Musings on Christmas - Part 3

The Gospel of Matthew provides us the account of the wise men from the East seeking Jesus. Quite a story that these men would travel far to see and celebrate the birth of one, seemingly very ordinary, baby. But they recognized that this baby was special and warranted their attention.

Matthew goes on in his account of the life of Jesus to present Him as an answer to the prayers of the Jews. This baby, according to Matthew, fulfilled the predictions of the prophets and was the Messiah for whom all Jews longed.

The Jews, by and large, however, dismissed this Jesus as the Messiah. Sure, He was great at doing fascinating miracles, He could speak like no other, and He had a real dignity about Him. And as long as He was feeding the five thousand and healing the infirm, He was welcome. But get too much of the attention of the people, threatening the position and power of those who had it, and things had to change.

It wasn't hard to convince the people that this wasn't the Messiah for whom they prayed. He wasn't preaching the overthrow of the government. He wasn't promising to establish a kingdom on Earth. His was a spiritual mission, not the political and military dominator they wanted.

And so it was. The Jews rejected their Messiah. They cast away God's answer to their prayers. They had decided what the Messiah should be. They had decided how He should act and what He should do. No one, not even the Messiah Himself, would sway them from their Messianic vision.

Now the question is, do we do the same? We pray and look to God for answers. But are we like the Jews, expecting and requiring that the answer comport with our own determinations as to what that answer should be?

I suspect that we miss God's answer to our prayers many times because His answer doesn't fit what we want and expect. How important it is for us to open our eyes and look beyond what we want and desire, and truly look to God for what He wants for us. His will is perfect. Our vision is blurred. And now we understand why the Apostle Paul wrote, "Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." (Romans 8:26 NKJV)

The Jews missed God's answer to their prayers. Let us be intent on not allowing that to happen to us. 

Popular posts from this blog

The Light from The Darkness

 I woke up Wednesday morning with Genesis 1 coursing through my brain. I'm not sure why. But I started thinking through it and lingered on verse 4:  And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness . (NKJV) Divided the light from the darkness? How do you do that? If there is light, there isn't any darkness. Darkness is the absence of light. So just what happened here? What did God do to separate the light from the darkness? Then it dawned (no pun intended) on me. He set the Earth spinning. The rotation of the Earth separates the light from the darkness. And having done that, the evening and the morning were the first day. I'm not an astrophysicist, nor do I understand all the theories of how the universe began. But I did a little research to see what explanations are given for how and why the Earth's rotation began. I didn't find any satisfying answers. It's like that is just what is expected to happen if you're exploding
Read more

Musings on Christmas - Part 5

Luke 2:15-20 (NKJV) 15 So it was, when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds said to one another, “Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger. 17 Now when they had seen Him, they made widely known the saying which was told them concerning this Child. 18 And all those who heard it marveled at those things which were told them by the shepherds. 19 But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20 Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told them. Mary knew who this baby was. God had told her. And now at His birth, she got further confirmation when the shepherds came to worship. She must have marveled at their story of the angel and heavenly host coming to them in the fields. I wonder if she found it intriguing that sheph
Read more

An Actual Plan to Make America Great Again

We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us! It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness. -- Abraham Lincoln
Read more