Our Christmas Series begins on December 9th at 10 a.m.
Everyone has a story to tell about their family traditions for Christmas.
God chose to go a different route for Jesus’ first Christmas. If anything God chose the NON-traditonal route.
What if you were God and wished to reveal yourself to the planet? What would be your first act?
BORN IN A BARN
A most unlikely place for a king to be born. After a difficult journey for a woman in her ninth month of pregnancy, a stable is the last place that a caring husband would want her to be.
We don’t understand the unsanitary conditions of having to walk carefully around the dropping of animals and lay a newborn baby.
BETHLEHEM CONVENTION CENTER
A famous city would have increased people’s about to remember him and definitely would have improved his image. But Bethlehem? There are not sufficient hotels.
WHO DID YOU SAY WAS HER FATHER?
We believe in the virgin birth now, but they did not back then. What if a girl in an outstanding youth group showed up pregnant. With great hesitation the youth leader asks who is the Father? The Holy Spirit? Certainly the church would have laughed her to scorn.
SKELETONS IN THE CLOSET
Today if we went to
ancestry.com what would we find in Jesus lineage. The Jewish lineage was totally compromised. Ruth the Moabite. Rahab was not just a Canaanite, but a prostitute as well. David was an adulterer and a murderer. Solomon in spite of his wisdom had hundreds of wives.
THE ANNOUNCEMENT
How can you call angels singing at your birth a weak announcement. If God would have consulted anyone of us certainly there could be a little more flair.
Shepherds certainly wouldn’t be our mode of communication. They certainly weren’t the best messengers to carry such important news. They tended to be people who were light fingered with other people’s property.
Certainly none of these would have been the traditional route that anyone of us would have chosen.
With this kind of approach He could be sure our response would be an honest one. This was the only way to get a genuine response. This is indicative of the nature of God.
When it comes to the most important decision – our decision about God – he seeks only a genuine one.
A NON-TRADITIONAL CHRISTMAS
