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The Christmas Love Stories
The story of Christmas is two beautiful love stories rolled into one. It is a love story about a man Joseph who is engaged to marry Mary.
And it is about God who loves mankind so much that he sends his son Jesus down to earth to be born as a baby. Jesus is destined to grow up to be a perfect sinless human and then die a horrible death to pay for the sins of all mankind.
But God must find some way for Jesus to be born on earth. So God picks Mary a beautiful virgin girl to carry the Godchild.
While I could try and recount this story, no one can tell the story as well as the physician Luke. Luke's account of the Christmas story is recorded in the book of Luke in the Bible in chapter 1 and chapter 2. In the book of Luke chapter 1 verses 26 to 38 Luke writes:
26 In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary.
28 The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you."
29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. 31 You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."
34 "How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?"
35 The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. 36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. 37 For nothing is impossible with God."
38 "I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said." Then the angel left her.
So now Mary is pregnant and Joseph is not sure what to do. Should he break off the engagement? Should he have her stoned? Should he marry her? His reaction is recorded in Matthew 1 verses 29 to 25 where Matthew says:
19 Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."
22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23"The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel" —which means, "God with us."
24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25 But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.
So now Joseph and Mary are married and the story continues in Luke chapter 2 verses 1 to 20 where Luke writes:
1 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 his own town to register.
4 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, because there was no room for them in the inn.
8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."
13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, 14 "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."
15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about."
16 So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17 When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.
But the story does not end here. Jesus grows up to be the perfect sinless human. At age 30 he begins a ministry that will change the world forever.
First Jesus performed many miracles to help people understand that He was God. At the same time Jesus introduced a new concept to humanity. The concept was grace and mercy. Up until Jesus all religions of the world were based on the idea that you had to appease God, you had to make self-sacrifices in order to make the God or the gods happy.
Jesus explained that God we cannot gain God's approval by making self sacrifices or being good. In Matthew chapter 9 verse 13 Jesus said, “But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." Then again in Matthew 12 verse 7 Jesus says, “If you had known what these words mean, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the innocent.”
Instead Jesus introduced a new plan of how to please God. Jesus and the aposltle Paul explain in the New Testament in the Bible the new plan. It goes something like this.
God is perfect. People who obey God perfectly get to go to heaven when they die. People who do not obey God all the time have to die and go to hell a punishment for the bad things they have done.
But God loves humans and would like all of them to be able to go to heaven - even the bad humans like you and me who have been mean to people and who have done other bad things like stealing and being jealous and hating people.
God decided that His Son Jesus take our punishment for us. God allowed Jesus to become a human baby, born from virgin Mary, and grow up to be a man and live a perfect life that pleased God and then Jesus could die and go to hell for us so we could go to heaven instead of going to hell.
That is exactly what Jesus did. He grew up and at age 30 he started doing miracles and telling people about God's grace and God's mercy. Then at age 33 he was murdered by the legalistic religious elite because they said he was blaspheming God because He said He was God. So they killed him in the traditional way they killed criminals in those days – on a cross. So Jesus died and for three days he was in hell paying for our sins. But then after the third day he came back from hell and came back alive and about 500 witnesses saw him and testified that he was alive. All this is recorded in the New Testament.
And so back to Gods plan to save the world from going to hell. The only gotcha that we has humans have, is that we have to believe that Jesus really is God's Son and that Jesus really did die and take our punishment so we can go to heaven. If we believe this, then we are home free – we get to go to heaven when we die. But the story does not end there. Because when we believe, God's Holy Spirit comes into our minds and begins planting thoughts in our minds. Good thoughts. God's Holy Spirit begins helping us make wise decisions and helps us want to learn more about God. He helps us want to read the Bible to learn more about God. He helps us want to go to church and find other Christians who we can share our lives with. But the most important thing the Holy Spirit does is he starts writing God's laws in our hearts. In Hebrews 10:16 it says, “This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds."
And what are the laws God puts in our hearts? They are really not that many. They are repeated over and over in the New Testament. They go something like this … Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself …
God loved us so much that he replaced a complex system of Old Testament law that did not work with a new love based system of works motivated by compassion for others instead of duty from sacrifice. Wow what a love God has for each of us. God could have divorced us like Joseph could have divorced his espoused wife Mary, but instead God compromised and found a way to save us from ourselves. May we do the same this Christmas and love our spouse like God loves us …
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