Friday night:
We opened our Bibles to Genesis 15. The speaker asked us to just read it. And when I did, I was very weirded out. It talked about an animal (a sheep or goat) that was cut in half and the blood ran between the halves and a fiery tornado and flaming torch passed through the blood. And I was just like, "What the heck is this?" My friend Paige and I exchanged confused glances and I was completely rapt in what the speaker had to say to us.
The scene takes place when God is making his awesome deal with Abraham. You know, about how Abraham's decedents will outnumber the stars and how they will be a great nation and that they would be God's chosen ones, etc. All that good stuff. But it was a deal, meaning that Abraham had to have some part in it. God's request? "Be blameless." Oh yeah, okay. Sounds great. Just be totally perfect and all this will happen. Easy shmeasy.
Not so much. Genesis tells us that Abraham fell into a dark and terror-filled sleep over this. Obviously, he was human, so he couldn't be blameless. But how do you walk away from such an incredible gift from God? He would be walking away from an extremely personal connection with the creator of the world and the promise of a ridiculous future for his decedents.
In those days, you made a deal by cutting an animal in half and letting the blood run between the halves. The major party would then step in the blood and basically say, "If I don't hold up my end of the deal, let this be done to me." So, if he didn't hold up, he was going to be killed. Then the minor party would do the same thing. It was binding and irreversible. So Abraham had killed the animal and now the deal was about to be sealed.
The flaming tornado was God. He passed through because he was the major party. So, logically, it was Abraham's turn. Walking through that blood would pretty much be committing suicide. But what choice did he have? But then the unbelievable happened. The flaming torch, God again, passed through the blood.
Get what that means? God was saying, "If you don't hold up, which you won't, I'll take the blame." Remind you of someone else? That's what Jesus did for us. A foretelling of Jesus came all the way back in Genesis--the very first book of the Bible. How crazy is that?
My mind was BLOWN. I just sat there in shock and thought of how awesome God is and how powerful his plan is. It's absolutely crazy and wild and I almost wouldn't believe it if it hadn't been written out for me. Wow. Just wow.
Saturday morning:
King Herod. He was the leader of what was going to become Israel for Cesar. And he was absolutely petrified of anyone coming to take his power away from him. He was paranoid like no one has ever been before. He killed two sons and a couple wives because he was threatened by them. What a nut job, right?
So you can imagine it went over really well with him when he heard about a king coming in and the people following him instead of Herod. The king was insecure like nobody's business. So he did the almost unthinkable.
But hold on one second. Let's get a little more information.
Remember the 3 Wise Men from all the stories? They actually weren't from Herod. They came from some place way far away and had studied all the prophecies and saw the signs (so did Herod) and decided to go find this savior. On the way to find Jesus, they met Herod and ate with him. And Herod lied his fool head off.
He said that when the three guys find the savior, to come get Herod because he wants to worship the savior too. Well, the wise men are called "wise" for a reason. They aren't stupid. They realized that Herod was a paranoid control freak and that he would probably kill the kid. But the three said they would come get Herod and went on their way.
After a year, Herod realized the three wise men hadn't returned and decided that they had lied to him and that was when the massacre was decreed. Herod, not knowing how old the child was but knowing he wasn't older than two, he ordered that every boy in Bethlehem under the age of two be killed.
The potential threat and absolute paranoia of one powerful man killed hundreds of innocent kids. And Jesus wasn't even in Bethlehem--he was in Egypt.
Saturday night:
I've always thought that Mary gave up the most to have Jesus. You know, she was looked down upon in her village or whatever because everyone thought she'd been with another man or with Joseph too early.
But you don't ever think about what Joseph endured.
Let's make a list.
1. His carpentry business? Out the window. Everyone would've assumed that it was his kid and he broke rules that have been in place for as long as anyone could remember. No one would support someone who did that; no one would give business to a person who had no respect for ancient customs.
2. The shame. Can you say "social outcast"? If he said that the child wasn't his, he was piling shame on a blameless Mary. If he said it was his, then he (like the reasons above) would suffer because people thought he was a tradition-ignorer. And that was a very serious crime.
3. The fear. He doesn't know why God has done this to him and is totally freaked out. Angels keep coming to him and his wife is suddenly pregnant and now he has to take this journey with a pregnant wife and doesn't really know what's going to happen. He only knows that he is about to have the Son of God in his midst. As his child. How terrifying is that?
Joseph was a strong, Godly man. And God could not have picked anyone better to help His son grow. But the sacrifices and emotional trauma are often overlooked. Let's stop that. Let's acknowledge Joseph. Because he absolutely deserves it.
Sunday morning:
The three wise men had pretty cool gifts. But, I'm going to be honest, I only knew what the first one symbolized. Shows how interested I was. But when I learned what they meant, I was absolutely blown away.
The gold. Yep, that's the one I knew beforehand. Gold, obviously, is very precious...especially to a young family who is only holding onto God and each other. Gold stands for Jesus' kingship. He is the King of Kings and that's what the gold is. Yeah, it's pretty brainless and, "Yeah duh" but it's still crazy to think that this stranger went up to Mary and Joseph and basically said, "Your son is going to rule the world."
The frankincense. It's just a fancy form of incense. You know, what priests use for holy stuff. I'm going to be honest and admit that I really don't know that much about incense (because I'm not Catholic) but I know that priests use it. Super impressive, right? Anyway, when this guy placed the frankincense in front of Mary and Joseph, he was telling them that their little boy was going to be the spiritual leader of the world. The Priest of Priests. Like if the Pope and Billy Graham had a baby...except times a billion and more.
The myrrh. I had no clue what this stuff was. Didn't even know how to spell it until that day. It's pronounced "mur" in case you didn't know. Anyway, this stuff was used in ancient Egypt as a preservative. For bodies. It was like embalming fluid for the Egyptians of the past and it comes from the myrrh tree. Because Mary and Joseph's ancestors were Egyptian, there was a good chance they knew what that stuff was. This last gift was probably the hardest to give and receive. It said this, basically. "Your little boy is going to be a sacrifice, he's going to die, for the world." I don't know about you, but I would flip if someone told me that about my firstborn. And I'm not even a parent yet. Imagine how hard that must have been for Jesus' parents. Like, their son was born to die. Heavy stuff.
So, needless to say, I look at Christmas a little differently now. It's so much bigger than Jesus being born. It was the start of the rest of the world. It was the beginning of a masterfully planned revolution. And I fully intend to be in that revolution, waving my flag high and pronouncing my allegiance to Christ the Lord.
And don't you dare try to stop me.
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