The Daily Word

 

Everything about the actual birth of Jesus, including his ‘registration’ at the Temple was totally positive. His welcome by all who had anything to do with Him was joyful and the good news spread around the area. The visit of the Wise Men, in itself a celebration, produced catastrophic results, mainly because they visited king Herod first.

The first result of their contact with Herod was that, after their visit to Jesus, Joseph was warned by God to get out of Bethlehem and out of Israel entirely and they moved quickly into Egypt. Not the first and certainly not the last political immigrants. But this flight into Egypt had already been prophesied by Hosea hundreds of years before when he wrote, guided by God, “When Israel was a child, I loved Him and out of Egypt I called my son”. God works in many ways His wonders to perform.

Herod’s frustration with the no-show of the Wise Men on their return journey back east, boiled over. Not only did he feel insulted, but when he thought that there may be a challenge to his political power, he ordered and executed the massacre of all the children in Bethlehem of 2 years and younger. But again this had been forecast by the prophet Jeremiah, “Lamentations and bitter weeping. Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted for he children, because they are no more”.

The birth of Jesus and the events surrounding it were no coincidences, they were forecast hundreds and even thousands of years before because God had planned it so and if God plans it, there is no power in heaven or earth that can prevent it happening. Jesus, the one who would save His people from their sins; the holy child , born of Mary, was the Son of the Highest and declared by God at the start of His ministry to be God’s Son. He is the One we worship, He is the one that we remember especially at this time of year and God has made Him both Lord and the Christ of Christmas.

Article written by Brian Preston, Elder @SFGH Church