The After-christmas Story

THE

AFTER-CHRISTMAS

STORY

Daniel A. Brown, Ph.D.

Introduction The Christmas story was not, technically, the beginning. For many centuries of human history, long before the shepherds heard the angelic announcement that a Savior had been born for them in Bethlehem, God had been planning to rescue the human race from our sin. In the “fullness of time, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law” (Galatians 4:4). When the moment was perfect and all was in place, God sent Jesus (void of all His spiritual prerogatives and powers) from Heaven to earth. No room in the inn … a cave stable … shepherds at night—they were all part of God’s carefully orchestrated intervention into our world. Detail upon detail had been arranged to make eternal statements about ALL that God was accomplishing through His Son. For instance, the Lord expressed the greatness and otherness of His supremacy above all by introducing a suckling infant as the means by which He would overthrow Satan’s rule and nullify the great wisdom humankind: From the mouth of infants and nursing babes You have established [set up, laid the foundation for] strength [power, majesty, praise] because of Your adversaries, to make the enemy and the revengeful cease [fail, leave, desist]. Psalm 8:2 Dozens of specific prophecies were fulfilled in the particulars of the Christmas story, but more to the point of our study today, the Christmas story in all its splendid imagery and spiritual meaning was not the end!

After Christmas Actually, it’s after Christmas that you and I come into the story, and our entrance is choreographed by God with same degree of amazing intention—introducing Jesus’ supporting cast, frail and failing people, who are destined to bring about the demise of Satan’s power and the bewilderment of intellectual prowess. As with all patterns for spiritual life, we can find clues about our part in this cosmic drama in the Scriptures, so we turn our attention to the episodes in Luke that follow directly after the story of Jesus’ birth. What we will notice is that God places a tremendous degree of trust in us, and though He could sovereignly stage all the events and the script, He chooses, instead, to direct any of the players who will listen to His cues. And the supporting cast can, thereby, end up having as big a role as they choose…

Matthew 2:1-23 The Magi   

Noticed something of God happening in their world—then lost sight of it. Asked those who understood more of such things than they did. Opened their treasures to the One worthy of everything.

Joseph

 

Made huge changes in his life that made no sense (if the dreams were just dreams). Led his life alertly and circumspectly in both dimensions of reality.

The Coastlands, Aptos Foursquare Church