Y Christmas

Jesus is born fully human, into all of our brokenness... and He is born fully God from the beginning. This is declared in all the miracles, but most clearly in his virgin birth "therefore the child to be born will be called holy - the Son of God." This is the miracle of Christmas, God himself, among us. Immanuel. "Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace."

Happy Birthday, Mr. President

My brother Jono had the amazing opportunity as a young adult to be an intern in the white house while George W. was in office. Most of the time he manned the phones, calling donors, setting up events, all in a building next to the white house.

It isn’t like he saw the President every day.

But one time, he turned down a hallway, and secret service had him stop and stand against the wall. And then, he turned the corner. President George W. Bush.

He said he made eye contact and he, Jono, got chills. The weight of the man, the sheer presence. He felt it, in a deep way.

And then President Bush’s eyes suddenly got wide… and he sneezed noisily and… messily in his hand. He looks around and steps inside the restroom nearby.

Jono is just standing there, against the wall, waiting for it to be clear. And he hears soft singing coming from the restroom.

“Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you.”

Apparently Oprah had recently said that was how long you should wash your hands.

There you go. As they say, “most powerful man on the planet” at that time. Just a dude in the end.

At the end of the day, he’s just a guy who was handed a bunch of power and responsibility. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t have good things going for him, skills and talents.

Ever disappointed at your heroes? It turns out they are humans too. They aren’t invincible, they aren’t perfect.

Part of maturity is being able to accept that. To admire or respect someone in one respect while understanding and, to some extent, accepting their flaws.

I thank God you have that kind of understanding and acceptance of my many, many flaws. Right??? Guys???

Is that who Jesus is?

Recap

It is tempting at Christmas to paste on a smile, fake Christmas cheer, and pretend like everything's perfect. People have even done this with Jesus' family in the near-deification of Mary.

In stark contrast, Jesus' family tree is full of every kind of human brokenness. Matthew stresses this in his gospel, including characters like: Dave, Abe, Judah (not Jacob) and Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, ... all the way down to Mary and Joseph.

Jesus takes on the mess, steps into the very middle of our brokenness. Which is GREAT NEWS! No matter how messed up you are, no matter how far away, your next step is Christ-mass... your next step is Jesus.

Jesus is fully human.

But that isn’t the whole story.

The Miracle of Christmas

Luke 2:4–7 ESV

And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

Beautiful. Familiar. Maybe too familiar. Once there are inflatable recreations of the event, it’s hard to be surprised by it anymore. But this is insanely miraculous. There are miracles after miracles here.

Here’s my count, the 17 miracles of Christmas

Count the Miracles

The angel Gabriel appears to Zechariah

Zechariah and Elizabeth conceive, though they are old and she is barren

An angel appears to Mary

Mary conceives though a virgin

Angel appears to Joseph

But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son (Christmas Miracle)

Mary goes to visit her cousin Martha and Baby Johnny leaps in her womb on hearing Mary

Elizabeth prophesies about Mary's child.

Zechariah, who had gone mute, begins speaking again at John's birth

Zechariah prophesied concerning John and the Lord.

The Messiah is born in a stable and placed in a manger, wrapped in swaddling cloths.

Great host of angels appear to shepherds announcing the birth of the Messiah.

Simeon recognized him as Savior.

The prophetess Anna recognized him as the redemption of Jerusalem.

The magi saw the sign of his star and came searching for him.

The magi were warned in a dream not to go back to Herod.

An angel appeared to Joseph warning of Herod's plot and telling them to escape to Egypt.

I want to zero in on one of these miracles. Because one of them stands out from the others. There are prophets and prophetesses knowing other things miraculously. There are lots of other times angels show up. There are even other stories with foreign magi: Babylon and Egypt.

But no one else in “born of a virgin.”

Why the Virgin Birth?

But the virgin birth? Come on, that is ridiculous. That is simply not how human procreation works. That’s not the birds and the bees, understand. Completely ridiculous. You need a Y chromosome, this simply doesn’t happen.

Maybe that’s a bit controversial these days. Back in my day they taught you need an X and Y chromosome to be a man. And Mary doesn’t have that, as evidenced by her ability to bear a child at all.

So God has to like handcraft the cell, or something. Some animals can spontaneously procreate, but it’s basically like cloning, and out would come a copy of Mary. Instead, we have a baby boy, which means alternate genetic material is coming from… somewhere? Nowhere?

Mary didn’t likely understand the DNA aspect of it… but she knew that this isn’t how it works.

Luke 1:34–35 ESV

And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.

Why did God do it in this way? Was it the only way?

Best clue we have to why Jesus is “born of a virgin:” the angel says “therefore the child to be born will be called holy - the Son of God.

And so he is.

Holy. Sacred. Set apart. Divine. Son of God and, indeed, God Himself taking on human flesh and blood.

Something’s happening here

So first, the virgin birth is a sign that something is happening. This child will be holy, set apart, different, special.

Among special births, Jesus is most-special. You know something amazing is going to happen here, that Jesus is going to be someone special.

Creation ex-nihilo

Virgin-birth "out of nothing." There is a long tradition in Biblical history of God bringing life, a son, where there is barrenness. Abram and Sara have Isaac in their old age. Rebekah was barren, then conceived twins, Esau and Jacob. Rachel was barren, then conceived Joseph. Samson and Samuel were born to barren women who committed their children to God. And just before Jesus is born, his cousin John is born to Elisabeth, both barren and beyond child-bearing years.

God specializes in bringing life out of nothing. And again and again, this birth out of barrenness is a sign that the child is a gift from God, it required supernatural intervention, the child is a miracle. In this case, it is not just the blessing of a child but salvation itself.

Salvation must ultimately come from God. Our salvation is supernatural. From the start.

The virgin birth points to the helplessness of humans to initiate even the first step in the process.

Millard Erickson

It wasn’t just a question of waiting. It wasn’t playing the statistics, that eventually someone with the right genes would be born to be a Savior. It was only by direct, divine, miraculous intervention.

Our Savior is borne, that supernatural salvation has been accomplished, and that means, wherever we are now, wherever we find ourselves, help is on the way.

Matthew 1:21 ESV

She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

Even just his name. We translate it “Jesus,” which is a transliteration of the Greek-ification of his name Yesu...

But literally in Hebrew it is Yeshua, usually translated “Joshua”, means He saves, probably a shortened version of Yehoshua meaning "the LORD is salvation." (Yahweh is salvation).

Yehoshua: the LORD is salvation

Help is on the way. A help that we could never provide, a help that had to start with God's supernatural intervention. Christmas is ridiculous, Christmas is miraculous. The miracle of the virgin tells us that supernatural salvation is on the way.

Why is this Important?

There is, and has always been, a temptation to see Jesus as “just” human.

Going all the way back, early heresies that tried to make Jesus so much less than he was. Some rejected the “human” part and taught that Jesus was like a “God-projection,” an illusion and wasn’t even a real physical being. The “gnostics” for example claimed this as “secret knowledge.”

Nope, Matthew and the other apostles write. No way. Our eyes have seen, our hands have touched, he was born fully human.

Still others went the other way. Jesus was a man, and was adopted by God because he was pretty great for a human. This is a heresy called adoptionism (good name). Jesus was like promoted into near-godhood because he was the best.

Jesus was fully human. But he wasn’t “just another guy.”

The Christmas Word

John 1:1–4 ESV

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

John 1:14 ESV

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

This is so important: God moved first.

He did not wait, see a likely looking fellow, and then decide to save His Creation.

God moved first.

And not just in general. In specific. God moved first to love you, to make you, to save you, to forgive you, to rescue you.

He is the gift giver. He is the gift. It’s all good. It is yours to receive. And to be loved. And to be blessed.

So, yes, it’s all familiar. And we hear it again and again, year after year.

I’m ever and always a stranger to grace. I need this annual angel visitation … to know the virgin conceives and God is with us.

Eugene Peterson

This is the grace of Christmas.

What do you have to do? Come and behold him, Jesus Christ the Lord.

It’s all in his name.

Jesus. Yeshua. Yehoshua. YHWH is salvation.

Lord and Savior, born to us on Christmas morn.

Silent Night, Holy Night

A couple weeks ago I teased about this song a bit. “Silent night.” And I don’t think the whole night was silent.

But it does carry this powerful message. That was a holy night. And silence in reverence of its holiness is wholly and completely appropriate.

Sacred in the midst of crazy. And so many of the words are crazy spot on theology:

Round yon Virgin, Mother and Child

Holy Infant so tender and mild

Christ the Savior is born

and above all

Jesus Lord, at Thy birth