Monday, December 20, 2004
Luke 2:1-2 In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole empire should be registered. This first registration took place while Quirinius was governing Syria.
REAL HELP FOR OUR REAL WORLD
The birth of the Son of God into our sinful world is not a myth but an historical event. Luke makes that plain with his references to the Roman emperor Augustus and the governor of Syria. Further, what could be more "real world" than the purpose of the emperor's great registration, namely the collection of taxes.
Why is the real, historical nature of the birth of Christ so important? We live in a real world. Our deep and enduring problems are not going to be helped by make-believe -- not even by the most beautiful of sentimental stories.
Truth be told, that expression "the real world" is usually used with reference to sin, to the fact that people often can't be trusted, that too often they are selfish, grasping and cruel -- that for too many the so-called "bottom line" is the great decider.
But enough of the "real world" around us, what about the one all too close at hand? Look at your own life just this past week. What you've said. What you've done. Your own thought-world.
Our real world is not a pretty one. But into this world Jesus was born. That's the message of the manger scene in each of our homes during this season.
Real problems need a real solution. Our sin-filled world needed the intervention of One who could really help. And the only possible Savior was the very Creator whose world human sin has left such a blasted hulk. Only God could deal with a reality so ugly, so big, so deep, so beyond human coping. And this could not be done from a distance. Thus the Son of God became the Son of Man as well.
The reality of the incarnation is the first step in the reality of our redemption. And just as there is no birth without blood-shed, even so there could be no new life for humans dead in sin without the shedding of blood -- the blood of Him who became one with our blood when He was born of Mary of Nazareth. 