From Christmas to the Cross:
When Jesus first came to dwell among us, He came to us in a very unusual way...It is the the gospel of Luke that who tells us of the holy moments surrounding Jesus’ birth, and that includes the shepherds...He was born of a virgin and conceived by the Holy Spirit...And His Mother Mary trusted in the Angel of the LORD...The Angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, to His Mother a virgin who was betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David...And coming to her, he said, “Hail, full of grace!...The LORD is with you.”...Therefore, the child to be born will be called the holy Son of God...John tells us of Jesus’ Holiness and Divinity by telling us that the Word became flesh...As Matthew writes his gospel, he tells us the Baby's Name would be Immanuel, which means God with us...Mary, a virgin, would have a Divine Baby and Child...Matthew writes that he sees the birth of Jesus as a fulfilment of the Messianic Prophecy given to the house of David from Isaiah...Therefore, the LORD Himself will give you a sign...Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name will be Immanuel...Immanuel means God with us, so we can see and believe that the Messiah is Divine and going to be One Who is Unique and Great...Matthew writes Mary will bear a Son, and she shall call Him Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins...So the Good News of Jesus; Birth is not simply about a Child being born, but about the Eternal Son of God taking on humanity to save us from our sins...
From outside the family, the first to hear of the Messiah were shepherds... The shepherds were mostly humble and in awe with God…Their position in society was one on the lower side of society...God could have chosen anyone to see His Son first...But He did not choose wealthy prominent men or scholarly men or those in power to see His Son first…God chose men that were humble shepherds to receive the news first...They must have felt unworthy of such a great honor...Jesus, who called Himself the Good Shepherd would have probably not have wanted the Pharisees or religious leaders to hear of His birth first...The Sanhedrin and Pharisees thought highly of themselves and loved religion more than having a relationship with God…And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night...So Luke would write about the story of the Messiah being born...An angel of the LORD appeared to them, and the Glory of the LORD shone around them, and they were terrified...But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid...I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people...Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; He is the Messiah, the LORD...This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”...Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”...When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the LORD has told us about.”...So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the Baby, who was lying in the manger...When they had seen Him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this Child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them...But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart...The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told...The shepherds were known as people who were honest and straightforward...Their words did not mean authority, but meant Truth...And they would share their meeting and seeing Jesus with others as honest messengers sharing the very beginning of the gospel...They were the first messengers of the gospel message for God...
The shepherds now knew of Jesus' birth, but the religious leaders and king Herod were unaware the Messiah was near or had been born...They only got the news from the Magi...After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of king Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the One who has been born King of the Jews?...We saw His Star when it rose and have come to worship Him.”...When king Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him...When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born...“In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written: “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will Shepherd My people Israel.’”...Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared...He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the Child...As soon as you find Him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship Him.”...After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the Child was...When they saw the star, they were overjoyed...On coming to the house, they saw the Child with His mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped Him. Then they opened their treasures and presented Him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh...And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route...When the Magi had gone, an angel of the LORD appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and His mother and escape to Egypt...Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the Child to kill Him.”...So he got up, took the Child and His mother during the night and left for Egypt, where He stayed until the death of Herod...And so was fulfilled what the LORD had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called My Son.”...
We do not know the age of Jesus when the visit of the Magi happened, but we know Herod called for the death of all boys two year old and under...It is difficult to understand why Mary and Joseph would have stayed in Bethlehem for two years, and we can reasonably assume that the Magi visited sooner than two years...We also do not know why they might have returned to Bethlehem...But, as Luke writes, we do know that when Jesus was eight days old when it was time to circumcise the Child, He was named Jesus, the Name the angel had given Him before He was conceived...When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took Him to Jerusalem to present Him to the LORD (as it is written in the Law of the LORD, "Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the LORD"), and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the LORD: "a pair of doves or two young pigeons."...Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout...He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him...It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the LORD's Messiah...Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts...When the parents brought in the Child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, Simeon took Him in his arms and praised God, saying: "Sovereign LORD, as You have promised, You may now dismiss Your servant in peace...For my eyes have seen Your Salvation, which You have prepared in the sight of all nations: a Light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel."...The Child's father and mother marveled at what was said about Him...Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, His mother: "This Child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed...And a sword will pierce your own soul too."...There was also a prophet, Anna, the daughter of Penuel, of the tribe of Asher...She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then was a widow until she was eighty-four...She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying...Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the Child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem...When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the LORD, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth...
The religious leaders and king thought Jesus would change their lives and how they lived...Maybe He would be a New King, a New Leader for Israel...When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious...Mary and Joseph had taken Jesus to Egypt to avoid this anger and wrath of Herod from their warning from an Angel of the LORD...Herod gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi...Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: “A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”...After Herod died, an Angel of the LORD appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, “Get up, take the Child and His mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.”...So Joseph got up, took the Child and His mother and went to the land of Israel...But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there...Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth...So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that the Messiah would be called a Nazarene...
Zechariah who soon would become a father too...He was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied: "Praise be to the LORD, the God of Israel, because He has come to His people and redeemed them...He has raised up a Horn of Salvation for us in the house of his servant David (as He said through His holy prophets of long ago), salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us—to show mercy to our ancestors and to remember His holy covenant, the oath He swore to our father Abraham: to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve Him without fear in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days...And you, my son, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the LORD to prepare the way for Him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace."...And the child grew and became strong in spirit; and he lived in the wilderness until he appeared publicly to Israel...The child would become a baptizer...
And then came the Silent Years of Jesus...The "Silent years of Jesus" concept is usually encountered in some literature that it is assumed that Jesus was probably working as a carpenter in Galilee, at least some of the time with Joseph, from the age of twelve to age twenty nine...Every year Jesus’ parents in His Young Years went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover...When He was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom...After the festival was over, while His parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it...Thinking He was in their company, they traveled on for a day...Then they began looking for Him among their relatives and friends...When they did not find Him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for Him...After three days they found Him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions...Everyone who heard Him was amazed at His understanding and His answers...When His parents saw Him, they were astonished...His mother said to Him, “Son, why have you treated us like this?...Your father and I have been anxiously searching for You.”...“Why were You searching for Me?” He asked...“Didn’t you know I had to be in My Father’s house?”...But they did not understand what He was saying to them...Then He went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them...But His mother treasured all these things in her heart...And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man each and evert year...And the Child grew and became strong; He was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was on Him...
Seventeen years have now passed and Zechariah’s son would be named John the Baptist...In Mark's gospel, he skips right to the story of John the Baptist...The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet: “I will send My messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way”—“a voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the LORD, make straight paths for Him.’”...And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins...The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him...Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River...John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey...And this was his message: “After me comes the One more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie...I baptize you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”...
The Baptizer would tell others about the Messiah...The Messiah was now around age twenty nine...John the Baptize was Jesus' messenger in Israel...Jesus would soon be starting His ministry, after John the Baptist's message had been announced to many others...Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan River to be baptized by John...But John tried to deter Him, saying, “I need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?”...Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.”...Then John consented...As soon as Jesus was baptized, He went up out of the water...At that moment heaven was opened, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on Him...And a voice from heaven said, “This is My Son, whom I LOVE; with Him I AM well pleased.”...
Jesus was now ready for His Ministry...He was now ready to teach others the gospel, the Good News...Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to Him those He wanted, and they would come to Him...He appointed twelve men that they might be with Him and that they might learn from His Teachings and that He might send them out to preach His Words...After praying all night and morning came, He called His Twelve Disciples to Him, whom He also designated apostles...The Twelve were Simon (whom he named Peter), his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called the Zealot, Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor...His first Sermon would be the Sermon on the Mount...Jesus makes it clear that His sermon is actually an expansion on the Law...
But Jesus would have enemies and opposition during His ministry...One would be one of His own Disciples...But Jesus opposition were also against God - because God had sent Him, and He is the son of God...Jesus had come to save everyone from their sins...He did not come to save people from the religious or political enemies...Jesus would free His people from the bondage of sin and be their Savior, and He would be called Christ our LORD...The people would have Jesus as their Mediator and be the Way, the Truth, and the Life and the Only Way to God...The people could worship God and His Son without fear and from anywhere through prayer...In the past the tabernacle and temple was where God had dwelt with His people throughout the biblical story...In the ancient world, people traveled from far and wide to encounter God at the Temple in Jerusalem...Jesus wanted God's Temple to be Holy and Sacred...But some of the people were making it more like a market... To those who sold doves at the Temple He said, “Get these out of here!...Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!”...His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume Me.”...The Jews then responded to Him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”...Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”...“This temple took forty-six years to build,” the Jews replied, “and You are going to raise it up in three days?”...But Jesus was speaking about the Temple of His Body...After He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this...We are to worship God and Son through Jesus...Then they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken...Jesus is the Truth, the Way, and the Life...No one gets to God except through Jesus...
Within Jesus teachings we find the plan for our happiness, our redemption, and our salvation—the gospel Truth that includes for us to have faith in Jesus and His Father, repentance from sin, keeping God's commandments, receiving the Holy Spirit, and keeping an enduring faith to the end of our lives...We are to love God and to love our neighbors...Following Jesus to live with the characteristics of love, forgiveness, humbleness, hope, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, an enduring faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control...
The time had come where we are to worship Jesus for being One with God and He is in God and God is in Him... In the past the believing ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but the Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem at the Temple...Jesus says “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem...You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews...Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in Truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks...God is Spirit, and His worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in Truth.”...Jesus prayed before His death that the hour had now come....He ask His Father to Glorify His Son, so that Your Son may Glorify You...For You granted Your Son all authority over all people that He might give eternal life to all those you have given Him...Now this is eternal life: that they know You, the Only True God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent...I have brought You Glory on earth by finishing the work You gave Me to do...And now, Father, Glorify Me in Your Presence with the glory I had with You before the world began...
The Promised Messiah had arrived and was ready to die on the cross…His birth was sacred and holy…His death would be Sacred and Holy and Life Saving for sinners...The Savior of the world was born… Jesus was arrested and tried by the Sanhedrin... The Sanhedrin, the elite council of priestly and lay elders of Israel, arrested Jesus during the Jewish festival of Passover...They, for some reason felt threatened by His teachings of God, His Father...They dragged Him before Pilate to be tried for blasphemy—for claiming, they said, to be King of the Jews...
The Jewish leaders took Him to Pilate...The Jewish leaders took Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor...By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness they did not enter the palace, because they wanted to be able to eat the Passover...So Pilate came out to them and asked, “What charges are you bringing against this Man?”...“If He were not a criminal,” they replied, “we would not have handed Him over to you.”...Pilate said, “Take Him yourselves and judge Him by your own law.”...“But we have no right to execute anyone,” they objected...This took place to fulfill what Jesus had said about the kind of death He was going to die...Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked Him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”...“Is that your own idea,” Jesus asked, “or did others talk to you about Me?”...“Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “Your own people and chief priests handed You over to me...What is it you have done?”...Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world...If it were, My servants would fight to prevent My arrest by the Jewish leaders...But now My kingdom is from another place.”...“You are a King, then!” said Pilate...Jesus answered, “You say that I AM a King...In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth...Everyone on the side of truth listens to Me.”...“What is Truth?” retorted Pilate...With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against Him...But it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover...Do you want me to release ‘the King of the Jews’?”...They shouted back, “No, not Him!...Give us Barabbas!”...Now Barabbas had taken part in an uprising...So He was tried by Pontius Pilate, who sentences Him to flagellation and finally crucifixion by the Roman Empire...So the soldiers took charge of Jesus...Carrying His own cross, He went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha)...There they crucified Him, and with Him two others—one on each side and Jesus in the middle...Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read: jesus of nazareth, the king of the jews...Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek...The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, “Do not write ‘The King of the Jews,’ but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews.”...Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”...When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took His clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining...This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom...“Let’s not tear it,” they said to one another. “Let’s decide by lot who will get it.”...This happened that the scripture might be fulfilled that said, “They divided My clothes among them and cast lots for My garment.”...So this is what the soldiers did...Near the cross of Jesus stood His mother, His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene...When Jesus saw His mother there, and the disciple whom He LOVED standing nearby, He said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.”...From that time on, this disciple took her into his home...
On the third day Mary Magdalene stood outside the tomb crying...As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot...They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”...“They have taken my LORD away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put Him.”...At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus...He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?...Who is it you are looking for?”...Thinking He was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have put Him, and I will get Him.”...Jesus said to her, “Mary.”...She turned toward Him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”)...Jesus said, “Do not hold on to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father...Go instead to My brothers and tell them, ‘I AM ascending to My Father and your Father, to My God and your God.’”...Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the LORD!”...And she told them that He had said these things to her...Jesus then would appears to His Disciples...On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”...After He said this, He showed them His hands and His side...The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the LORD...Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you!..As the Father has sent Me, I AM sending you.”...And with that He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit...If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”...
Jesus had suffer and died on the cross for our sins...A sacrifice was necessary to take away man's sin debt...Animal sacrifices were now no longer necessary as required by Mosaic Law…Jesus is our Ultimate and Perfect Sacrifice...The sins of man were paid once and for all by the Anointed One’s death on the cross…After the third day of His death, HE HAS RISEN FROM DEATH...After His death on the cross, He presented himself to His Disciples and gave many convincing proofs that He was alive...He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the Kingdom of God...On one occasion, while He was eating with them, He gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift My Father promised, which you have heard Me speak about...For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”...
And as God chose the shepherds to tell others of the good news, He now calls us to spread the good news of His Son as well…The eleven disciples went to Galilee after His death, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go...When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted...The eleven gathered around Him and asked Him, “LORD, are You at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”...He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by His Own authority...But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”...Then Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me...Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you...And surely I AM with you always, to the very end of the age.”...