The classic nativity scene is usually the image we have in our mind whenever we think about Christmas — a night of serenity, with the newborn baby Jesus quietly sleeping in the manger. Mary and Joseph at the side looking down at this wonderful miracle. Sheep and cattle gathered around the manger, shepherds amazed by what they saw before their eyes, with the magi and their gifts of gold, myrrh, and frankincense.
However, on that first Christmas night in Bethlehem as retold by the gospel writer Luke, there was no Christmas tree, no jolly old Saint Nic, no gifts of gold, it was not even December 25th, even the wise men from the east were not there that night when Jesus was born. At Bethlehem, it was neither still nor quiet.
The first Christmas was shadowed by tension and anxiousness. It was chaotic with uncertainties, restless with fear.
The account of Angel Gabriel bringing the news of Mary’s coming miraculous conception of Jesus is a definitive moment in time and space.
But why would Mary agree to do what God asks of her?
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The words of Gabriel are proof, evidence of God’s faithfulness and promises.
If the Lord has always been in control of everything that has happened, how is he not going to be in control of all that WILL happen.
And when that is the underlying premise of our understanding of who God is, then why should I not trust he will complete what he said he would do.
“As a Christian I believe that we live in parallel worlds. One world consists of hills and lakes and barns and politicians and shepherds watching their flocks by night. The other consists of angels and sinister forces and somewhere out there places called heaven and hell.
One night in the cold, in the dark, among the wrinkled hills of Bethlehem, those two worlds came together at a dramatic point of intersection. God, who knows no before or after, entered time and space. God, who knows no boundaries took on the shocking confines of a baby’s skin, the ominous restraints of mortality...
Could it be true, this Bethlehem story of a Creator descending to be born on one small planet? If so, it is a story like no other... Little wonder a choir of angels broke out in spontaneous song, disturbing not only a few shepherds but the entire universe.”
Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1995) 44-45.
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