Luke 2:8-20
God’s created the world in stages and events. Then God said “Let us make human beings in our image to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, and the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth and the small animals that scurry along on the ground. So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them. Male and female he created them.”
We all have events in our lives that we have attended that had various effects on us. We attended the Kentucky Derby in 1972. We had no clue that we would see one of the greatest horses ever – Secretariat. I believe that we were a part of about 133,000 people at the Derby that day. In the 1980’s we attended the Grand Olé Opry in Nashville, Tennessee. The Opry started in November of 1925 and this event takes place each weekend and has filled the old Rhymer Auditorium and the new Opry Land Hotel Complex with people that love country music for years. We have been in other events that grew great crowds of people; the Charlotte Panthers football games, the last Billy Graham Crusade in Panther Stadium in Charlotte, the Atlanta Braves baseball team at Old Fulton County Stadium in the 1960’s, the Passion Play at Oberammergau, Germany that is presented every ten years. This is a six-hour production. Life is filled each day with events that sometimes we just take for granted; i.e. time with family, sharing good meals with family and friends, time in worship with follow Christians.
God’s Bethlehem event took place because his family needed a Savior. The family He made for himself had become wicked and evil. Even the religious leaders had rejected the laws of God and were living by their own plan.
The truth is that God’s Bethlehem plan lives on because it is God’s plan for us. In our wicked and sinful ways, we need the Savior’s love and forgiveness to be restored to God’s eternal family. The Bethlehem event came first to some hard living, dirty, grungy shepherds. God’s event in Bethlehem used the total of all of his creation. The cast of the Bethlehem event included the angel that shared the message. The angel did a play by play of the Bethlehem event. “Don’t be afraid!’ he said, ‘I bring you Good News that will bring great joy to all people. Yes, the Messiah, the Lord – has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David.” At this time in God’s Bethlehem event the angel was joined by a vast host of others – the armies of heaven – praising God saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.”
The response of the shepherds to God’s Bethlehem event was, “Let’s see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” The shepherds hurried to the village and found Mary and Joseph in the barn and there was the baby Jesus lying in the manger. “After seeing him, the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child. All who heard the shepherd’s story were astonished, but Mary kept all these things in her heart and thought about these often. The shepherds went back to their flock glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen. It was just as the angel had told them.”
Later some wise men from the east followed a star to God’s Bethlehem event. “And the star they had seen in the east guided them to Bethlehem. It went ahead of them and stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were filled with joy. They entered the house and saw the child with his mother, Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasure chests and gave him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.”
God’s Bethlehem plan began in God’s creation plan. Many events in the lives of people would help them see the time and place of the Bethlehem event. These events would include Noah’s life story that contains the story of the ark. He built the ark because of his faith that would save his family from God’s flood of judgement. God’s family deserved judgement for their sin of rejecting God. Many others would take part in preparing God’s world for the Bethlehem event: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Judges, Joshua, Ruth, Naomi, Samuel, Kings, David, and the Prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Amos. All these and many others helped in bringing God’s Bethlehem event into being because we all have sinned and need a Savior.
God’s Bethlehem event gave us the Savior, Jesus Christ. Through his life, death and resurrection this Christ Child would give birth to the church. We that affirm Jesus as Savior enjoy the gift of God’s redeeming love in God’s Bethlehem plan. The plan that he gave as a body of believers gathered as the church. God’s Bethlehem plan is the salvation plan found in the Bible. All the phony leaders like Bishops, elders and professors that tell us the book is outdated do not know and have not experienced God’s Bethlehem plan. God’s Bethlehem plan is for each of us and if we accept it, we don’t have to afraid of the life it gives us. The rejection of God’s Bethlehem plan is pain and death. The Messiah is calling us to worship him and sing His song of life.
You can reject God’s plan, but you will not be included in his eternal church. You will not hear the songs of hope and love sung by the heavenly host choir. Just what plan is the guiding force that shapes your life? It is out of the heart of God’s love that He gave us the Bethlehem event. It is the beautiful gift of God’s love for us and it is love that will forever keep us in His plan.
