12.04.2011 Christmas in Revelation

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Last week, we lit the Shepherd’s Candle – and this week, we are looking at Jesus as our Savior – the one who saves us from our sin.
Matt. 1:20 But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for that which has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. 21 "And she will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from their sins."
Luke 2: 8 And in the same region there were [some] shepherds staying out in the fields, and keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened. 10 And the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which shall be for all the people; 11 for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
Lord, as we light these candles we recognize our sin and our need for a Savior. You are the Savior who has forgiven our sins. Lord, we long for our lives to be purified that we might present ourselves to You in righteousness. You came 2000 years ago, and you are coming again. We look forward to Your final return, that Your kingdom might be set up on this earth. In Your Name we pray.
Last week, we looked at Advent from eternity past – In the beginning, the Word was with God and was God. This week – we are jumping from eternity past to eternity future – we’ll look at Advent from the book of Revelation. Christmas in Revelation!
Revelation 12:1 A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. 2 She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. 3 Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads. 4 His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born. 5 She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter. And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne.
Revelation has condensed the history of the world into 5 verses! This is the story of God’s redemption in these verses. Ransom captive Israel – the story of God redeeming this rebellious world – God saving, redeeming, and bringing back.
In this story, We have the woman. Some say it is speaking of Mary – but primarily, it is speaking of the people of God. Mary is representative of God’s people – 12 stars – 12 tribes of Israel – and through Israel will come the Messiah – and eventually, she becomes the representative of all the people of God.
The dragon is the devil – he doesn’t really look like this – it is revelation, it is symbolic – and the devil is out to destroy the Savior. This is the condensation – it compresses the spiritual conflict. There are two great spiritual battles that take place in the Bible. We always think of the cross – but how often do we think about the BIRTH as being a spiritual battle? The Word becoming flesh is subversive – it is God invading enemy-held territory. It is like D-Day, when the allies come into France – the enemy had taken over God’s territory, the earth, and He is landing on the beaches. This gives us a different perspective on what is going on here. This is played out in real events, in real lives – and in some ways, in everyday events on earth. The battle that took place on the original Christmas takes place in everyday events in our lives. It is similar to what happens in Job – there is this spiritual battle that comes down to this man named Job – it all comes crashing in on Him. So the spiritual conflict takes place through and in a person who makes choices and decisions to do what is right – to do what God would have them do. So these people engage and become partners with God in these spiritual conflicts. As you make choices to obey God, you come into the conflict and are made a partner of God in defeating the enemy. We don’t think that way very often – especially in the Christmas story. God chooses to intervene in the life of Joseph to help him make right choices for the purpose of God.
God intervenes in Joseph’s life through 4 dreams:
Matt. 1:18 This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. 19 Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. 20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins." 22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet:
So you have this story – Joseph in a very unique situation – Joseph had his wife to be – when the Jews sign the contract – or make the covenant – it was as good as marriage – and the only way to break it was by divorce. Mary is pregnant. Everyone else is looking on like, yeah, uh-huh! The Law would require Joseph to divorce Mary for this situation. Divorce, in their society and even in the Greco Roman world – was based on honor and shame. That meant everything. From the early days of a child’s life – they would be taught to seek honor for themselves and their family and to avoid disgrace and shame. It was a primary core value. We see that abused today – women put to death for immorality – and sometimes not even immorality – because she has shamed the family.
The point of divorce – would bring the most shame on the person who was unfaithful – that way, in this circumstance, Joseph’s family would have no shame. Joseph was a righteous man – and he wouldn’t do that. But he knew this wouldn’t work – and if he takes Mary as his wife – then JOSEPH’s family would have the shame. By taking Mary, he would be saying – okay – that is my child. And you see this in Jesus’ life – oh yeah, we remember you – we know where you came from. But Joseph allows himself to take all of the shame. Sometimes when we partner with God it means taking shame. It will cost us dearly to partner with God.
Joseph wanted to be a faithful obedient servant – and in doing this – he becomes, what Jesus says later in the Lord’s prayer – Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven – God brings His will to earth through people who choose to be faithful to God in everyday circumstances. It IS everyday circumstances, isn’t it? We engage in spiritual conflicts where we have a choice to compromise or be faithful. We choose to do the right thing – to serve – to give – to think of others. When we do that – the will of God is being brought to earth. Your acts of faithfulness, kindness, compassion, justice – are acts of bringing God’s will to earth.
Matt. 2: 13 When they 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." 14 So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, 15 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."
So in the first dream, Joseph is asked to change his heart – his value system – to take on heavenly values rather than earthly values.
IN the second dream, he is asked to change his location. This would be very costly. They didn’t have planes, trains and automobiles. It was a major change – a major risk – and God is using decisions to obey by Joseph to accomplish His will.
In this heavenly battle – God uses real people and real events to fight this battle – and Satan does the same – using evil people to fight his battles. When there are those who do injustice – it is okay to recognize that they are connected to Satan. That is evil working in partnership, just like righteousness works in partnership with those who are righteous.
I am going to take a side trip down a rabbit trail – God protects Jesus – but as a result – there are parents whose children were murdered in Bethlehem. We can ask, why doesn’t God always intervene? God does this great thing for one person and not another?! Does He always intervene? You can’t answer yes or no. If you say Yes, He always intervenes, but not in the way we wish, that is not very satisfying. If you say No, He intervenes at random times, or for only really important things – that is not very satisfying either – maybe he doesn’t think our thing is important enough. I think this is a wrong question – one thing we do know – God intervened for Jesus. There is no doubt that the world is a dark place – and God intervened and conquered evil completely and was victorious over Satan. The reality for us – conquering that victory will only be seen at our resurrection – we still live in a dark world – in the midst of a battle where evil is moving and righteousness needs to move too.
That is the only way we can understand it and not have our faith shaken. In the spiritual realm, there was a complete victory and at some point – we will experience that. We need to focus on that intervention in our lives. Then we need to partner with God, and as He intervened, we need to now intervene where there is injustice, darkness, etc. We need to partner with Him in the conflict. It is deception and immorality. We need to intervene and engage with God as a partner. This comes through the understanding and communication of the gospel – the story of advent.
The third dream:
Matt. 2: 19 After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt 20 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." 21 So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel.
First He changes his heart, then location, then, in some senses, his purpose.
Matthew points to Jesus as a type of Moses. In Exodus he was called to redeem his people – and now Jesus is redeeming His people.
22 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, 23 and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets: "He will be called a Nazarene."
God takes Joseph and Jesus and lowers their status. By taking them to Nazareth – it was the place where nothing good could come from.
Phil. 2:5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, [and] being made in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
23 "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"--which means, "God with us." 24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25 But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.
God made Himself nothing – lowered – humbled – death on a cross – the most shameful way to die. When we think of the cross, we think of the pain and suffering – they thought of the shame of the cross. And Jesus put Himself in this lowest point – if we are going to engage in a spiritual conflict – if we want and wish to partner with God – it is an opportunity for His will to be done on earth as His will is done in heaven. To engage with Him as His partner in the conflict of everyday life – this requires a lowering of our status – lowering the way we think of ourselves – and we do this by becoming servants – even to the point of the cross. As He endured the shame of the cross, He calls us to pick up our cross for Him.