Greetings friends. I hope you are all have a wonderful Christmas season this year. Recently, I had some thoughts cross my mind about the events that unfolded around the first Christmas. In our day, we like to romanticize the Christmas story, which is alright to some degree. It’s comforting to think of the angels, the star, Mary and the Babe, and wisemen worshipping Jesus. But I’m not so sure that events played out so wonderful as our manager scenes depict at our local churches. I think that it was the greatest scandal ever pulled off in all of history.
Think about it. An angel comes to this poor young women, and tells her she is pregnant? What is Joseph to think? He is to marry her soon, and to find out that she is with child? Has she been unfaithful to him? No wonder he planned to put her away privately. But do you think that this was easy for him? I believe that Joseph was the kind of man that loved her with all of his heart, and Mary was a pure, Godly woman. But just imagine the emotions and thoughts that ran through his mind. He must put her away, but do you think that it did not about kill him to do so? No doubt, God sent the angel to him in a dream to not only tell him what to do, but to reassure his mind and give him peace. And imagine what the parents of both Mary and Joseph felt. Imagine what the townspeople were saying. We don’t know for sure, but I believe that probably one reason Mary went to visit her cousin Elizabeth was to escape the turmoil surrounding her in Nazareth. Perhaps her parents sent her there to shelter her until it was time for the baby to be born. Now the Jews knew full well that the Messiah would be born to a virgin. But when that would happen no one knew for sure. So they did not believe Mary’s story. Image if one of the young women in your church that was engaged, suddenly was found pregnant before the wedding. Would you believe her if she said that an angel told her that the Holy Spirit conceived this baby in her? I think you would have difficulty believing that.
That is why I say that it was the greatest scandal in history. So great, it seems preposterous. The humiliation for those involved was great. And why did God let His choice servants be humiliated in such a way? That I cannot answer, for God’s ways are higher than our ways. I just know that He did. And then I wonder what things God is doing in my life, and yours that might seem scandalous. We would like to think that God does everything by a three-step plan that fits together perfectly. But often He does not. He might be doing something right now in your life, asking something of you, that others would say is sinful. Jesus was accused because He ate with sinners and publicans. Jesus most of the time did not fit the norm of regulated Christian life. However He was always obedient to the Father. Now , do not take me wrong. I am not suggesting that you can sin, and God will approve. What I am saying however, is that God is unconventional to our way of thinking, and He might be working through you right now in a way that others would deem to be a scandal. But just as Mary kept her attitude right before God, we can come through, if we keep our hearts right toward God, as she did hers.
