A Child Is Coming
I. The Telling of the Child’s Coming
II. The Applying of the Child’s Coming
A. The Truth of the Deity of Christ—the fundamental truth of Christmas!
The emphasis is on the greatness of the Son (cf. Luke 1:15), not the greatness of the mother.
B. The Demands of the Deity of Christ
God accomplishes His purposes through the power of His Word (Ps. 33:9).
But his adelight is bin the law of the LORD,
And in His law he meditates cday and dnight.
Mary’s example has a practical relevance for our frenetic, uncontemplative age. Those who experience the birth of the Savior in their lives are those who take the time to ponder God’s Word to them. “I will meditate on your precepts” (Psalm 119:78). We need such hearts today.
When the poet Southey was telling an old Quaker lady how he learned Portuguese grammar while he washed, and something else while he dressed, and how he gleaned in another field while he breakfasted and so on, filling his day utterly, she said quietly, “And when does thee think?”13 That is the perfect question for us. When do we contemplate the condition of our lives, meditate on God’s Word, and focus upon the course and destiny of where we are headed in light of God’s revelation? At Christmastime, when we most consider the opening chapters of Luke, and at all other times too, we need to “center-down,” to use the old Quaker term, and ponder the things that really count—perhaps even to be “greatly troubled,” as was the blessed virgin, to be serious before God and devote ourselves again and again fully to his will.
Let all mortal flesh keep silent,
And with fear and trembling stand;
Ponder nothing earthly minded,
For with blessing in His hand
Christ our God to earth descendeth,
Our full homage to demand.
—LITURGY OF ST. JAMES (FIFTH CENTURY)