Sun 9:30a Class; 10:30a Worship; 11:35a Communion
Bible Bites
O Holy Night
“...today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior,
who is Christ the Lord.”
(Luke 2:11, NASB95)
On November 19, 1997, Kenny and Bobbi McCaughey became the proud parents of the world’s first surviving septuplets, born nine weeks premature in Des Moines, Iowa.
For weeks prior to the event, a caravan of media encircled Iowa Methodist Hospital. On hand were extra staff and specialists from all over the world. The world witnessed the spectacle.
When the Son of God became the Son of Man, no media or cameras were present. The world’s VIPs were clueless (Luke 2:1f). The accommodations were dreadful (v 6-7).
The only guests were shepherds tending their flock near the town that night (v 8). Imagine the spectacle of the Lord’s angel robed in the Lord’s glory personally inviting them (v 9-11). Imagine the majestic chorus of praise intoned by the heavenly choir (v 13f). Imagine the shepherds’ fright (v 9), wonder, and joy.
The angels must have gasped to see the Creator of all things willingly enter his creation (1 Peter 1:12). Nor did he merely enter the world: he became part of it, becoming one of its inhabitants, subject to the limitations of time, space and flesh (Luke 2:4-7).
We typically think of Christ as He who confounded by his teaching, amazed with his miracles, and redeemed with his death. But here, the angel reminded the shepherds (v 11) that at his birth — in obscurity, in anonymity, and in utter helplessness and vulnerability — this child, this infant was Savior, Christ, and Lord.
The King of kings lay thus in lowly manger,
In all our trials born to be our friend;
He knows our need, to our weakness is no stranger
Behold your King; before him lowly bend!
