| THE BIRTH OF JESUS |

It is striking that there is very little said about the birth of Jesus or about this infant child. It is stated, very simply, that Mary gave birth to her firstborn and that she laid him in a manger. It is actually quite beautiful in its simplicity, but what was going on around this simple birth was both cosmic and amazing.

The angels make it clear, so that there would be no mistake, that this baby is nothing less than the Messiah. He is Christ the Lord. You may have noticed in the notes of your Bible that the word Christ in scripture is the Greek word for the Hebrew word Messiah. Messiah refers to the anointed one promised by God to come and bring salvation to the world.

One of the most profound statements in this chapter is that “Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.” There are two verbs here and they are the actions that we must take as we read together: treasuring and pondering.

I invite you, as we move toward the celebration of Christmas, to treasure and ponder the reality that the “Word, who is God,” that we read about yesterday, has come to dwell among us. He did so in the most ordinary of ways, his humble birth through an ordinary young woman.