GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LUKE 2:5
5 He went to be registered with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was pregnant.
Unbelievers and skeptics like to laugh at this verse, which has deep spiritual meaning and hope for us Christians. “There!” I’ve heard one say, “There’s proof that your Christ was an illegitimate child!” (he used a more impolite term). Even respected authors like Robert Heinlein have let blatant suggestions that Jesus was fathered by some Roman soldier be voiced in his books without defense (or support).
My wife and I watch a little television together most evenings. We’ve both become increasingly frustrated with Hollywood’s (and the BBC’s) version of pastors who stand stupidly unable to answer such questions as the writers fail to understand anything at all about Christianity. Was no clergyman in history versed in Scripture? Did no pastor in the past twenty centuries have any faith? This is what our TV producers want us to think. It’s appalling.
The problem is solved by reading. To the text! What a simple accusation to answer if only we do a little reading, and a little believing! Everything in the Gospel up to this point has served to answer this one question, and one can’t help wondering whether this was actually one of the things most on Luke’s mind up to this point. The angel’s words are enough for us here: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). That’s exactly what happened.
The medical details of the incarnation cannot be described, not even by the physician who wrote this Gospel. In any miraculous event, Luke is unable to explain how the blind are given sight, who the lame are made to walk, how the deaf are made to hear, or how the possessed are cleansed of their demons. He cannot explain how the dead are raised to life. And he cannot explain the details of the conception beyond the angel’s words. But since that is what happened, Luke reports it. Mary was carrying the Son of God. We should remember that both the Old and New Testaments make this point about Christ’s incarnation: he would be born as a human being with a human mother. “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). This is what the Bible teaches us—we only need to read it and believe.
Martin Chemnitz, the greatest pillar of the Lutheran Church in the generation following Luther’s death, said this: “The Son of God assumed a complete human nature, incorrupt, possessing all the powers and desires belonging to this nature and appropriate to it; not given to vice, but without sin, and yet capable of suffering and subject to death. These weaknesses he willingly assumed for our sakes, in order to become the sacrifice for the sins of the human race” (Loci Theologici, translated by J.A.O. Preus, Vol. I p. 105).
A few years ago, I became interested in bonsai, the Japanese art of miniaturizing trees. More than one person encouraged me to try to use juniper trees for this. They’re a common evergreen in our part of Minnesota and therefore we can find saplings growing in yards that many homeowners are quite willing to part with. However, I’ve been frustrated by failure after failure. Then just yesterday, rereading my “Bonsai Handbook,” I came across a little note that I missed until now: “Some plant retailers offer junipers as indoor bonsai. Don’t take this seriously, as no self-respecting juniper would survive long indoors” (p. 41). Now that I’ve read it, my experience makes a lot more sense, if even I don’t understand why. And having read the Bible’s own explanation for Jesus’ birth, I am content that something I don’t fully understand is nevertheless the truth. Let the Lord our God do things to accomplish his purpose in his own way! We only need to read it and believe. And our faith will not perish like a juniper kept indoors. It will thrive and grow and preserve us to eternal life.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: http://www.wlchapel.org/worship/daily-devotion/
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota