Christmas Day was special because it was the first time this week that Lies had been able to make it outside. On Monday night, she started feeling sick to her stomach. On Tuesday, she got a fever. On Wednesday, a painful sore throat, and on Thursday a cold. Poor girl. By Friday morning she was feeling well enough to go to church. (But I think she would have been stubborn enough--perhaps zealous is a more positive word--to go, even if she were feeling miserable.) I tell you, my respect for nurses has surely grown over the past week ... sometimes patients can be really strong headed. It took a great deal of supervision to keep Lies on the couch. It was a lost cause for me to keep her lying down, so I had to settle for a sitting position on the couch. After many attempts. she finally permitted me to place a cold washcloth on her warm forehead. Thankfully, at the time of this writing, the patient is feeling much better, save for a cold and a sinus headache.
We celebrated Christmas Day with a special service at church. A few weeks ago, Bro. Ab asked me if I'd minister for the Christmas service--he'd done it the past several years, and was glad to give someone else the opportunity. I spoke from Romans 8:29, that Jesus is "the firstborn among many brethren." Then, we looked at the story of Christ's birth from the book of Luke. I told the story more from the point of view from the shepherds. I imagine the native Bethlehemites were quite put out by Rome's census: their quiet little village was probably flooded with visitors. It was the City of David, and David had quite a large family, not all of whom were the most mannerly.
The shepherds were quite happy to be on the hillside away from their now noisy village. I see them sitting around the fire. Their conversation gradually drifts to the City of David, then back to Israel's golden days under that king. How different from the present, they thought. Oh, for those days to come again! But alas, God had cast them off because of the sins of their fathers. There wasn't much hope left anymore. One shepherd reminded them that they had come out of Babylon, like Jeremiah and Daniel prophesied. However, another chimed in, that was hundreds of years ago. Yes, the temple had been restored, and the walls rebuilt, but that didn't seem to matter so much now that the Romans controlled everything.... But, yes, things would be better if King David were back again.
The fire dimmed as the wood slowly burned out. Someone added another log to the fire, and the flames grew brighter and brighter and brighter. Something unusual was happening. They'd been looking at the fire so long, their eyes could perceive little, but their senses surely felt something. Gradually, they could make out the form of a man standing behind the fire. Fear gripped them, even as his words struck their ears, "Fear not: for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people."
The messenger surely had the shepherds' attention. He continued, "For unto you is born this day, in the City of David, a Savior which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger." What strange words! A messenger comes to tell a group of shepherds about the birth of a child ... men usually aren't so concerned about childbirths, unless, of course, it's their own. But this was different...this birth concerned the Christ, the long prophesied Messiah. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, filling the once-quiet hills with jubilant song, "Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, good will toward men!"
The shepherds rejoiced at the angelic message and made haste to go to the city that they had just berated. The angel hadn't told them the address of the inn whose barn contained the Savior, but the shepherds gave all diligence to find him. And when they did, they worshipped. Then, they left to give testimony of the angel's message to them. Luke says that the people wondered at the shepherds' testimony. I wonder how many acted on their testimony.
I also wonder what happened to these shepherds over the next few years, and decades, as they had to wait for the baby Messiah to grow into manhood and ministry. And when they realized they truly had been sent a Savior instead of the King they hoped for, I wonder what their reaction was. Did they pursue the ministry of the Savior, even as they had pursued the angel's message into a Bethlehem barn thirty years earlier? Or did it get progressively more difficult to follow the angel's words? It was easy to project the imagination on the babe in the manger, and see a coming King. But it was probably harder to accept the teachings of an itinerant carpenter-rabbi. God sends us what we need instead of what we want. As we listen to God's messenger today, sometimes we might want something more kingly or sophisticated; but in a time of convenience and pleasure-seeking, God sent what we needed rather than what we wanted.
Luke gave sure testimony of the birth of God's firstborn in Luke 2. And in Acts 2, he gives eyewitness testimony replete with "infallible proofs" that the Christ had been reborn again and again ... in the lives of his followers. And in Revelation 3:14, John the Beloved, writes that Jesus was but the beginning of the creation of God. The firstborn is the beginning of the father's strength (Deut. 21:17) ... just the beginning. That strength continues to grow and multiply up to the present day, including even people in our own assembly. We ended with a few testimonies of how the Lord had been born in the lives of some of the local believers. It seemed a very fitting way to celebrate the birth of the Firstborn.
In the Netherlands, there is a First Christmas Day (that was yesterday) as well as a Second Christmas Day. (If you guessed that is today, you win the satisfaction of having guessed correctly.) Today, Lies and I are hosting Johan and Suzanne Vanhees (her brother-in-law and sister), and this evening, we're going to eat dinner with Chris and Susanne (her brother and sister-in-law). It should make for a pleasant and delicious day!
