Chris Gnanakan

Who do you think put in the most preparations and efforts toward Christmas? Matthew in stressing Jesus’ kingship, records (Ch.2) how some Magi – scholarly astrologers and kingmakers from the Orient – came ‘bearing gifts and traveling afar’. At all costs, these wise men sought a Savior ‘in whom are hide’ all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Col. 2: 3,9). They offered the baby Jesus the most significant gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh that depicted His kingly messiahship, priestly service and redemptive mission. There are essential insights we can learn as we journey with these men in search of truth

1. They Saw God’s Messenger (v.2).
There has been much debate as to what exactly was the Star of Bethlehem. Some suggest it was Halley’s Comet that appeared at that time, others a meteorite shower or a shooting star. Whatever the scientific explanation, the Bible is clear, for these non-Jewish wise men this special light was a heavenly messenger! Not blinded by their own wisdom or ‘light’ these brilliant scholars were in fact students and were led by the pursuit of ‘truth’.

2. They Started out on a Mission (v.2)
The Stargazers from the East were observer-participants. They were moved by faith to act upon the light God had revealed. Desperate to know truth, they embarked on a distant, difficult and dangerous journey. They set out on a mission that humanly speaking seemed impossible but were propelled by a clear goal – to find a new king born. They did not know it was the Christ-child Yahweh promised to the nation of Israel since it formation.

3. They Seemingly made a Mistake (v.3)
During the last stint in their star search could it be that these wise men relied more on their human judgment. In all their calculations could they have for a moment taken their eyes of God’s guiding light– the Star? On reaching the capital Jerusalem, they reasoned: ‘Where would a king be born?’ Of course, in a palace! Going to king Herod was indeed a big mistake. It cost the lives of hundreds of innocent baby boys under two years who were massacred. Believers are exhorted not to lean on our own understanding (Prov. 3:5).

4. They Soon found God’s Messiah (v.10-11a) 
After being interviewed by Herod, looking into the Scriptures and on cleaving the palace, the Star reappeared to lead them to Bethlehem. It finally rested on the house where the child (not baby) was with Mary and Joseph. ‘Surprised by joy’ they must have thought: ‘What Child is this?’ God’s simplicity, yet profound wisdom! Their long search ended as the Star light shone brighter unto this perfect day! All who sincerely seek Truth  find Jesus as the interpretive key. Those who find Jesus pay homage to His incomparable glory.

5. They Shared in Christ’s Majesty (v.11b).
These men of high position came, some say from Parthia near Babylon and others, from different nations but certainly find Jesus – the Light to the Gentiles (Isa. 49:6; Lk.2:42). The wise men fulfilled the purpose for which they had come – to worship King Jesus and, in a sense, represent the entire world bowing before Him! Theology’s goal is doxology and worship involves giving; of one’s self, service and substance. These astrologers gave expensive gifts not because they found a weak or poor child but in recognition of Christ’s deity, future mission, they honored Him who is perfect, just and worthy of their best.

6. They were Sent with God’s Mercy (v.12)
God in his grace had directed these wise men in many ways: with the Star, through the Scriptures (Micah 5:2) but ultimately to Christ. He now warns each of them through a same dream not to go back to wicked Herod but to their own land another way. True, no one comes and meets Christ and goes back the same way; it’s always a ‘new’– His way! The fear of the Lord is indeed the beginning of all wisdom. When we trust in Christ and acknowledge Him in all our ways, God promises to (re)direct our paths (Prov. 9:10; 3:6)

We’ve learnt much from these wise men who sought Jesus and found him to be the Way, Truth and their Life! Through their quest, they came to know ‘in Christ’ something about the gracious ways and so great a salvation of their Creator, Father God. Divine guidance comes to those with prepared and receptive hearts who are faithful to follow God’s instructions. Of course, when we give our best, our all, to Jesus, his Spirit will ‘lead us into all truth’– truth that sets us free, that delivers us from all our sins, Satan and even our-selves! Wise men and women still seek Jesus!

As a pastoral theologian, I‘ve been most curious as to why the grandest news of Christ’s coming was first announced to lowly shepherds watching their flock by night? Why not proclaim the arrival of the ‘Prince of Peace’ to King Herod and his powerful authorities in the royal palace? Or, share the Advent of Messiah to the high priest and theologically learned leaders in the temple? Why not to all the family relatives of Mary and Joseph? Why would an angelic host bring the glorious message of Christmas: glad tiding of great joy for all people, to lonely low-class common labourers in the fields outside the city?

Christmas is about Jesus and the good news of God’s salvation. If so, something about these pastoral nomads: who they represent and how they responded, redefines for our commercialised culture the worthy recipients and true purpose of the gospel. God’s ‘grace’ and ‘peace’ that leads to great ‘joy’, still come to all those during this busy, holiday season who are: (1) quiet enough to listen to God (2) yielded enough to obey his word and (3) eager enough to share his love with all they come across. In God’s wisdom, these shepherds whose testimony wasn’t accepted in secular law courts became the first itinerant evangelists and preachers of the gospel (Luke 2:8-20).

1. The Gospel of GRACE to the Needy:
The angel brought glad tidings of the birth of a saviour in David’s city ‘unto you’ i.e. specifically for these shepherds. As Isaiah (9:2) prophesied, these toiling in the night, were representative of ‘people in darkness’ who in responding to what God revealed, had ‘seen a great light’. These pastoral out-castes, not familiar with the Scriptures, hoped in God and God alone. They were in need of welfare, freedom, a decent life and a future. Less wonder, heaven’s exalted beings testified to the lowly and humble on earth of God’s perfect love that casts out all fears. Humanity has nothing to fear when the God of heaven moves in grace. The message of Christmas brought them hope in the midst of their fears. Literally, the coming of Christ was for them light, life and liberty. Let us this Christmas amidst our hectic lives, be still so that we may know Immanuel – God is with us!

2. The Message of PEACE on Earth:
In our world filled with all kinds of wars and rumours of wars, several peace treaties have been signed. Yet, unless we seek God’s glory and his grace/favour rests on us, there can be no peace on earth. Christmas, the incarnation, was God’s peace treaty with humanity. While a child was born, God’s eternal Son was given. What exactly was the sign given to the shepherds? Not a baby in Bethlehem wrapped in swaddling clothes (this is quite normal!). Rather, the sign was in the contrast – this Saviour would be ‘lying in a manger’, in something the shepherd could readily identify! In this animal-feeder/trough laid heaven’s majesty and earth’s salvation. Paradoxically, this signalled how God’s salvation was to be accomplished – through the Cross! The same gospel the shepherds joyfully proclaimed, Mary painfully pondered in her sword-pierced heart. It is not the infant Jesus but the Christ at Calvary who is our Peace (Eph 2:14) breaking down every ‘hatred-wall’. The sign was given with an intention and may we with the shepherds discover this reality for ourselves. Jesus was born to die that we might live; He came to earth new life to give.
 
3. Tidings of JOY to all the World:
The shepherds’ explicit response is clear and exemplary for celebrating Christmas: ‘Let us now go and see this…’ and ‘they made widely known the saying’ (v.15-16). Having personally experience this joy, they realised they were now chosen to share abroad the message that this Christ Child was indeed Saviour of the world. First, they accepted  the facts of Christmas: a babe born in Bethlehem, next they analysed  their findings: a Saviour had come, then they announced  their faith, publicly and praise-fully. The wondrous sign was for them but the gospel is ‘for all people’. The shepherds returned to their ordinary lives, now transformed into an extraordinary mission to go, tell it on the mountains and everywhere and be peacemakers themselves. Their so-called secular job is deemed as sacred . As Jowett puts it: ‘When the angel went to the shepherds, common work was encircled with an immortal crown’.

May we receive the Christmas message by faith, respond to it with obedience and report it with joy.  There was celebration that first Christmas nevertheless in the context of evangelisation – the Saviour had come and these common shepherds were ’sent’ (missions). After we come  to experience God’s salvation in Christ, we must with excitement go  and share this message of forgiveness, peace and hope with others. Happiness comes from happenings; real joy is found in Jesu’ – this ‘Joy of all the earth’ shared is a joy multiplied!

One of the earliest poems I recollect memorizing as a child was: Mary had a little lamb; its fleece was white as snow… I was christened in the Catholic Church (my grandmother named me after St. Christopher!) where the image of the holy “Mother and Child” was engraved on my mind. However, only as a teenager I realized that in a real sense the whole Bible and its offer of salvation was about Mary’s Lamb– God’s Son, the world’s Savior. Christmas celebrates Mary’s boy child Jesus Christ whose birthday was anticipated  in the Old Testament, announced  by angels, attended  by poor shepherds and wealthy magi and adorned  by the Star of Bethlehem.

This Lamb was prophesied  at the first mention of the gospel (proto evangelion; Gen.3:15), remarkably typified  at every Jewish Passover feast (Ex.12f), personified  in God’s promise of the Messiah (Isa.9; 53), identified  by John the Baptist on earth, magnified  by thousands in heaven’s choirs (Rev.2:12) and glorified  by Almighty God for all time and eternity (Rev.22:11). I shudder to think that all this once depended on the yieldedness of a peasant teenager (a bit older to Alethea, our 13 year-old). Mary was “expecting Jesus” but little did she expect to find God in her womb and soon see God in a cradle, God among sinners and God on a cross! The Bible has more to say about Jesus the Lamb who in the fullness of time God sent forth and Mary brought forth.

The Expectation of the Lamb: Where is the lamb? (Gen.22:7)
Someone has aptly pointed out regarding the Bible in two testaments that the New is in the Old concealed; and the Old in the New revealed. For me, the Old Testament may be summed up in one question Isaac asked Abraham when taken to be sacrificed on Mount Moriah: “Where is the lamb?” Abraham’s answers became Israel’s consolation and the hope of all the earth: “God will provide himself a Lamb”. God’s people sacrificed countless lambs that at best covered sins, but they eagerly awaited God’s spotless Lamb

The Exposition of the Lamb: Watch the lamb take sins away! (Jn.1:29)
God had prepared John the Baptist as a forerunner to identify to Israel and declare that Jesus born of Mary by the Holy Spirit was indeed God’s Lamb, who once-and-for-all  would take away the sins of the whole world. Jesus’ incarnation was a necessity and precisely how our Creator could be among his creatures and the Infinite One became an infant. God the Son as a sacrificial lamb laid aside his majesty to share in our misery, exchanged his riches for ridicule, left his throne to die on a tree. Behold the lamb!

The Exaltation of the Lamb: Worthy is the lamb once slain! (Rev.5:12)
We can only celebrate Christmas because we already know about Good Friday and Easter. Unlike other lambs, Jesus the Lord of life, willing laid down his life therefore God raise him and has highly exalted him that at his name every knee will one day bow and every tongue confess: Jesus Christ is Lord. All heaven will declare this enthroned Lamb as worthy to take all power, wealth, wisdom, honor, glory and blessing! The miracle  of Christmas is that God’s Lamb offers himself not as God-Above-Us but as God-Among-Us. The mystery  of Christmas is that the exalted lamb is God-With-Us and, by his Spirit, God-Within-Us! Come, let us worship the Lamb of glory!

Mary had a Little lamb, He came on Christmas Night
She laid him in a manger bed this king of light and life
He ate with poor and sinful folk; he claimed he was God’s Son
This made the leaders plot the death of this holy sinless One

He came to give us Joy and Peace, to take away our sin
He heals the sick and clams the storm and ushers justice in
What makes the lamb love Mary so and all the world beside?
By grace alone he chose his own, for them he lived and died.

We too must love the lamb you know, his blood will wash us clean
Our words must show that we are his for our lives by all are seen
One day this lamb will come again more lion than a lamb
Defeat his foes, reward his own, Oh praise the day he came!

More recently I came across another poem on Mary’s Lamb by the Rosenthals with references that make a good Bible study:

Mary had the little Lamb, who lived before His birth;
Self-existent Son of God, from Heaven He came to Earth. (Micah 5:2)
Mary had the little Lamb; see Him in yonder stall –
Virgin-born Son of God, to save man from the fall. (Isaiah 7:14)

Mary had the little Lamb, obedient Son of God;
Everywhere the Father led, His feet were sure to trod. (John 6:38)
Mary had the little Lamb, crucified on the tree.
The rejected Son of God, He died to set men free. (1 Peter 1:18)

Mary had the little Lamb — men placed Him in the grave.
Thinking they were done with Him; to death He was no slave! (Matt. 28:6)
Mary had the little Lamb, ascended now is He;
All work on Earth is ended, our Advocate to be. (Hebrews 4:14-16)

Mary had the little Lame — mystery to behold!
From the Lamb of Calvary, a Lion will unfold. (Revelation 5: 5, 6)
When the Day Star comes again, of this be very sure:
It won’t be Lamb-like silence, but with the Lion’s roar. (Ps 2:12, Rev 19:9-16)

The cleansing of the 10 lepers, a miracle story unique to Luke (17:11-19) is significant for 2 reasons: First, in this section (Chs 16-19) chiefly of teachings on God’s Kingdom, this healing event is inserted. Second, Jesus’ journey toward Jerusalem to suffer ‘rejection’ sets the stage for these lepers plight. But, rather than the healing itself, Luke’s stress is on the response of praiseful thanks from one ‘Samaritan’ leper. He was one of a kind! His worshipful act reveals what lies at the heart of the gospel and demonstrates an essential aspect of the kind of faithfulness that ought to characterize the “saved”- thankfulness!

Much can be said about these lepers’ condition, cry and cure. However, our focus, like Luke’s, will be on this one leper’s expression of gratitude that serves as evidence of genuine faith and is a picture of God’s salvation (shalom), that Jesus affirms only to him (v.19). By his efforts this Samaritan recognises God was at work through Jesus and personally appropriates that amazing grace. Though socio-culturally and religiously rejected by the Jews as an ‘outsider’, he turns around (repentance) breaks away from the rest to return to Jesus (faith). He throws himself at Jesus’ feet and testifies boldly. He understood the spiritual isolation sin brings and is thankful for the wonderful fellowship; wholeness, not just physical healing, that Christ brings us into.

Jesus’ 3 questions (v.17-18) teach us the importance of thanksgiving as a grace, divine and human, that must never be taken for granted.  It’s saving power extends beyond human boundaries and is offered to all. Often, sad but true, those whom society think deserve God’s judgment the most, are found most thankful for his mercy and grace in time of need.

There is much we can learn from this Samaritan leper. Our Lord expects thanks from recipients of God’s loving forgiveness and healing power. Why is it that we Christians tend to forget, ‘we are what we are’ by the grace of God, turn grace into disgrace and are often ashamed to share the gospel? Let us continually be challenged toward thanks-living. I invite you to join me in a short prayer that has changed my life with an attitude of gratitude. It simply says: “Lord, You have given me so many things, give me one more thing, give me a Thankful Heart !” Amen.

Christians are familiar with what has become the most famous short story all in the Bible. It was narrated by none other than Jesus himself and is commonly called ‘the parable of the Prodigal Son’ (Lk.15: 11-24). All of us humans are on a journey of discovery and in examining the experiences of this young person we notice 3 obvious facts directly related to his and our ‘pursuit of happiness’ (more…)