God had been silent since his last prophet, Malachi – four hundred years of inaudible, persistent activity. But, you, Luke, have big news – you have Holy Spirit-authorized words about the Word made flesh.
Step back about 2000 years and imagine that you are Luke. What a story you have to tell. A person has come whose arrival makes Earth the Visited Planet. You have completed your interviews with those who have first-hand accounts.
Your completed manuscript is begging to be heard. The first audience? Let’s imagine it is the local writer’s guild. You’ve asked them to set aside the next fifty minutes for the first third of the story. What will they think?
The Beginning of Luke’s Story
You begin with babies. Due to God’s intervention, an elderly infertile couple, Zechariah and Elizabeth, are with child! And as difficult as that is to believe, you go further – you tell about a virgin who has conceived. What?! Your fellow authors are incredulous. Who will believe this story?
But, by chapter 2, you ramp it up to another level. Suddenly, another angel appears. This is the third angel you’ve presented in the introductory pages.
“Luke, this is too much – really – angel, angel, angel?”
And there is more: this angel declares: “Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2:11) “Christ” (Greek) means “the Anointed One.” Your audience knows that only dignitaries – prophets, priests and kings – were anointed. And this babe is more: “a Savior, Christ the Lord!” Imagine hearing those words linked for the first time.
But your hearers are in for another shock. To what VIP is this grand announcement made? To the emperor, Caesar Augustus? No, he merely issued a decree to take a census of the entire Roman world. To Quirinius, governor of Syria? No. Your hearers ask: “Was it to Herod, ruler of Judah?” No. “To the religious leaders?” No. “To the wealthy?” No – to shepherds – despised shepherds.
Your hearers scoff: “Luke, you must be writing a comedy – right?!”
An Interruption
Polite society valued wealth and status. Shepherds were poor and they smelled – they must be crude. We remember little brother David mucked out the sheep pens while seven older brothers did “real” work. Forbidden to testify in court, shepherds were also under a ban – their work made them unfit for religious ceremonies. Still, shepherds had some value – providing lambs for sacrifice, wool for garments, meat for food.
What vocation in our culture resembles shepherding? In North Carolina our garbage collectors rode on the back of garbage trucks and emptied trashcans into the truck. What if Luke’s angel made his declaration to garbage collectors?! Aha.
Luke’s Amazing Story Continues
You, Luke, keep reading. The angel announces: “This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger” (Luke 2:12)
Astonished, your listeners do a double take: “Where was this ruler born?”
You reply: “In a cattle stall. The emperor was in his gold embellished bed. Quirinius, Herod and so many others esteemed by the world slept in the lap of luxury. Where was the new KING? In a manger.” More laughter, scoffing.
The Apostle Paul encountered similar sarcasm in Corinth. The elite circles of that metropolis mocked the “garbage collectors” who first believed Paul’s gospel – not many wise – not many influential – not many of noble birth. Most of those who believed the Good News were the foolish, the weak and the despised.
Connecting Some Dots
Friend, we are easily deceived by appearances. Who would have thought ranchers scraping by on the badlands of Texas would become wealthy oil barons? Who would have thought impoverished Arabian nomads would become some of the richest people in the world? Who would have ever expected that one of the most prosperous men in the world, Bill Gates, would build his business on semiconductor chips made from silicon – fine sand!
But, there is one place where appearances are not deceiving – heaven. Angels know the truth.
You, Luke, leap from your third angel to a vast angelic host. “Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.’” (Luke 2:13,14)
Some in your audience begin to understand your angelic references. On earth we may miss the message – not angels. The angels witnessed creation bound into being. When God spoke, “Let there be light,” there was light. When God spoke through the Word made flesh, angels knew that a drama had been initiated from which there could be no turning back. They witnessed the advance of the kingdom of God.
If the angels had lingered and told the shepherds more, they could have disclosed: “Only because of Jesus’ human birth can any of you have a spiritual birth. Only because he chose a stable on earth, can any of you have a home with God in heaven. Only because he had an earthly mother, can people like you have a heavenly Father. Only because he left glory, can you who believe go to glory. He became poor so you could be rich. You shepherds welcomed him at his physical birth so angels could welcome sinners like you at your spiritual birth.” What dots we have to connect.
Years later, Luther spoke about the three miracles of Christmas: “First, God became man. Second, a virgin conceived. The final miracle – sinners like us can believe this is true.”
Luke’s Culmination
After completing the first fifty minutes of your story, you wondered: “How will my audience react to the next two installments? If they laughed and mocked at Jesus’ birth, how will they react to His passion – especially his death on the cross?”
Intrigued, most of your listeners show up for your second reading and the third. As you get deep into the conclusion of your story, your audience hears that Christ was: betrayed by one of his closest followers, forsaken by his disciples, scorned and rejected by the crowds who had hailed him a few days earlier, condemned by Pilate, beaten, whipped, and tormented by his persecutors. Finally, he died upon the cursed, painful, shameful cross.
Then, you have the audacity to tell your audience: “Repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations.” (Luke 24:47) The peace the angels promised at Jesus’ birth was beginning to be fulfilled.
As you finish the public reading of your book, you conclude with resurrected (!) Jesus blessing the people as he ascends (!) into heaven. What?!
Imagine the response of your crowd. Some would be laughing and scoffing: “This Jesus sounds like a peasant whose ideals were shattered by the reality of political intrigue and Roman power. What good could a homeless carpenter do by wasting his life?” Some hearers wander away – shaking their heads. Others stay and talk.
You, with a twinkle in your eye, tell them how the Holy Spirit helped you investigate and believe. Would God help your hearers/friends too? You pray he will.
How shall we respond?
Generation after generation, Luke’s prayers have been answered.
By 325, the authors of the Nicene Creed cherished what Luke had written about Jesus. They stalwartly declared: “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father. Through him all things were made.For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man…”
Our contemporary, Frederick Buechner, marvels: “Once we have seen Him in a stable, we can never be sure where He will appear or to what lengths he will go or to what ludicrous depths of self-humiliation He will descend in His wild pursuit of men.”
We may disagree. We may be indifferent – or cynical.
If so, hear another “angel,” Angelus Silesius, a 17th-century poet:
“Though Christ a thousand times
In Bethlehem be born,
If he’s not born in you,
Your soul is still forlorn.”
Let’s join Luke and his cast – and the myriad host across the centuries – let’s marvel at the improbable/nearly-impossible coming of God in the flesh. Merry Christmas!
