Read Luke 3:1-20

Luke realizes that John the Baptist, the first inspired prophet since Malachi about 400 years before, fulfills Isaiah’s prophecy written hundreds of years before Malachi (Isaiah 40:3-5).

John was a powerful preacher, drawing huge crowds out into the wilderness. Then when he got them there, he insulted them (v. 7). “You nest of snakes!” he cried. How did he get away with that?

How was John’s message different from social-action gospel? Share your food and clothing with the poor. Be honest in your business dealings. Be good, be happy, be beautiful people. That’s all. Is that John’s message? Was John just one more “do-gooder”?

One key word makes the difference. Repentance. John did not throw darts randomly. He aimed at specific besetting sins: selfishness (v. 11); extortion (v. 13); dishonest, disgruntled living (v. 14). John did not tell the tax-gatherers to join the soldiers in feeding the poor. Each was to repent of his sin and act as his own conscience directed.

Evidently John’s message—which was not John’s but God’s—got to his hearers. In response to John’s warning that they were in mortal danger of losing their souls (v. 9), God’s conviction fell, and the people cried, “What shall we do?” (v.10). Members of various unpopular groups even asked specific questions about how to live righteously (vv. 12-14).

Does John have anything to say to us?

Read Luke 2:41-52

The Nicene Creed says that Jesus was “very God of very God…and was made man.”

Nowhere do we see the divine and the human intertwined in Jesus better than in this peek into Jesus’ boyhood. Only Luke records it.

You know the story. As good Jews, Mary, Joseph, and all the family went to Jerusalem for Passover every spring. On this occasion, Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. Being a 12-year-old boy, He didn’t think it important to tell His parents what He was doing. Anyway, they might not have understood why He wanted to stay (v. 50).

Mary and Joseph, accustomed to being surrounded by a big, warm, responsible, extended family, started home without nailing down Jesus’ whereabouts. After one day, when He still had not surfaced, they farmed their younger kids out to relatives and in panic turned back to Jerusalem.

It must have been a long three days before they found Him in the temple, of all places. The divine Jesus was expertly fielding and asking questions for an amazed gathering of scholars (v. 47). Mary expresses hers and Joseph’s anxiety. The divine Child says He has to be in His Father’s house. The human boy is surprised that His parents are bothered. His reply to Mary is Jesus’ first recorded words.

Then Jesus does one of the important things He came to do: sets an example. He went home to Nazareth with them and obeyed His earthly parents.

Read Luke 2:21-40

What’s going on here?

Luke recounts two scenes from usual Jewish custom. When Jesus was eight days old, Mary and Joseph had him circumcised and formally named Him. Forty days later they made a trip to Jerusalem to consecrate him to the Lord, because the Jewish Law said that all first-born males belonged to the Lord (Exodus 13:2, 12; Lev. 12:8).

Mary and Joseph encountered two persons they did not expect to meet, Simeon and Anna. Unrelated to each other, both spent a lot of time in the temple. Simeon probably performed all sorts of helpful services the priests did not have time for. Anna prayed.

Simeon hadn’t really planned to stop by the temple right then. But that quiet inner voice he had long since learned belonged to God, whispered, “Go there now.”

So he went. When Mary and Joseph walked in, the same voice said, “There He is. That’s My Son, the Lord’s Christ.” Simeon walked right up to Mary and took the baby out of her arms. He began to speak the third of the lovely songs Luke records (vv. 29-32).

Simeon does two things in his song. First, he thanks the Lord for fulfilling to him God’s promise that he would see the Messiah. Now he can die in peace. Then he specifically says that Gentiles are included in the salvation this baby brings. Hallelujah! Those of us born non-Jewish are not beyond God’s reach and love.

Read Luke 2:1-20

Why on earth would Mary and Joseph travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem now, with the baby almost due?

Because Caesar Augustus said so. Nothing is sure but death and taxes, and this was taxes. Caesar didn’t let you file an extension on your tax. You paid NOW!

Luke’s account of Jesus’ birth is the human story. We can identify with arriving in a strange town late, with no hotel reservation. We can identify with not having much money.

Then Mary’s labor started, and pretty soon there were three stranded people. No Red Cross. No Bethlehem Rescue Mission. No hospital emergency room. No grandmother, no old friends and helpful neighbors. Joseph felt so responsible. He was trying so hard to protect Mary and her baby. The hot tears must have come as he wondered, “Is this the best I can do? A stable? A manger to put a newborn in?”

Then the shepherds arrived. They must have pounded down the innkeeper’s door asking where was the baby announced by a multitude of angels. The innkeeper, as puzzled as they were, couldn’t think of any baby born that night. Then he remembered the couple from Nazareth. She had looked awfully pregnant.

When the shepherds came into that stable, they knew this was the right baby. A Presence like they had never known before filled the place. It was God, so proud of His newborn Son, proud of His servants, Mary and Joseph.