Those First Few Hours

Luke 2

What happened right after Jesus was born?  It’s a tender time at the manger.  But on a nearby hillside: An announcement in the sky! The shepherds had not blinked as they gazed upon the angel host up in the air, making their grand announcement.  We don’t know how long their concert continued, but probably not long enough for these excited humans.  The angels receded into the night and back to the throne room of God.  I imagine the shepherds looking at one another for just a moment, and then taking off in v. 15.

They had a revelation from God and they believed it.  And that’s how people come to Christ.  Divine revelation is where anybody's faith in Christ begins, with a message from God.  Faith comes by hearing the word about Christ. Faith comes by hearing the message.  Romans 10, Paul says how shall they hear if there's not a preacher?

Their faith in the word of God then caused them to pursue Christ.  And that's the third step in anybody's life in coming to Christ. First you know the revelation, secondly you believe the revelation, and thirdly you come to Christ.  Verse 16 says, "They came in haste."  Again, this idea of eagerness that the language indicates that they're in a hurry. 

V. 17        Next comes witnessing.  Sharing good news. But who would have guessed their first audience?  It’s Joseph and Mary!

I can't believe that there wasn't some large conversation between verse 16 and 17.  I mean, here are these scruffy, grubby shepherds coming in the middle of the night into this stinking stable, finding Joseph and Mary and the baby lying in a manger.  And they're all overwhelmed with what's happened, so Joseph and Mary must have had some response, saying, “Greetings, how can we help you?”  And then they unfold the saga.  Well, um, um, and I can just hear them all vying for telling the story their way as Joseph and Mary tried to sit quietly and listen.  And it must have been wonderful confirmation for them as well, for any malingering doubts that might have been raised in their minds. And they told the story of how an angel came and an angel described one who had been born, good news of great joy, a Savior.  He is Christ the Lord.  And on and on, they told the whole story.  And then a whole host of angels came and there were angels everywhere, and they were bright and they were shining and they were praising God and thanking God.  And oh, it was incredible.

And as that story unfolded I think Joseph and Mary probably began to unfold some of their side of the details.  Well isn't that wonderful because, you know, an angel came to me, Joseph might have said.  And he told me not to worry about the fact that my virgin, betrothed, bride-to-be Mary was pregnant because the baby that was in her womb was put there by the Holy Spirit. She was not sinful. She was not unfaithful to me.  That she was going to have a child who would be Immanuel, God with us, God in human flesh and that He would be named Jesus because He would save His people from their sins.  And this all happened to me when I was deciding whether to divorce her or stone her to death.  And I had a dream and in that dream an angel of the Lord came to me and told me the whole thing.

And then Mary might have quietly said, and, you know, I had a visit from Gabriel and Gabriel came to me even though I am just a young girl and a virgin and said you're going to have a baby and that baby is going to be Son of the Most High God, He's going to rule over a kingdom that will last eternally. And it all is beginning to come together. 

And so these shepherds, talk about being in on the scoop, they're in on it.

And at this particular point, it's Joseph and Mary and a handful of shepherds, and Zacharias and Elizabeth and they know about it, and really nobody else has the kind of inside information that these people have.

And what is their immediate response?  After the whole thing unfolds, “when they had seen this, they made known the statement which had been told them about this Christ.”  They went everywhere and said the Savior's been born, the Savior's been born. Christ the Lord has been born.  They told the story.

I'll tell you right now, folks.  The most aggressive, faithful people in proclaiming the gospel are the newest Christians.  Because the joy runs so high, the excitement is so great, the enthusiasm is so profound.

And so these shepherds become the first New Testament evangelists.  There isn't anything in their humdrum life that could equal this.  And I might suggest to you that true spiritual commitment is determined by the quality and the tenacity of one's long-term joy over their salvation.  You can say you're committed, you can talk about the commitment you have to Jesus Christ, but it really comes down to how much joy you have and how eagerly you share that.

They were eye-witnesses to the Messiah being born and they spread that good news. They couldn't contain themselves.  And you know, when we stop having that kind of zeal and that kind of passion, we betray a sinful heart because indifference and ingratitude is a sin.  It's amazing, you know, the longer people are Christians the less they seem excited about it. They move further and further away from the initial revelation of the gospel and become more and more involved with other things.  You get a lot more excited about sports and restaurants and food and kids and grandkids and houses and cars and possessions and vacations and rarely ever do you burst forth with exuberant joy toward others who know not Christ.

V. 18        Is this story believable?  It was to the shepherds.  They had seen the angels, and they had heard the sign that he would be the only infant in a feeding trough…and sure enough, there he was.  They believed.  And not just for these proofs, but they believed the prophecies.  Now they are telling others who also know these prophecies.  Shouldn’t they want to go to the manger too?

The next little comment in verse 19 I find interesting as well.  It takes us into the heart of Mary.

She is just mulling it all over, contemplating deeply.  She went much deeper, believe me, than the amazed people in verse 18.  I mean, this is just...this is just beyond comprehension. Here is a 13-, 14-year old girl. She's looking into a feed trough and she's seeing there a baby that's come out of her womb.  She's never known a man. This baby was conceived and born without ever knowing a man.  This baby is the Son of the Most High God.  This baby is the rightful heir to the throne of David.  This baby is the Savior of the world.  This baby is the anointed Messiah.  This baby is God, the Lord.  I mean, it's all so mind-boggling in the common world of human beings.

And Mary must have wondered, you know, when is He going to start saying profound, theological things?  Tomorrow?  Is He going to do miracles?  What's going to happen here?  What am I to expect out of this child?  Will I have a normal relationship with this child that a mother has to a baby?  Will I nurse this child as mothers do?  Will I raise this child as mothers do?  What will this child be like?  And when will He enter into His glory?  And when will He take His kingdom?  When will that all happen?  And how am I going to be a mother to a child that is God?

She must have wondered all those kinds of things, must have wondered even about discipline, setting an example.  How do you set an example for God?  I mean, anything that would come into a mother's mind must have come into her mind.  She just pondered it.  She just thought deeply about it.  She thought deeply about God's redemptive purpose and how God had promised a Savior and a Savior had finally come.

And later on in verses 34 and 35 of this chapter, Simeon comes up to Mary and says...I hate to tell you this, Mary, but this child is going to pierce your heart like a sword.  It's not all going to be wonderful for you.  This is going to be very painful having this son.  A sword is going to go right through your own soul.

And it's true.  I mean, being the mother of the Son of God is a painful thing.  She loved Him. She must have loved Him like no mother has ever loved a child because He was perfect.  And yet she saw Him suffer.  She saw Him suffer so profoundly and so unjustly. And eventually she was there when He was nailed to the cross.  I mean, all kinds of suffering.  She must have been thinking about a lot of things.

And isn't that analogous somewhat to the Christian experience?  Just following the little illustration, first there is the revelation of the truth, the gospel, then there's faith like the shepherds put in what God said. And then there's action, to go and to find Christ. And then there's witness, the exuberance and the joy. And then comes pondering.  After those initial days of euphoria, as you grow in your Christian life you begin to think more deeply about the realities of who He is.  Here I am, you know, as a Christian a long time, after many, many years of ministry and I continue in my reading. I never get enough.  I have an insatiable desire to know more about my God and my Christ just to plumb the depths of all there is to know and to ponder those things.

And when somebody is truly converted, I think there's never enough.  There never comes a point of satisfaction.  As Paul said, "That I may know Him,” and somebody might say, "You know Him, you know Him better than anybody else."  Yeah, but I don't know Him like I'd like to know Him.  Mary illustrates that hungry heart that wants to understand the depth of this great salvation.

V. 20        Hey, when you become a Christian and you've had the greatest imaginable transformation and you heard the revelation from God, you believed it and you've embraced Christ and you've begun to witness, when all of that has happened and you begin to think deeply about the profound realities of who God is, who Christ is and what the saving purpose of God is unfolding in the world.  When you've come to that point you still have to go back to work.  Life goes on, doesn't it?  You go back.  Only you go back with a different attitude.  You go back glorifying and praising God. That's what they did.  They went back glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen just as have been told them.  It was exactly the way they were told by the angel, every detail was exactly accurate. And they went back with a whole new attitude.

I don't know what their attitude was like before they had this incredible encounter with the revelation of God.  But it certainly wasn't like it is now.  They may have been hopeful.  They may have been worried and wondered and doubted and questioned and been wearied and all of that, but not anymore.  They went back glorifying and praising God. 

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