an oath
to our ancestor Abraham.
We have been rescued from our enemies
so we can serve God without fear,
in holiness and righteousness
for as long as we live.
“And you, my little son,
will be called the prophet of the Most High,
because you will prepare the way for the Lord.
You will tell his people how to find salvation
through forgiveness of their sins.
Because of God’s tender mercy,
the morning light from heaven is about to break upon us,
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
and to guide us to the path of peace.”
John grew up and became strong in spirit. And he lived in the wilderness until he began his public ministry to Israel.
(Luke 1:67-80)
Three Covenants
Almighty and Ever-faithful God:
Like Zechariah, we bless You in this Advent season
that You have come and rescued us
from the enemies of our souls,
from Satan's power and hell's destruction.
Did You silence that ancient priest
for more than his cheek to Gabriel's face?
Zechariah may have been like so many priests,
needing to be heard more than he wants to listen.
In Bethacceram I can hear him, quite a treacher,
wise with years of studious devotion
to the Holy Law and Prophets,
getting neighbors ready for the epiphany of Israel's Savior.
Maybe he was like a young Hal Lindsey,
using select Scriptures to foretell the end of days,
figuring from Ezekiel and Daniel
when Messiah's time would dawn.
So in the Temple when Gabriel confirms his theory,
Zechariah is filled with joy!
But when he learns that he and Lizzy
will have a baby, that doesn't calculate.
So Gabriel pronounces sentence
on this student of the Word;
makes him mute so he might listen
and be open to God's new world dawning.
For nine long months Zechariah reads and ponders
the mysteries of salvation history,
guided by the Holy Spirit
God guides him to an awesome discovery.
So when his tongue is loosed to praise,
he prophesies what for days and days
has been his comfort and delight,
a truth so deep, direct from God,
a Word that even angels can't express.
Three covenants of grace hold Israel together;
not the Mosaic Law, it condemned all,
offered covering for unintended sin, but not forgiveness for rebellion. (Hebrews 10:26-31)
The rabbis got it wrong.
Covenant one - the oath God swore to Abraham,
that through this man all the world would be blessed (Genesis 12:1-3)
with peace and righteousness.
But the Sadducees got it wrong.
God's righteousness was imputed, not earned with piety, (Genesis 15: 6, Romans 3-4)
or conveyed by citizenship or circumcision
as though to be born a Jew
stamped your passport straight for Heaven.
Covenant two -- the oath God swore to David,
of a promised Savior who would reign forever (2 Sam. 7:12, Ps 89:20-29)
and free the people from their enemies.
But the Zealots got it wrong.
The enemies aren't the Romans or any other conquering horde.
The truth dawned on Zechariah
while he was reading Jeremiah.
God's enemies were the faithless priests of Israel. (Jeremiah 23)
Yet neither of these eternal covenants had yet to be fulfilled.
Something's missing, the last puzzle piece.
Then Zechariah sees -- the problem is the human heart
and its rank rebelliousness.
What good is a Savior among people with no knowledge of sin?
Or what good a righteousness unattainable?
Why were his fellow priests God's enemies?
Covenant three -- the new covenant Jeremiah foretold. (Jeremiah 31:31-34)
Messiah doesn't slaughter Romans and set up an earthly throne!
The Savior brings the knowledge of salvation
and sin's forgiveness, not for the nation or the race, collectively,
but for every darkened human heart, individually.
Changing governments, changing laws, will not improve the human dilemma.
What's required is surgery upon the mind and heart, (Deuteronomy 30:6)
to break the rebel's will
and create a space for faith to dwell.
Little John prepares the way by screaming in the wilderness,
Leave the city! Leave your Temple and synagogues!
Return to Israel's birthing place -- in the desert,
baptized in the Sea, brought out to gracious liberty. (1 Cor. 10:2)
Covenant three -- the prophets foretold the New Covenant,
the remnant covenant delivered one to one,
from God's heart to we rebels,
sitting in the darkness of death's looming shadow.
Listen -- Zechariah was a theologian extraordinary,
but his insight is as simple as the daybreak.
I didn't make the Sun to rise, God does it for me because I can't.
I need only look and by it see beyond myself
and rise to walk in paths of peace.
Peace with neighbor, peace with self,
but first and foremost, to the penitent,
peace with God from whom I've run,
Who reconciles this rebel to His Son,
Who offers me the New Covenant in his blood.
Amen.
At that time the Roman emperor, Augustus, decreed that a census should be taken throughout the Roman Empire. (This was the first census taken when Quirinius was governor of Syria.) All returned to their own ancestral towns to register for this census. And because Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to go to Bethlehem in Judea, David’s ancient home. He traveled there from the village of Nazareth in Galilee. He took with him Mary, his fiancée, who was now obviously pregnant. And while they were there, the time came for her baby to be born. She gave birth to her first child, a son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them.
(Luke 2:1-7)
Bethlehem Travel & Travail
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ:
What strikes me about this nativity
is the lack of supernatural activity.
No more angels, no more crowds,
no more praising God out loud.
Just a couple in a sheep pen
no room found in any inn.
Cold and pain, straw and manure,
travel and travail they endure.
They have walked from Galilee,
maybe Mary rode a donkey,
a hundred miles and all uphill;
The slow agony must have been unreal.
Years before in 8 BC
Augustus issued his decree;
but Herod had postponed the census
knowing Jews would be incensed.
Herod delayed, tried to ignore,
the orders from the Emperor.
But the cagey King hit upon a notion:
He would put the Jews in motion.
It's hard to riot or rebel
when every man must bid farewell
to his family home and kind.
This should keep the Jews in line.
So these tyrants serve Your Sovereign Deity,
unwittingly do Your will with this decree,
to fulfill the prophet's plan:
The Savior must come from Bethlehem.
I imagine Joseph and Mary
on the road had grown quite weary,
feared maybe You had forgotten them
in all the rush and social mayhem.
But all their pain and deprivation
vanish with their baby's first inhalation
of breath and comes the tiny scream
that initiates salvation's scheme.
Lord, when I think You've forgotten,
or that my hope is misbegotten,
Remind me how You moved the whole ancient world
for a peasant carpenter and his girl,
nobodies by any worldly measure,
but to You earth's greatest treasure.
Help us all our pains endure
when we've believed yet feel unsure.
Inspire our faith in times of loss
that when we follow, take up our cross,
You are moving heaven and earth
just as you did at Jesus birth
to get us where we're supposed to be:
fit and ready for eternity.
Amen.
That night there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep. Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them. They were terrified, but the angel reassured them. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David! And you will recognize him by this sign: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.”
(Luke 2:8-12)
To Shepherds, Lord? Really?
God of All Glory:
Shepherds, Lord? Really?
What were you thinking?
They were outcasts, surely stinking.
Their testimony was not allowed
in any Jewish court of law.
Egyptians thought them an abonimation, (Gen 46:34)
so disreputable was their vocation.
Shepherds, Lord? Really?
Were they the only ones awake
At that hour, before day break?
Or were they chosen without regard,
to receive your grace and favor?
They did nothing to earn their place
in sacred history or Your grace.
But they listened and believed
and went to tell of love received.
Shepherds, Lord? Really?
These rugged men are watching ewes
about to birth a lamb or two.
It's April, maybe early May
when lambs are born,
taken into lean-to pens,
where the shepherd to birth attends.
In such a place was Jesus born,
in some sheepfold near David's town,
where Mary lays the baby down
while Joseph cuts the umbilical
and cleans the afterbirth away,
unwinds the swaddle from his waist,
wraps the baby with great haste.
Shepherds, Lord? Really?
They become the first to view
Your Shekinah Glory cutting through
the night like a knife rips a cloth,
from side to side, the tearing rift
streaming light and blazing incandesence
spills into space-time Heaven's essence.
That glory once filled the Temple,
but Ezekiel saw it depart it seems, (Ezekiel 10:18ff)
out the door, accompanied by cherubim,
and disappear. And nothing Herod ever built
could undo that somber Ichabod. (I Samuel 4:21)
But shepherds quake at the sight
of The Presence returned that night.
Shepherds, Lord? Really?
To these ruffians angels say,
"Don't fear -- it's not Judgement Day.
For you, yes you, is born a Savior,
Deliverer, Messiah, King.
The news is good -- the news is joy.
God tabernacles now in a boy."
Shepherds, Lord? Really?
They want to know how will they find
this child; then Gabriel says, "Here's the sign.
Go into Bethlehem and seek
the one is who the Prince of Peace.
Wrapped in swaddle cloth,
lying in a stone cold trough."
How could this be a sign?
Every baby in the Middle East
is swaddled in a cloth or sheet.
But this swaddle cloth was for travelers
who might die on any journey.
So every man wrapped around himself
an under-cloth to double as his burial shroud.
Where else could Joseph find
something with which his child to wrap
except the clothes off his own back?
Now a manger is a very odd crib.
Not made of wood, but carved in stone,
like the bone boxes in which they bury;
mangers look like a Jewish funerary.
A baby wrapped as if mummified
on the slab as if it died.
This really was a prophetic sign;
this child they seek will appear
in a shroud laid on a bier.
A funeral box, Lord? Really?
Is this the Christmas message?
The promised Savior from God on High,
the Christ child, condescends to die.
There is no more postponement:
for every sin He makes atonement.
And to the greatness of the Servant
Heaven sings and blazes fervent.
So in this season rich with symbols
may we not become distracted
by commercial interactions
nor by our own religiosity.
Trees and candles, lights and presents,
are secondary to the main event
You revealed to humble shepherds:
bathed in Heaven's awesome glory.
This is the grace-filled Gospel story.
Jesus Christ has come to save
those with Whom our God is pleased!
Good news, great joy, all given freely!
To Shepherds, Lord? Yes, really.
Amen.
Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host of others—the armies of heaven—praising God and saying,
“Glory to God in highest heaven,
and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.”
When the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, “Let’s go to Bethlehem! Let’s see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” They hurried to the village and found Mary and Joseph. And there was the baby, lying in the manger.
(Luke 2:13-16)
Battle
Lord of Hosts:
Almost everything we think we know
about Satan and his minions
is updside down and backwards to the truth.
Hell is not down below,
the air is his dominion, (Ephesians 2:2)
and the greatest myth - that he doesn't exist.
Long before the earth's foundation,
before the Big Bang exploded,
there was war in Heaven, (Ezekiel 28:12-17)
Lucifer craved equal adoration
with His Creator Who unloaded
Lucifer and all his dark demons.
God had to exile these rebel spirits
to some place inaccessible to Glory;
So from His Word He flung a universe of space-time.
"Let there be light" was His command
"Lucifer, fallen Bringer of Light,
here you may shine supreme in expanding emptiness."
But God, His mercy, ever gracious
creates within the exploding void
a tiny world of green and blue,
and makes a garden full of life,
a habitat for a being of His own image.
Satan expects some subterfuge
of God on High to invade his realm,
and slithers down the Tree of Knowledge,
bids the earthlings join his cause,
rebel against this jealous God
Who cannot stand competition.
The man and wombman join the rebellion.
Satan leaves, his heart aglow
that he has thwarted Yahweh's purpose
but what is unknown to the Hellion
is God's Healing River has loosed its flow
of grace that will entrap the Lord of flies.
From Eden to the Chaldean Ur
God shapes and molds the complex plot.
To undo Satan's stranglehold.
David and Israel's prophets concur
the Prince of Peace,. God's Annointed,
the Lord of Heaven's Armies comes!
Satan knows the prophecies.
He summons demonic hordes
meet him in the air o'er Bethlehem.
He gives his orders when He sees
Joseph slash the baby's cord.
Then plummet a thousand wraiths of death. (Rev 12:1-6)
At this very moment shepherds see
a tear in the fabric of time and space
and flying from the shekinah brillance
shooting streams of light with faces
speeding faster than the wind
into the sky above Bethlehem.
The shepherds fall to the ground
as the host stream from the rift,
rallying to their sky-born battle.
"Glory to God on High," they shout.
"Shalom, reconciling peace, God's gift
to those Who this Son receive."
So outnumbered and powerless
are the dark legions of the Temptor,
they flee in chaos toward coldest space. (Rev. 12:7-12)
Lucifer, the Light Bearer, stands alone o'erhead,
exposed in the night sky of the Magi.
Thank you, Lord, that you make
every evil in this life
become a beacon of your grace
for those, who for thy dear Son's sake,
lift their prayers in sweet accord
to praise the ever-living Lord.
Amen.
When the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, “Let’s go to Bethlehem! Let’s see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” They hurried to the village and found Mary and Joseph. And there was the baby, lying in the manger. After seeing him, the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child. All who heard the shepherds’ story were astonished, but Mary kept all these things in her heart and thought about them often. The shepherds went back to their flocks, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen. It was just as the angel had told them.
(Luke 2:16-20)
Awake!
Eternal Shepherd of our Souls:
The shepherds leave their ninety nine
to find the newborn Lamb of God.
In tiny Bethlehem it won't be hard
to hear a baby's cry outside in a manger.
What parents would their infant leave
outside on a night like this?
They run across the shepherd's field,
cobbled with hard dung and stones,
robes aflutter, laughing in anticipation,
then putting fingers to their lips,
shush each other at the edge of town.
"How will we find the child?" they whisper.
"Everyone's asleep. I can't hear a peep."
The only sounds, the wind that rustled
through some trees and stirred the embers
of long-since dead cooking fires,
and snores from grottoes where live the poor.
"We've been dreaming. It's not real.
Oh, what fools we must appear
to the jokester who sent us looking
for Israel's Savior in a manger!
Maybe it was a theif who got our flock.
Signs, indeed. I've got to pee."
Then suddenly the shadow of a man
appears near the well with pot in hand.
Odd -- it's a woman's job to fetch water,
unless, just maybe, this is the father.
Why else would he be awake?
"Excuse us, sir," they approaching whisper.
He turns and sees the outline
of their staffs in pale moonlight.
"Was a baby born this night?"
they ask rather sheepishly.
"Why yes," he says, "Come and see."
They follow to a sheep pen
just down the hill, behind an inn.
Built of stone and topped with grass.
Tall enough for a man to stand in,
the entrance only wide enough
for a single ewe to enter.
A little fire burns within
the smoke curls up the chimney hole,
and in the flickering firelight
the mother sleeps up on a ledge.
And on the well-worn earthen floor
near the fire's glowing warmth
sits the feed trough and inside, a child
wrapped in his father's swaddling cloth.
"It's true," the shepherds gasp in wonder,
"the sign the angel gave, it's Him,
the boy who is Messiah Lord,
who brings the Kingdom from on High!
We must spread this awesome news!"
And down the path they run and shout
"Awake! Awake!."
Lord, You fill our lives with signs
of your loving Providence,
and often after some spiritual high,
we fail and lose our confidence
and prefer to return to somnolence.
But they that wait upon the Lord
renew their strength, like eagle's soar (Is. 40:31)
and find that God has not forgotten
or misled their hope and reason,
but find Your Word a precious beacon, (Ps 119:105)
Summoning us to trust Your grace
and follow You to that place
where Jesus his fold bids us enter; (John 10:1-18)
and like the distressed ewe we find
the door only wide enough for one.
Help us, like the shepherds, hear
and receive Your Word with faith
and overcome our doubts with cheer
and covering our sins with grace
tell the sleeping world, "Awake!" (Isaiah 60:1-2)
Amen.
A holy and happy Christmas to you all!!
Hallelujah! What a Savior!
