Christmas Day
The Birthday Story
What does your birth certificate say about you? Who are your parents? What were their jobs? When and where you born? Records like this are important because they tell people about who you belong to and where and when you entered the world.
If Jesus had had a birth certificate, His would have been a bit like this:
Mum - Mary (but she wasn’t married and was a virgin)
Dad - God (but Joseph, from King David’s family line, had been asked by an angel to bring Him up as if he was the Dad)
Place of Birth - Bethlehem (but Mary and Joseph actually lived somewhere else, they were just in town to be recorded in a census)
These facts are important because many of the stories in the Bible tell us that the Messiah will be:
born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14)
the son of God (Psalm 2:7)
a descendant from David’s line (Jeremiah 23:5, Psalm 132:11)
born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2)
In a single moment all these things came true at Jesus’ birth, and the Messiah that everyone had been waiting for was finally born.
Bethlehem is only really remembered for being the place that David the Shepherd-King was born. It was actually an insignificant and forgotten little place. Not many people remembered what the prophet Micah had predicted about another shepherd-king who would be born in Bethlehem and become the Messiah.
On the night that Jesus was going to be born, God announces the birthday news to a group of shepherds and to some star-gazing men. God tells the very people who live out His very nature as the shepherd-king that the Messiah is about to be born!
Did you know that babies like to come in the middle of the night, as everyone settles into the silence and the night draws in? But this is no silent night, and God announces Jesus’ birthday in a fanfare played throughout the skies!
First of all there is an angel who appears, lighting up the fields “with the blazing Glory of God” (Luke 2:9 TPT) and a choir of angels appear and start singing loudly, telling a group of shepherds about a Messiah born for everyone, lying in a feeding trough in Bethlehem.
“They were ecstatic over what had happened. They praised God and glorified him for all they had heard and seen for themselves.” (Luke 2:20 TPT)
Secondly, the star-gazing kings see a brilliant, shining, kingly star over Israel. They follow this light from a far off land but it disappears as they arrive at the city of Jerusalem. They expect the new baby Prince to be in the palace, but He is not there. When the night draws in, the star re-appears over Bethlehem and they follow it to find the baby with Mary. They start “shouting and celebrating with unrestrained joy” (Matthew 2:11 TPT) and they are overcome, fall at the infant’s feet and worship Him.
Jesus is welcomed by the lowly and the rich; the outcasts and the out-of-towners. Shepherds and kings draw close to this baby whose birth changes history for all humanity.
He is truly is the Word worth waiting for!
PROMPT: As we celebrate Jesus today, take a moment away from the whirl, away from the noise, come into His gentle light, and press into a quiet space. Remember all that God put in motion so that we would be certain that Jesus is the Messiah, the one whose story is written in the sky, the one who reveals God’s glory in the flesh, the one John points us towards.
Take a moment to feel the weighty awe as we remember that Jesus is with us - don’t miss Him in the flurry of activity. Breathe in joy. And today live like the shepherds and kings who came before Jesus on His birthday; ecstatic, unrestrained and celebratory, sitting at Jesus’ feet and worshipping Him.
Merry Christmas!