Not Your Typical Church

Dec. 21, 2020. The longest night of the longest year. The Star of Bethlehem is to appear on that night, which is in the future as I write, and in the past till this prints. Will we have been able to see it? Will it have been visible? Will there have been clouds? I'd really like to see it. Will I know what it is when I look at it?

I am not an expert astrologer. I'm not even a beginner. The night sky is just something big and beautiful to look at when the opportunity presents itself. It would be nice to know more about it, but during the day my attentions are elsewhere and I forget that it would be nice to be more familiar with the nighttime heavenly wonders.

As God's people awaited the coming of the Messiah so long ago, perhaps they had the same questions. Would they be able to see the Messiah? Would they know what they were looking at when they finally saw him? We know that some did. The shepherds come to mind. They were out in the field, minding their own business when an angel appeared and told them that the Messiah had been born. If they were so inclined they could go to the town of David and find him wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. Then more angels showed up praising God and left. The shepherds thought this was worth checking out so off they went and sure enough, they found the baby Jesus in the manger, just as the angel had said. How about that? The Bible says that they spread the word about the child and all who heard them were amazed. "The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told" (Luke 2:20, NIV).

If you'd like to read the entire birth of Jesus, it can be found in Luke 2:1-21.

The shepherds had heard about the Messiah and saw him with their own eyes! They were able to see him, he was visible. They knew exactly what they were looking at. What a beautiful moment. The angels did not appear to the Pharisees who were also waiting for the Messiah. They didn't appear to the rich and noble of the day. The angel delivered the message to shepherds. On a side note, Adam and Eve were gardeners, Jesus was raised from the dead in a garden and on the night of Jesus' birth, angels appeared to shepherds. It makes me think that perhaps God has an everlasting fondness for agriculture. But I digress. Back to the shepherds. The coming of the Messiah was a long awaited event and it was the shepherds who found out right away what was going on!

Later in Luke, after Jesus is grown up, it says this: "At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do" (Luke 10:21, NIV).

In my Complete Jewish Study Bible (CJB) it says this: "At that moment he was filled with the Ruach HaKodesh (Hebrew for Holy Spirit) and said, "Father, Lord of heaven and earth, I thank you because you concealed these things from the sophisticated and educated, yet revealed them to ordinary people. Yes, Father, I thank you that it pleased you to do this" (Luke 10: 21, CJB).

As an uneducated ordinary person, this made me tremendously happy. That is by no means a slam to education or the educated. It's just that there are a whole lot of us scrapping around down here at the bottom of the barrel and its nice to know that God has no problem coming down here to find us and deliver us messages. Maybe it's like ladling soup: when you want a hearty bowl, you scrape the bottom of the pot. That's where the good stuff is. If you just skim the top all you get is broth. Doesn't it make you happy that God scrapes the pot for us?

The angels went straight for the good stuff: the shepherds. The shepherds went out with this astounding news of the birth of Christ and then returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had seen and heard.

Three decades later, Jesus sent out the seventy-two, ahead of him in pairs to every town and place he was preparing to go to saying "Whoever listens to you listens to me; whoever rejects you rejects me; but whoever rejects me rejects him who sent me" (Luke 10:16, NIV).

The seventy-two later returned with joy and it was then that Jesus said what he did in Luke 10:21. At the end of Luke 10, Jesus says, "Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it" Luke 10:23b-24, NIV).