His Heart, My Home

The Christmas story… beautifully familiar!

Memorialized in manger scenes in front of churches, displayed in town squares, and front lawns across the land.

Presented perennially in children’s nativity plays… “Mary” and “Joseph” looking lovingly at the doll “baby Jesus” wrapped in a towel and laid on a bed of straw… the “shepherds” and “wise men” with painted beards, wearing oversized bath robes, kneel before “the newborn king”.

We know all the elements of the age-old story. We know every word that was spoken.
We know each scene… teenage Mary visited by the angel Gabriel… Jesus’ conception by Holy Spirit… the Word of God made flesh…
Joseph visited by an angel… Mary’s visit to Elizabeth… Caesar’s census decree… the road to Bethlehem… the inn… the manger… the birth… the shepherds…the angels… the wise men… the gifts…

The story is the focus of our most beloved devotions, our favorite blogs, of countless TV specials, and a tsunami of sermons, all reminding us of the day that heaven came to earth.

The majestic music of Handel’s Messiah floats magically through the mall on angel’s wings, as we excitedly search for our discounted treasures, our hearts beating in sync with the “pa-rum-pum-pum-pum” of the little drummer’s drum, as we finally find the “frankincense”…the last item left on our list!

Like Charlie Brown, year after year, we rediscover “the true meaning of Christmas”.

We cozily sip our mugs of hot chocolate by the fireplace, remembering, rereading, and  reliving the wondrous gospel accounts of that miraculous first Christmas…

Someone said, “Christmas is like candy; it slowly melts in your mouth… making you wish it could last forever.”

At some point during these holy days, let Holy Spirit refresh you with a new wonder and appreciation for the Christmas story from the gospels of Matthew and Luke.

● MATTHEW 1:18 – 2:23

● LUKE 1:5 -2:20

It really is the most wonderful time of the year… perfectly complete in our holiday reflections and traditions… but… what if it’s not? Complete, I mean.

What if we’re not seeing the whole picture? What if we’re missing something supremely important… a struggle more sublime than Joseph’s dilemma over the future of his betrothal, a crisis more intense than the search for a room in Bethlehem?

Of course, we will always remember and treasure all the elements of the greatest story ever told. But… what if… ? What if there is more to the Christmas saga?

I believe there is more… so much more… because the Christmas story, the story of man’s redemption, begins, not in Nazareth with the appearance of the angel Gabriel, nor in the little town of Bethlehem, but in the Garden of Eden.

You see, immediately after the Fall, God set His wonderful plan of redemption in motion, a plan that He had conceived before He ever created the universe. When the Fall occurred, He confronted satan with these words, forever sealing his fate:

“I will make you and your brood enemies of the woman and all her children; the woman’s Child will stomp your head, and you will strike His heel.” (Genesis 3:15, The Voice)

The Message renders this verse as, ” I’m declaring war between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers.”

Imagine that: a “declaration of war” from the very beginning of mankind’s history!

With that in mind, think about that first Christmas. The war between good and evil had already been raging for thousands of years. There was no ceasefire. There was no “Christmas truce”. Jesus was born into this earth as a Warrior in a time of war!

Now think of World War 2 for a moment. The Axis powers in Europe (Germany and Italy) knew that eventually the Allies would seek to retake the territories that had been lost to Hitler’s and Mussolini’s armies.

So they fortified their lines of defense along the coast of France in preparation for the expected Allied offensive. And when the Allied armies came ashore on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944, all hell broke loose.

The Allies arrived in their amphibious landers under murderous machine gun and artillery fire. The survivors bravely held their beachhead positions, and soon began their push into France, fighting for every meter of ground as they advanced. In a little more than than ten months from the invasion at Normandy, the Allied armies had liberated the occupied European nations, captured Berlin, and utterly defeated the Axis forces.

Just like the invasion at Normandy was the beginning of the end of WW2, Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem was the beginning of the end of satan’s enslavement of humanity. But satan, unlike some Christians, wasn’t prepared to wave the white flag of surrender at the first sign of conflict.

So we can be sure that satan and his evil minions were alert and aware as angels filled the night sky on the hillsides overlooking Bethlehem.

The forces of darkness were in position, ready to defend their authority over this planet, and to challenge, and oppose God’s unfolding plan for our redemption.

Was the threat to Jesus real? Absolutely!

We can see what satan’s murderous spirits were capable of doing. They provoked Herod to slaughter all the baby boys in Bethlehem two years old and under after he failed to locate Jesus.(Matthew 2:16)

The “Silent Night” we sing about wasn’t so silent! The first hint that Jesus was born into a war zone was the presence of the angelic beings who appeared to the shepherds.

There weren’t two angels there for a duet, nor four for a quartet, nor even 100 for an ensemble.

The scripture says that “suddenly there was a ‘multitude’ of the heavenly host praising God…” (Luke 2:13)

The Greek word translated as “multitude” is a word that means “to fill completely” which tells us the entire night sky was filled with angels, perhaps made visible to only the shepherds, but a sky-full, nonetheless.

The phrase referring to the “multitude” of angels is rendered this way in various translations:

● (Goodspeed) “… a throng of the heavenly army”

● (AMPC) “… an army of the troops of heaven”

● (Living Bible) “… a vast host… the armies of heaven”

This vast throng of angels didn’t make the trip to Bethlehem just to entertain the shepherds before returning to heaven. They weren’t there as heavenly Christmas carolers. They were mighty warring angels. And their mission was to surround and defend the King of heaven, while He was at His most vulnerable, a tiny baby, lying in an animal feed trough.

How did they defend Him? With the high praises of God in their mouths and a two-edged sword in their hands! Their shouts and songs of praise were mighty weapons of war, which paralyzed the enemy forces and broke through the front lines of their resistance. (Psalm 149:6)

Though there is only the slightest hint of this ongoing war in the nativity accounts of Matthew and Luke, it is dramatically and powerfully described in the “hidden nativity” recorded in John’s vision on Patmos. Let’s read it as we close this post.

¹ “Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars. ² Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth.
³ And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. ⁴ His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born.
⁵ She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was caught up to God and His throne. 
⁶ Then the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that they should feed her there one thousand two hundred and sixty days. (Revelation 12:1-6)

To be continued next week…

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By now we all know of the disasters that devastated Cebu, Philippines a couple of months ago. There is still so much more that is needed by those who lost everything in the earthquake and typhoons.

Please help us to demonstrate the love of Jesus by giving graciously and generously to Student Life Organization, Inc. to help the precious people of Cebu rebuild their lives.

Would you please give today? If so, please use this link:
paypal.me/anaferuiz

Thank you! We pray that you will experience God’s richest blessings as you give in Jesus’ name!

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