A BIRTH LIKE NO OTHER
The question that keeps being asked over and over is- What is the meaning of life? People look to a variety of religious figures or leaders to give their lives meaning. Some of these religions offer a god- or gods- who are so beyond them that “he” is unreachable. Other religions have human leaders, yet their humanity makes them little different from us. But in Jesus the all-powerful transcendent God came to us. He came to earth and became one of us. That is what makes Jesus unique. Jesus is fully God, who became fully human. We have heard this truth many times, but we can still be brought to an attitude of worship as we dwell on the unique truth that Jesus is completely unlike any other human being who was ever born. It was truly a birth like no other.
Read Luke 1:26-31
This is a very familiar story but try to look at it a little differently. Luke wrote his two-volume work (Luke – Acts) for the purpose of demonstrating the spread of the gospel beyond the Jewish world and to the world as a whole. But before Luke could focus on the spread of the gospel (in Acts), he had to demonstrate the reality of the gospel (in Luke). Luke began by addressing the birth of John the Baptist, who first spread the word about Jesus and the birth of Jesus Himself. Because we have heard this story many times we are not as surprised as Mary was when the angel appeared to her. We must not let our familiarity keep us from hearing what God wasn’t to say to us in this lesson.
Verse 26 begins by identifying the time as the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy which produced John the Baptist, the fore-runner of Jesus. An interesting issue is involved in Luke saying “a town in Galilee called Nazareth”. It suggests Luke knew his intended readers were not from Palestine and would be unfamiliar to the city’s location. Nazareth was a road from nearby Sepphoris to Samaria, a long way from Jerusalem. Nazareth was known for its independent and aloof attitude. We know Jesus was born in Bethlehem but grew up in Nazareth. What did Philip say about Nazareth? (Nothing good ever came from Nazareth!)
Zechariah and Elizabeth (John the Baptist’s parents) were both godly people, yet they were suffering. Like Mary, they were not wealthy, powerful or famous but Zechariah, Elizabeth, Mary and Joseph were all people of true faith and integrity. It is significant that God chose such people to be parents of Jesus and John. The message for us is that anyone may feel that their ability, experience or education makes them an unlikely candidate for God’s service but we are not to limit God’s choices. God can use anyone who places their trust in Him. God’s favor does not automatically bring instant success or fame. God’s blessing on Mary, the honor of being the mother of the Messiah, would lead to much pain, her peers would ridicule her, her finance would come close to leaving her, her Son would be rejected and killed. But through her Son would come the world’s only hope, and this is why Mary has been praised by countless generations. Her submission was part of God’s plan to bring about our salvation. If sorrow weighs us down and dims our hope, think of Mary and wait patiently for God to finish working our He plan.
Read Luke 1:32-33
Jesus, a Greek form of the Hebrew name Joshua, was a common name meaning “the Lord Saves”. Just as Joshua had led Israel into the Promised Land (Joshua 1:1-2); so Jesus would lead His people into eternal life. The symbolism of His name was not lost on the people of His day, who took names seriously and saw them as a source of power. In Jesus’ name, people were healed, demons were banished, and sins were forgiven. This helps us understand why we pray in His name. Luke did not elaborate on the name, but Matthew explained the reason for it (Matthew 1:21).
Centuries earlier, God had promised David that David’s kingdom would last forever (2 Samuel 7:16). This promise was fulfilled in the coming of Jesus, a direct descendant of David whose kingdom will never end. The promise was known as the Davidic covenant and this was the basis of the Jewish expectation of the Messiah. “The Lord God” would “give” David’s “throne” to His Son. The phrase “His Father David” placed the coming Messiah in David’s line. The “house of Jacob” referred to Israel, but unlike David’s reign, the Messiah’s kingdom would have no end. God promised to establish the throne of David’s descendant forever (2 Samuel 7:13). “The dominion will be vast, and its prosperity will never end…with justice and righteousness from now on and forever” (quote from our quarterly).
Read Luke 1:34-35
Since Jesus existed before time, why is it significant that He came as a baby? (Jesus’ birth was miraculous. He was also born without sin and to reign as Messiah and King forever. God picked exactly the right time on His calendar to have the Son come to earth as a human baby- not conceived by any human father- born of a virgin.)
This helps in the conversion of people to Christianity and established Jesus as both fully God and fully human. Verse 34 was an indication that Mary would conceive while still a virgin. She made it clear that she was still a virgin. There are three facts that aid in our belief: 1) Luke was a medical doctor, he would know perfectly well how babies are made. It would have been just as hard for him to believe in a virgin birth as it is for most people, yet he reports it as fact. 2) Luke was a painstaking researcher who based his Gospel on eyewitness accounts. 3) Christians and Jews who worship God as Creator of the universe, should have no doubt that God has the power to create a child in a virgin of His choice.
The angel’s answer in verse 35 is that the Holy Spirit would overshadow Mary in such a way that the child would be the Son of God. Some ancient stories told of procreation as a result of a union of a god and a woman (Greek Myth). The language by Luke does not describe God as the male partner; rather the language is that of Genesis 1, where the Spirit of God was active in creation. John’s conception has its Old Testament parallel in Isaac, the child of promise born to Abraham and Sarah in their old age; but the conception of Jesus has its parallel in the miracle of divine creation. So Jesus was born not as some ancient stories told of divine beings that sprang full-grown into life. This was not the way God’s Son came. He was divinely conceived, but once He was conceived, He was formed within Mary’s womb and was born through the normal processes of birth. Thus there was a blending of the divine and the human in Jesus’ conception and birth, just as there was through His life and ministry. When people became believers in the risen Lord, they could appreciate this account of Jesus’ coming. This truly was a birth like no other.
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