Wisdom

Our Bible study has been looking at the Scripture passages from the New Testament leading up to and including the events of the birth of Christ. Take a moment and run through the Christmas story in your mind. Who are the main characters? Angels. Shepherds. An innkeeper and his family. Other holiday travelers. Foreigners on a long journey. Almost everyone was going about their daily routine with little or no thought about a Messianic encounter. Most of them seemed rather apathetic.

When the magi came to Herod to find out more information about the birth of this king they were seeking, Herod called all the priests and teachers of the law to answer the question for him. We have no record of any interest on the part of the priests or the teachers of the law as to why Herod would be asking this question. Granted, he probably did not tell them about the visitors who had been following the signs in the sky, but still. . . Herod sent no ambassador or representative. We don’t have any record of other people who were in Bethlehem for the census wondering who these people were and what they were doing in this out of the way community. Maybe everyone was fast asleep when the shepherds came into town and no one asked them what demanded their trip in the middle of the night or why they had left their sheep relatively untended in the field.

No, the first Christmas was story was made up mostly of average, rather unimportant people. In fact, most to the Bible is that way. It is a story of salvation, but it seems as though that salvation and God’s interaction with humanity quite often begins at the most common levels.

Peter, James, and John; Samuel, King David, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would be less than footnotes in the history books if they had not been touched by the work and person of the Almighty God. Paul seems to indicate that God takes great joy in using the everyday, both people and things, to astound the entire world. I Corinthians 1:26-29 says,

Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. . .so no one may boast before him.

In this Christmas season take great comfort that you can never rise so high as to rise above your need for Jesus Christ; nor can you sink so low as to fall from his love and compassion.

Pastor Craig