The birth of our Lord was doubtless one of the greatest miracles
recorded in Scripture! For a young woman like Mary, who had never known a man,
to be found with child was not only miraculous, it was also rather dangerous in
her day and age! Her peers, not to mention the Jewish Sanhedrin, or leaders of
the day, might not have understood that she was impregnated through what today
might be call artificial insemination. Scripture tells us in Matthew 1:18 that
'before they came together ( speaking here of Joseph &
Mary ), she was found with child of the
Holy Spirit'. Now, without going into
the intricacies of how a normal child is conceived in the womb, it would
suffice to say that what was begotten of this Blessed Union was Immaculate
indeed!
The Birth of Jesus was the Reality of the Promise which was
introduced back in Genesis 3:15 ( quote ), the Seed of the Woman who would
crush the head of the serpent! As the Son of Man, He lived a Life for us to
follow, and as the Son of God, He gave us Life!
The Prophecy of Zechariah came in the midst of the Babylonian Captivity, and spoke of the Coming Glory of
Yahweh's Temple. We see this, in verse 12 of chapter 1; 'Then the Angel of the Lord answered and said, “O Lord of hosts, how long will You not
have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against which You were
angry these seventy years?”' Reading through Zechariah's prophecy, we find several
mentions of a Coming 'BRANCH'.
Of 'My Servant', says Yahweh, 'From His
place He shall branch out, and He shall build the temple of the Lord;
Yes, He shall build the temple of the Lord. He shall bear the glory, and shall sit and
rule on His throne; so He shall be a priest on His throne, and the counsel of
peace shall be between them both.' Again, in chapter 8, verse 3, we read, 'Thus says
the Lord: ‘I will
return to Zion, and dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. Jerusalem shall be
called the City of Truth, the Mountain of the Lord
of hosts, the Holy Mountain.' Yet again, and
finally, in verses 7 through 10 of the same chapter, 'Behold, I will save My people from the land of the
east and from the land of the west;
I will bring them back, and they shall dwell in the midst of
Jerusalem. They shall be My people and I will be their God, in truth and
righteousness’, and so, 'Let your hands be
strong, you who have been hearing in these days these words by the mouth of the
prophets, who spoke in the day the
foundation was laid for the house of the Lord of hosts, that the temple might be
built. For before these days
there were no wages for man nor any hire for beast; no peace from the enemy for
whoever went out or came in; for I set all men, everyone, against his neighbor'!
The Promise of the Presence was a Hope that Israel had clung to
since Her conception! She had struggled with Her innate desires for millennia
and had finally come to birth; the Time of the Promised Messiah had finally
come, when She would be freed from Her bondage and would finally, once and for
all, play Host to the Spirit of Yahweh! She would be the Temple 'made without hands' ( Daniel 2:45, John 2:19 )!
As we come to the time when all things would be fulfilled, we find
a young woman of the House of Israel, promised in a betrothal contract, to a
just man, one of the House of David. That Mary was a virgin is clear, for
Scripture tells us that she had not yet been intimate with a man ( verse 34 of
Luke 1 ). The question of why Mary had to be a maiden is still a matter of some
controversy in the modern Church. Much of the misunderstanding and disharmony
comes from an individualistic, non-covenantal viewpoint, one which has plagued
the Church for centuries, and maybe even millenia!
Individualism removes Jesus from the context of History &
relegates Him to the realm of the individual, rather than seeing Him as He
truly was, the Savior of His Covenant People!
Our Lord had prophesied, through Isaiah ( chapter 7, verse 14 )
that 'the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son'.
The mother of our Lord, as the representative Virgin of Israel, must be
immaculate, or undefiled, because Israel according to the flesh had become metaphorically
defiled, having 'gone up on every high mountain and under
every green tree, and there played the harlot' ( Jeremiah 2:20,
3:6 ),
God chose Mary, because as a virtuous young woman, and who had not
known a man, she was therefore metaphorically representative of the Israel of
God, as opposed to Israel according to the flesh, who had been committing
spiritual adultery & harlotry against the Lord their God.
When Jesus was born of first conceived in Mary’s womb,
Heaven Itself entered into Earth, or metaphorically, the Land! This
Intersection brought to Reality the Promise of the Presence that can be seen
throughout the Scriptures. Jesus, as Man on the Land, was also He who dwelt in
the Heavens, so when these two were brought together, the New Temple that Jesus
spoke of in John 2:19-21, was formed!
In our Call to Worship, David, as King of Israel. prayed not just
for himself, but for Israel as a whole. As a prophet and the representative
Head of Israel, David knew that his own sin, and thus his own need for
redemption & renewal, although very real for him as an individual, was
merely a picture of the greater need for the Redemption & Renewal of his
people. As with many of the prophets, his own life events and personal
grievances were significant of a greater spiritual reality: Israel had
committed spiritual adultery against Yahweh, and thus, David's own sin
signified the greater and more deep-seated sin of his people!
David was a type of Christ, and perhaps the greatest, being, as we
read in Acts 13:22, a Man after God's own heart! As Jesus would later take upon
Himself the Sin of His People Israel, bearing 'our sins in
His own body on the tree'
( I Peter 2:24 ), so David himself, in his adulterous relations with Bathsheba,
pictured for his people the spiritual adultery for which they themselves would be
in danger of being cut off from the Presence of Yahweh and from the House ( or
Temple ) of Israel!
Just prior to His promise of a New Covenant ( 31:31-34 ), the
prophet Jeremiah recorded this Promise from Yahweh ( 30:8 & 9 ), '‘For it shall come to pass in that day,’ says the Lord of hosts,
‘That I will break his yoke from
your neck, and will burst your bonds; foreigners shall no more enslave
them. But they shall serve the Lord their God, and David their
king, whom I will raise up for them.' It is common knowledge & understanding ( among most, anyway
) that this David ( which, BTW, means 'Beloved' ) is none other than He who
would later be born of the Virgin, as Isaiah had prophesied some time
previously.
Joseph, whose name means 'God will increase’, was of the direct
lineage of David, and therefore, Jesus could legitimately take His seat as the
True King of Israel! Mary, as we read in Luke 3:23-38, traced her line of
descent through another of David's sons, not through his firstborn, Solomon,
whose name means 'Peace'. Nathan, this other son, whose name means ‘Gift’,
together with his brother’s name, revealed beforehand that the Promised Messiah
would be ‘The Gift of Peace’!
The Revelation of Jesus as the Christ was not only THE defining
Event in History, one which turned the world upside down ( or actually,
restored it to rights ): it was not simply the Greatest Miracle, or Story Ever
Told, it was in fact the Intersection of Heaven & Earth, the entrance,
finally & fully, of the Presence of our Heavenly Father into His Creation!
The Marriage of Heaven & Earth was the End from the Beginning!
From the Creation in Genesis to the New Creation in Revelation; The History of
Israel was one of Creation, De-Creation, and Re-Creation, or, in other words,
as we read in the Song of Solomon, ‘boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy finds
girl again and marries her’!
As the Offspring of this Holy Marriage, let us live our Lives with
the Grace we have been given, in His Presence, and facing each obstacle with
His Strength; let us be the Over-comers that we are!
Let us honor our mothers, not this Day only, but every day,
knowing that it is through them that we have been blessed with Life!
What a Conception!
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