Day 10 - Luke 2:41-52

Hopefully you find this story in Luke 2:41-52 as funny as I do.

So, Jesus and his family always travelled to Jerusalem for Passover. We all have heard of the holiday and maybe know a bit about it.
Passover was established in Exodus 12, when God passed over the Hebrew homes during the 10th plague that killed the first born of every family and consequentially freed the people of Israel from slavery.
In biblical times, It was one of the three pilgrimage festivals that all the nation of Israel and tribes of Judah travelled to Jerusalem for. You know those family reunions you go to every year? My family has a reunion every year. Always just after Christmas and always either in Riverside or the outskirts of LA. Either way, its only about a 30 minute drive for us, and we find reasons to get parts of the family together during other parts of the year. I know some people have an annual family reunion where they have to drive 6 hours to get there and you might as well stay the weekend because you have to drive another 6 hours back home. Other people have a family reunion where they have to take a 12 hour flight to get there. And you might as well stay a week or two because it was expensive getting there. But these six hour drives and twelve hour flights mean that it is really difficult to get back to your family at any time during the rest of the year, right? I don't know which category you fall in with the distances you travel to your families. But think about that when you think about the biblical observance of passover. Because it was all the Jews who travelled to Jerusalem for the festival, each town travelled by foot or donkey in a group for days. Of course, each group's travel distance was different, and I'm sure each city had it planned out what time they had to leave. Maybe the furthest town would start at a certain time and when they got to a city, all the Jews joined them and added to their numbers traveling. I don't know how they did it then, but they travelled for days. By the time they got there, it was like the 12 hour flyers, you might as well stay for the whole week. I know why Hanukkah is celebrated for 8 days, but I don't know why other Jewish holidays are celebrated for 8 days also. Personally, I think it was because they travelled so far and figured they should stay there for a bit before going home. But not only did they make this immense journey, by Jewish law, they did it three times a year!! They travelled for Passover (which was in March or April), Pentecost (which was in May or June and only lasted 1 day, not 8), and for the Feast of the Tabelnacles (which was another 8 days in September or October). Literally, the Jews of the Bible, and some modern Jews, spent their whole lives either worshipping God, praising God, celebrating what God had done, or planning out how to do one of the 3 previous things. I have full repeat for that. They had their priorities straight.
This is how Jewish people currently celebrate it.
But this is the Christian perspective on this. This is why Christians do not celebrate Jewish holidays. I fully respect Jews who celebrate their holidays with full knowledge of the history and meaning of the holiday, with full understanding (which leads to the emotional connection to it), and with full application to their life. But we, as Christians, are called to not celebrate those days because Jesus is the Lamb of God, He is the ultimate sacrifice, and we no longer need to sacrifice or remember the sacrifices of the past because of what He has done. Jewish holidays were only a glimmer of the greatness, glory, and celebration that is due for Jesus.

Ok, so back to how they celebrated Passover in the Bible. With the big long journeys for the week-long feast. The year that this Passover took place, Jesus was 12 years old. The festival ends and Mary and Joseph start their journey home with the mass going to Nazareth. A full day later(!) Mom and Dad realize that Jesus is not with them, He had stayed behind in Jerusalem. So they turned around to go back to Jerusalem. I don't know if Mary and Joseph had turned around alone, or if the other Nazarenes had gone with them. But they went back. It says they found Jesus after three days. I don't know if this means 3 days total from when they had left the first time, or three days after they got back to Jerusalem, which would be 5 days. Total. Either way, panicked parents.

Have you ever lost your child? I'm sure everyone has had that 5 minutes of panic. When I was little, maybe 3 years old, I wandered off in a Ralph's. Pretty much a blink of an eye situation. Mom turned for three seconds and I was gone. She panicked. She left her shopping cart where it was, she ran through the aisles, she ran into the parking lot looking for me, or a van with a screaming child, or a van speeding off. She didn't know what to think. She was freaking out.

Finally, after 3 or 5 days, Mary and Joseph found Jesus in the temple courtyard with the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Naturally, the teachers didn't know He was God in human flesh and were amazed at how much Jesus understood at His age. Mary comes us and gently scolds him. "Why have you treated us this way. Why did you run away? We were so worried about you!" And Jesus replies, "Why did you have to look for me? Didn't you know I would be in my Father's house (or in some translations "doing my Father's work")? Didn't you realize I would be in the temple, doing my job on earth?" But Mary and Joseph were confused. He used the word "Father" referring to "Heavenly Father" right after Mary uses the term "Father" referring to Joseph. And with parent panic mode fully engaged, I think they forgot that their little boy was, in fact, the Messiah.

So, Mom takes another look through the Ralph's and finds me Right in the front. I haven't seen them in a long time, and my mom still swears this is why, but do you remember those giant metal cages that had big plastic/rubber balls inside? I was there. Playing with the bouncy balls. My mom ran up, spanked me and after a few quick scolds to never do that again, she asked why I was there. I simply responded, "I like the balls, Mommy. I just wanted to play with the balls." She then had to give me a quick lessen that there are bad men in the world who like to steal little girls so I had to never leave her side in public. Especially since the ball cage was by the front door and someone could pop in, grab a kid, and run off.

So all was well, both Jesus and I were found during our panicked parent situations.
Jesus went home with His parents. He had to learn to be obedient to both His earthly parents and His Heavenly Father. I still struggle with this.
His mother treasured all these things in her heart. And I love that. She took what she saw in her son and she learned from them.
Jesus grew in wisdom and stature (in body and mind). I think this is mentioned because we don't hear anymore childhood stories of Jesus. That's Luke's way of saying, "Jesus grew up".
In favor with God and man, which I take to mean, He was loved by the people as He was loved by God.

All done with Luke 2, and done with Luke for a bit. Tomorrow, we'll continue our "Life and the Teachings of Jesus" route with Mark 1.

Day 9 - Luke 2:21-40

Today we are in Luke 2:21-40, When Jesus is presented in the temple.

We already talked about circumcision when John the Baptist was born. If you haven't already read that, go here.

If you are curious, this is the passage that God established circumcision.

In Luke 2, it says that Mary and Joseph had to take two doves or two young pigeons with them to be sacrificed when Jesus was named and circumcised. Man, I hate typing that word. but in that passage I just linked to you, it talks about nothing to do with sacrifice while you snip. So I looked up where in the bible it talks about sacrificing birds.
I came up with Leviticus 1, and Leviticus 14.
The hard thing about reading Leviticus is that you can easily get bogged down with the detailed rules that the Israelites had. One could look at the rules and compare it to other religions saying, "Look! He's just like any other God who makes His people do the hokey pokey before gaining access to Heaven!" but that is absolutely not true.
In those days, back when He established the rules with Abraham and that era of time, He didn't mean for it to become a hokey pokey. He wanted the people to constantly be reminded of the promises He had fulfilled in their past, and the promises he would keep in the future. The rituals that consumed their time and energy were so that they wouldn't get distracted by other things or other gods. Also, when it came to circumcision and the other practices they had, it was God's way of setting his people apart from the others. It sounds bad, but it was his way of branding them, except you chose to be branded, as opposed to Him forcing you to follow. God never forced His people to believe in Him, to love Him, or to obey Him. He showed them how to believe, love and obey, and gave them the choice to follow.
These rules are what evolved into what Jesus hated about the temple, the priests, and the pharisees. They followed the rituals and practices of Judaism, but they did not have the love in their heart. They did not have the blind faith.
We need to look at these rules as a piece of history, not as something to do. Because of Jesus being the God-human sacrifice, the old rules are null and void.
That being said, let's move on.

In comes this man, Simeon. And I love Simeon's enthusiasm. He was a righteous and devout man, meaning he had followed all the laws and was pure of heart. But he was waiting for the Messiah and he was growing weary in heart waiting. So God spoke to Him and said, "Don't worry, you won't die until you see Christ." So Simeon went to the temple and behold(!) there was Jesus with his parents! So the man held Jesus and praised God thanking Him for fulfilling His promise to see the Messiah. Not many people at this time know exactly what to expect of the Messiah, as I've already said in previous posts. They expected a conquering king. They did not expect their savior to be a humble carpenter, able to die. They (the Israelites) know their savior would save them, they didn't know he would save the Gentiles (non-Jewish people) too. Mary and Joseph filled with wonder at what he said, and then he continued to talk to Mary about what Jesus would do, and that His salvation would even reach her. That just gives me chills, that Mary carried Jesus, gave birth to Him, raised Him, but His salvation was for her too.

Then there's Anna, a prophetess. It says she was of the tribe of Asher. As you can see in the picture, Asher was the northern-most tribe of Israel. (That green thing next to Nephtali) The tribe of Asher isn't really talked about much. Not because it is unimportant, but I think it is because it is so far north of our normal "setting". Jerusalem is in the tribe of Benjamin, near the border of the tribe of Judah.

So Anna travelled far to be there. I don't know if she had always lived in Asher (it says she was 84 years old) or if she and her husband had moved south in her younger years. Either way, she has been a widow for decades and so she spends all of her time in the temple, worshipping God 24/7. (You go, Anna!) 

In those days (yes, this will be a common phrase in this blog, get used to it) when a man died, his wife was given to his brother. Women had the purpose of bearing children, so if a man were to die and the woman was still of child-bearing age, the would be wed or given as a second wife to the brother. The fact that she has been a widow for decades means her husband probably had no brothers. Without a brother to marry, Anna was without a purpose. (Hey, hey! Guess what, her purpose was praising God) 

So, Awesome Anna, who has been praising God 24/7 even though she has no purpose in society's eyes, she is able to see any Jesus, and from then until the day she died, she spoke with words of hope to fellow Israelites who had been looking forward to Christ. 

Mary and Joseph return home to Nazareth with Jesus. 

He grew and became strong. This can be both physical strength and strength in God. We know Joseph was a carpenter because it is told to us, but honestly, I hadn't read it in the bible so i had to look it up. In Matthew 13:55, it talks about Jesus' earthly family. A carpenter has to be strong to build. Joseph taught Jesus his skills before Jesus went on his evangelical travels. 

He was filled with wisdom. Remember that Jesus is God in human form. Remember that God is omniscient, which means He is all-knowing. So the full knowledge of God was in the human brain of Jesus. 

The grace of God was upon Him. We've talked about grace before. The favor of God. And let's be honest, Jesus is God's son/God's flesh. Of course He would be in good favor. God would do whatever he could to protect His son from harm before His purpose was fulfilled. 

Tomorrow we will finish up chapter 2 and in my opinion, it is a funny story. I'm excited :)

Day 8 - Luke 2:8-20

We pick up our nativity story with the Shepherds and the Angels.

Remember I said, Bethlehem was a sheepherder's town? So here are these shepherds with their sheep in the middle of a field. And by field, I mean it is the outskirts of town, because animals were disgusting and people didn't want to be near them, they just wanted to eat them and sacrifice them.
Speaking of, shepherds were disgusting. Not only by their society's view of them on the hierarchy, but because they actually stank. They spent all their time with their sheep, and maybe with a couple other shepherds, in the dirty fields, in any weather. They did not have time to take baths, and they probably couldn't afford even the public baths in the town square, that is to say if such a small town had a public bath. They jumped in the river if it wasn't too cold to freeze them. Shepherds were disgusting people, yet look at who God chooses to go greet baby Jesus and worship Him.

The angel appears to them. We do not know which angel this is. But thats not what is important. It doesn't even matter what "type" of angel it was (cherubim, seraphim, etc). But we do know that the glory of the Lord shone around them. And it freaked these shepherds out.

A shining glory. I'm going to take this two ways.
It could have been a shining light that displayed God's glory. K, so these shepherds are out side of town because they smell, which is a good thing because these angels are like a flood light to a world without electricity. (Then again, God could've shielded Bethlehem for noticing this magnificent light, the same way I believe he shielded historians and archaeologists from noticing Nazareth until 400 years later) God and His greatness created the sun and all of its brightness and heat-ness, so these angels could have had the blinding light of the sun in their eyes. That's scary!
Or, the glory that they are shining with is like an "aura" where it is unseen, but an emotion and goodness shines around them.
Either way, it was a scary experience for these poor shepherds and this clip from The Two Towers, is the way I think of it.



Also, shepherds were defenders. They protected their sheep, so I'm sure they knew how to wield a weapon. If they didn't immediately know that it was angels around them, yeah, they might've attacked.
But I love that after Legolas and Gimli realize that it is Gandalf and not Saruman before them, they bow down to him. Yes, they were scared at first. Yes, they tried attacking, but when the glory had dimmed down, they bowed down.

The angel has to tell them to not be afraid and that they are to tell them something awesome. They tell the shepherds that Christ has been born in the town they are near. And Christ translates to Messiah, so the angel it telling them that this Messiah they have waited 400 years for, now has come.
They give the shepherds a clue on how to find the Messiah. And I'm sure the shepherds weren't expecting the angels to say that the Messiah would be a baby lying in an animal trough.

Now the other angels join this one and start singing. HOLY COW! How awesome would that have been to hear a choir of angels? I know I will hear them in the future when I am in Heaven, but to hear it on earth with earthly ears, when you are used to the sound of bleating sheep. It would've brought me to tears.

One of the most famous lines in Christmas songs in here, and it in itself it the gospel: peace on earth to men on whom his favor rests.
peace is not just a time of no war, peace is that overwhelming comfort.
remember we went over favor a few days ago - grace, charm, acceptance, goodwill, desire, to stoop in kindness to an inferior, and to be shown consideration.

God gives an overwhelming comfort to mankind because He forgives you, He is attracted to you, He has good intentions for you, He desires you, and He comes down on our level. 

Then the angels leave. The shepherds say, "Awesome! Let's go into Bethlehem and see the Messiah!" I'd be that shepherd still sitting on the ground like, "Guys! Did you see the angels?" It takes me time to get over such awesome stuff, then I'd be excited to see Jesus.

They get to the barn and when they realize it's all true, I can imagine them running and skipping through the streets saying, "Come to the barn!! The Messiah has come! He's a baby, but it's HIM!" They probably woke up all the neighbors and the travelers staying at the inn, but it says all were amazed at what they had said. Then they returned to praise God for the fulfillment of His promise.
I'd like to think that if these people were woken up and were amazed, that it was more than just the shepherds who returned to praise God. That barn was probably packed with the entire little town of Bethlehem to see their savior.

Here ends our nativity scene. We'll pick up tomorrow with verse 21.

Day 7 - Luke 2:1-7

Today we begin the second chapter of Luke. This chapter talks about the birth and childhood of Jesus.

This is the awesomeness of our God. We were just talking about this yesterday in bible study. We watched a DVD called "Indescribable", it's a sermon by Louie Giglio. If you can get your hands on a copy or can borrow it from someone, please do. It is well worth it. 

Basic synopsis: it's a Christian view of astronomy. I loved this DVD because I do love astronomy. To me, it is proof of God. I won't get too much into it. We can look at it more when we go through the psalms. But it gives you perspective on how BIG God is. In the bible, God is explaining that the universe (not just the earth, not just the solar system, not even just the Milky Way Galaxy) is measured in the span of His hand. Just try to grasp that concept for a second...

I know. It's difficult. But the same God who measures the universe by the span of his hand, is the same God that made himself a mortal man for the purpose of dying to save us. And this God that I talked about, didn't come floating down on a cloud, majestic and glorious; he came as a baby through a normal labor into a barn. 

This God screamed when he was hungry, he nursed, he had his diaper changed. He had to learn how to walk and talk. If that isn't humility, I don't know what is.

Today, we're just going to go through the first 7 verses.

In those days - meaning during the time that we just finished talking about; during the time Mary was pregnant.
Caesar Augustus - first Roman Emperor and the founder of the Roman Empire. Look at this map. Augustus was the one who conquered Israel.
Caesar called for the census because he had just conquered Israel and he needed to know how many people were now in his land (aka how many people he could tax)
his own town - men took their wives and children to the city of their ancestors. Jerusalem was in the tribe of Benjamin, so descendants of Benjamin's tribe went probably went to Jerusalem. The famous city of Jericho. Descendants of the tribe of Menasseh went to Jericho. Since both Joseph and Mary were descendants of David, they went to Bethlehem. Even though David was the king in Jerusalem, David's family came from Bethlehem.

"pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child" - to me this is really interesting in what it implies. I'll either get more into this when we go through Matthew, or I'll just say "read day 7 again". Remember how we talked about Mary being a virgin and that a woman was soiled if she wasn't a virgin when she was married? Well imagine how it would've looked in that day if your "virgin" fiancee was pregnant. Today, we say, "We're getting married because she's pregnant," or a similar reason. But back then, a betrothed woman who was pregnant was seen as an adulteress. Back then, a betrothal was more committed than an engagement, but could consummate the relationship. A couple was betrothed for about a year when they were pledged to each other, but were not yet married. Mary knew that it was the Holy Spirit inside of her, but Joseph didn't know. Joseph thought that she had cheated on him and was expecting him to raise her child. He thought she wasn't faithful or righteous. He considered divorcing her. Back then, you couldn't break a betrothal the way you break an engagement. It required signed papers and probably returning the woman's dowry. But an angel came to Joseph and told him what had happened. He told Joseph the child was of God, not of a man, and that the baby should be named Jesus. I think it still took a leap of faith to trust the strange words of the angel. But he did. He continued with the betrothal and married Mary. But he waited to have sex with her until after Jesus was born.

I don't think Mary and Joseph were expecting to give birth while they were in Bethlehem for the census. They didn't have a scientific predictability of 40 weeks, and each woman starts showing her pregnancy at different stages, and they didn't know enough about the menstrual cycle, they probably thought, "OK, we'll go do the census and be home in time to give birth in our home." But God's plans are not always our plans. It was God's plan to have them give birth in the city of their ancestors, even more enforcing the fact that the throne of Israel belongs to Jesus alone.

I'm going to do the last sentence backwards.
There was no room for them in the inn, so she wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger.

Bethlehem still was a little sheepherders' town as it was in David's time, but it now had more descendants who ALL flocked there during the census. It wasn't like Vegas with a different hotel every 100 meters. This was like Amish country with more animals than people and one hotel. They had travelled miles and miles to get there, I'm sure Joseph had pitched many tents so that Mary could sleep on the road
There's many times I absolutely admire Joseph and his love for Mary. He could've been like a typical guy and obeyed the angel but still had harsh feelings for her and not been able to trust her, but he took care of her, stayed by her side, and helped raise the Son of God.
But on this particular night, Joseph couldn't just pitch a tent. Mary was in labor and Jesus was coming NOW.
I'm not sure if the barn they went to was owned by the innkeeper, or if they snuck into a barn, but there they were, amongst the noisy, smelly, messy animals. Mary gave birth right there and his bassinet was a manger. A manger was the trough that pig slop was thrown in. It held hay for horses. It probably had poop on it. it was in this disgusting wooden container that the savior of the world slept his first night as a human on earth.

I'm going to stop here and we'll pick up tomorrow with the Angels. Buenos Noches!