Category: Advent Series

Today’s verses may seem insignificant, but the principle underlying them is huge. When Mary and Joseph returned from Egypt, they settled once again in Nazareth, far to the north of Judea, but at least once a year they traveled to Jerusalem as a family. In Luke 2:41-42, we read that it was their custom to head to Jerusalem every year. Mary and Joseph had already dedicated Jesus to the Lord, but they also followed through by taking him regularly to synagogue and to Passover celebrations. Mary and Joseph established a pattern of meeting regularly with other believers. And when Jesus grew up, he continued to attend his local synagogue. In Luke 4:16 he entered the synagogue in Nazareth “as was his habit.”

Regular church attendance is not something that happens naturally. Parents instill a pattern in the lives of their children by exposing them to church services week after week, month after month, and year after year. This offers no guarantee that their children will continue to attend church and believe in God, but in those early years, habits are formed. Verses memorized in Sunday School sink deep into the soil of a child’s heart. Years later, God can use those verses to call those children back to himself.

My husband Gene was raised in a home where his parents did not attend church, but by God’s grace, his public school teacher offered to take Gene to her church. For many years Alice Huntington faithfully picked him up every week and transported him to Sunday School. After class, she took him home, a step that meant week after week she herself would arrive late to the adult service that followed the class. I owe more that I can ever say to Mrs. Huntington for the way she invested in the life of my husband. Which person in your life is God calling you to invest in today?

Joseph received a second message from an angel. This time he learned that King Herod wanted to kill Joseph’s infant son. In Matthew 2:13-15, we see how Joseph immediately rose from his bed, woke Mary and began packing. Mary raced to pick up their child. Darkness still dominated the landscape as they crept out of town before dawn, before soldiers arrived.

Traveling alone on major roads was dangerous; thieves lurked in the countryside. The trip to Egypt was exhausting, filled with stress and threats of discovery. Moving to another country was costly. It meant starting over, finding work and learning a new language. What a lot of upheaval to protect the life of Jesus!

Joseph could have ignored the angel’s message. After all, no one had led an attack specifically targeting infants for around 2000 years, since the time of Moses. Joseph could have said, “It was only a dream.” He could have brushed it aside and said, “What are the odds of something like that happening in real life, in a small town like Bethlehem?” But he didn’t. He believed and acted immediately, despite the huge cost to him and his family.

In the Mid East right now, thousands of refugees are flooding across the borders of Europe. They flee to protect their families. When you look at their harried, exhausted faces on your TV screen or in magazines, remember what the faces of Mary and Joseph must have looked like that night as they fled to Egypt. What steps would you take to protect a child from angry soldiers? If your loved one’s physical safety is so important to you, what greater sacrifices would you make to protect that person’s spiritual health?

In fulfillment of the Law of Moses, Mary and Joseph took Jesus to the Temple and dedicated him to the Lord. What they did was a routine act of obedience, but what happened next was far from routine.

Two older people, Simeon and Anna, hung out at the Temple. One by one, they approached the young couple holding the small infant. First Simeon and then Anna spoke to them of the future ministry Jesus would have redeeming the people of Israel. Joseph might have listened carefully to Simeon. After all, Simeon was a male, a person with a reputation for being righteous and devout and worthy of respect. But Anna? She was an old woman of 84 years. A widow. Yet she was also a prophetess. Joseph and Mary listened to her with respect. Out of the mouths of these two witness the truth was affirmed.

Sometimes others can see potential in our children more clearly than we parents can. Are you a parent? If others told you that your son or daughter, your niece or nephew, your grandchild was going to grow up to be president of our country, would you believe them? On the other hand, you may be the aunt or uncle. You may be the grandparent. You may be the only one who sees the potential in a family member and you may be the only one to affirm that person. What words of affirmation can you pass along to those you love today?

Eight days after Jesus was born, Joseph circumcised his son, and just over a month later, he and Mary carried their infant son to the Temple in Jerusalem to dedicate him to the Lord. You’ll find this account in Luke 2:22-24, but the tradition of dedicating a child to the Lord stretched back around 2000 years to the time of Moses.

In Exodus 13:2, Moses said our children belong to the Lord. We must release our control and place them in his care. When our daughter was an infant, Gene and I followed the example of Mary and Joseph and dedicated Prisca to the Lord. She cried loudly through the ceremony, and the pastor became flustered. He dedicated God to her care instead of the other way around! The pastor corrected himself immediately but not before we all smiled.

There are many things we cannot control in life. We can’t control diseases or disasters that might strike those we love. But we can always take the first step and dedicate our children to the Lord, placing them in his care. Take time today and pray for all those you love, placing them once again in God’s care.

Every first-time parent desires to do a good job. They read books on child-rearing, many seek advice from experienced parents. Joseph received a message telling him his son would be the Messiah, and Mary too learned that their child would grow up to sit on the throne of David. What steps did Mary take to prepare for parenting this special child?

In those first months of pregnancy, before others could notice her pregnant state, Mary spent time preparing for the heavy responsibility of parenting God’s Son. She reviewed scriptures to understand more and more about God’s promised Messiah. By the time she headed south to visit her older cousin Elizabeth, Mary already had begun to grasp the unique role she would have in raising God’s Son. Her song – recorded in the first chapter of Luke – reveals how she used her time pondering and then quoting many passages in Psalms that pointed to her son’s future work.

Just as Mary prepared for parenting Jesus by seeking God’s guidance in the scriptures, so we too can prepare to pass on our faith to our family members and others by studying scripture. Why not begin today by reading Luke 1:46-55 and spending time in prayer today?

In Matthew 1:20-31, Jesus’ father Joseph had just learned his wife-to-be was pregnant, and this child, Joseph knew, was not his. After thirty years of counseling people facing crisis pregnancies, I can easily imagine some of the emotions he may have experienced in those first hours: shock, anger, betrayal, grief. Joseph, however, was a kind man. He respected Mary. Instead of demanding that she be stoned for adultery, he planned to break the engagement quietly. But that night an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream. This was no ordinary child, the angel said. The child was conceived by the Holy Spirit and he would save God’s people from their sins.

Have you ever considered the enormity of that message? Any new parent feels the weight of responsibility of raising a child, but can you imagine parenting the Son of God? The Messiah? The burden of fathering Jesus fell heavy upon Joseph’s shoulders. Many challenges lay ahead. People in Nazareth would reject Jesus; King Herod would try to kill the child. Joseph had to get this parenting task done right. And he only had one opportunity to do it well.

At least Joseph knew ahead of time some of the challenges that lay ahead. An angel gave him a personal message forewarning him. We don’t have that advantage. We have no idea what may be around the next curve in the road for ourselves, let alone for our children. But just as God helped Joseph face each challenge as it came, God will help us too. Ask the Lord today to help you overcome obstacles in your path and trust him with those you love.

Can you imagine not being able to breathe, think, see, smell, hear, taste or feel anything?  You would be like a hard rock or a lump of clay.

In Isaiah 41:7, the prophet describes men carving idols, saying, “They join the parts together, then faster the thing in place so it won’t fall over.”  In Jeremiah 10, the prophet says,  “There stands their god like a helpless scarecrow in a garden!  It cannot speak, and it needs to be carried because it cannot walk.  Do not be afraid of such gods, for they can neither harm you nor do you any good.”

What a contrast to our God!  We worship a God who can see, who hears our prayers. Through the Bible and his Spirit, he speaks to us. He moves under his own power.  We do not have to prop him up or place him on a cart and drag him from place to place.  Instead, he carries us as a father lifts his child into his arms.  Our God is not made by human hands.  Just the opposite!  His hands fashioned us!   He lives.  He breathes!

But at Christmas, we worship a God who came down from heaven and entered our world as a baby.  His mother, Mary, kissed the face of God!  Jesus felt her touch and responded. She sang a song to him and he heard her voice.  For a time, she carried him from place to place, but then he became a man and walked on his own.  He spoke with his disciples.  He touched their feet.  He embraced the children.  He lived.  He breathed!

As John wrote in his first epistle, “The one who existed from the beginning is the one we have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our hands. He is Jesus Christ, the Word of Life.”  As you celebrate this season, remember to take time to thank God for the gift of his Son.   He continues to touch our lives today.

When our daughter Prisca was a little girl, she and her best friend Katie liked to fish in a local pond. They added bait to the hook, threw the line in the water and waited patiently for a nibble. The fish did not jump out of the water into their hands. The girls spent hours sitting by the shore and often came home with nothing to show for their efforts. There were not even stories of “the one that got away.”

In John 21, after Jesus’ death and resurrection, the disciples were at a loss as to what to do next. Very naturally, they gravitated back to what they knew best. Several of them returned to Galilee and resumed fishing. They fished all night but without success. The next morning, Jesus appeared on the shore and called to them. In the gray light of dawn, they could not see who it was who spoke, but after he told them to toss their nets into the water on the right-hand side of the boat, over 150 large fish fought to jump into the net. John looked at Peter and said, “It is the Lord!”

When they reached shore, the disciples found Jesus had built a fire and was already frying fish on the flames. He had prepared breakfast for them with his own hands. He served the meal to the men as they sat there on the rocks.

This was not some ethereal ghost standing before them but a real man. This was their teacher. He ate fish and broke bread. In Luke 24:39 he challenged the disciples, “Why do you doubt who I am? Look at my hands. Look at my feet. You can see that it is really me. Touch me and make sure that I am not a ghost, because ghosts don’t have bodies, as you see that I do!”

The risen Jesus was real to the disciples. He is just as real today…for you and me. And that’s no fish story!

Gene and I have only met Kelsey once but we pray for her daily. Our son John’s sister-in-law, Kelsey, has cancer. She is a lovely young woman, full of life. She loves the Lord. She has a wonderful husband and beautiful little daughter. Yet she is fighting pain and the effects of chemo every day. It hardly seems fair.

None of us doubt that Jesus also experienced pain. After he had a time of prayer in the garden with his disciples, soldiers arrested him and hauled him off to the courtyard of the high priest. Instead of the peace and solace he found in the garden, he faced the chaos of a crowd of angry Jewish rulers and a cohort of jeering soldiers.

At the beginning of this series of devotionals, I pointed out that the sense of touch is the only sense that is not limited to the confines of the head. Surprisingly Luke, the physician, does not describe how Jesus felt pain in every area of his body. Mark (who had an eye for details like a pillow in a boat) tells how Jesus’ captors used a whip and lashed his bare back (15:15). A crown of thorns pressed upon his brow (15:17). Spit dribbled down his cheek (15:19). The weight of a rough cross cut into his shoulder. Nails pierced his wrists, his ankles. From head to toe, his body screamed in agony.

Jesus could have shaken a fist at his Father and shouted, “It’s not fair!” But he didn’t. Instead, he chose to trust his Father. Before the pain began he declared, “Not my will but yours.” Luke 23:46 tells us, that in the midst of pain, Jesus prayed, “Into your hands I commit my spirit.”

When we hurt the most, when we have no other resources, that is often when we discover that God draws closest to us. We may not be able to reach out and feel him with our hands but we can be confident that his hands still support us.