But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.
Luke 2:19 ESV
A Christmas gift given early… one designed to open in parts… each Sunday in Advent…
The first was yesterday… Mary who ponders…
This morning I sat… and pondered what she might have pondered… in the barn… with her son wrapped tight… resting in a feed trough…
The son of God… the son who would be King…
In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
Luke 2:1-6 ESV
Joseph… her betrothed… one of the house and lineage of David… King David…
How many years had passed since the promise God gave this king…?
A thousand years more or less… ten centuries…
“… Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. …”
2Samuel 7:11-14 ESV
At this point in history the only way Joseph knew his royal ancestry was because of records kept… year after year…
Records kept by the faithful… through exile and return… through years of God’s silence… yet in the keeping of the records… who belonged to who… evidence of faith in God’s promises… no matter how slight…
Joseph was not seen as any form of royalty… only a carpenter… this thousand years after the promise…
God’s people… no longer ruling themselves… Joseph’s lineage meant he had to travel… at the command of a king of another line… another race… another nation… because he called for a census…
In Bethlehem… his royal blood didn’t even get him a room… the town so full of King David’s offspring… there was no place for him and his pregnant wife to stay…
At a moment far removed from the promise… God fulfills His promise…
Did Mary ponder at being relegated to a barn…? to bear the promised son…? what kind of King enters the world by such humble means…?
The angel said… For nothing is impossible with God… surely He could’ve saved them a room…?
But no… a barn is where He sent them… the place He chose to be born…
What does this say…? about this King…?
Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures throughout all generations. The Lord is faithful in all his words and kind in all his works.
Psalm 145:13 ESV
Something to ponder… this third day of December…
Jeremiah's Menu 