July 31, 2025; Luke 2:1-21

Daily Dose of Hope

July 31, 2025

Scripture – Luke 2:1-21

Prayer:  Heavenly Father, Provider, Sustainer, Thank you for being the God who cares, who provides, who sustains, and who saves.  As we talk about the Christmas story today, help us remember how you became one of us, and lived among us, to demonstrate the full extent of your love.  Thank you for Jesus.  Thank you for your sacrifice.  Thank you for showing us a different way of doing life.  Help us actually live the way you taught us.  In Your Name, Amen.

Welcome back to the Daily Dose of Hope, a deep dive into the Gospels and Acts.  Today, we start Luke 2 and read about the birth of Christ, what we know as the Christmas story.

We have kind of sanitized the Christmas story. It’s a sweet story we tell our kids with friendly donkeys and smiling shepherds. But the world that Jesus was born into was a rough one. It was a world of poverty, violence, and division. The Jewish people had been expecting a Savior for 700 years since Isaiah prophesied that God would send a king–a wonderful counselor, mighty God, holy one, Emmanuel. They had been waiting 700 years! Things were tough. Living under the rule of the Roman Empire was no picnic–it was a violent and oppressive place; they were waiting for this one that God would send to save them, to rescue them from the trouble and darkness of their lives. They were restless, weary, and impatient.

And then, God sends a Savior in the form of a baby. Just like the world he was born into, the circumstances around Jesus’ birth were troubling and dark. Jesus’ mom was a poor 14 year old girl, who appears on the surface to get pregnant out of wedlock (we know it was the Holy Spirit, but can you imagine the gossip in her little town of Nazareth?) And toward the end of her pregnancy, the government requires all heads of households to go to the town of their ancestors to register for a census. That meant that Joseph, Mary’s fiancé, needed to go to Bethlehem, because that was the town of King David and he was descended from David. Most likely, Mary didn’t have to be there but she does go with him, possibly to get away from the scandal in her own village. It was a 90 mile trip, over hills and rough terrain, and it probably took about 9 days. In her 9th month of pregnancy, she walked for 9 days straight (no mention of a donkey in Scripture).

When they arrive, Mary goes into labor (surprise, surprise after all that walking )but there is no place for them to stay. We don’t know if everything was occupied, as there were many people who had entered the city for the census, or they simply didn’t have enough money to pay for a proper room. Mary has the baby in a stable of sorts, maybe not a stable like we think of a stable, but the place where the animals were kept. Some think it could have even been in a cave. But it was warm and cheap and she has the baby and places him in a manger, which is the animals’ feeding trough. I’m sure this wasn’t anything like Mary had dreamed about when she thought about starting a family. It wasn’t pleasant and magical and peaceful, it was hard and uncomfortable and scary.

After Jesus was born, an angel, a messenger from God, appears to the shepherds and says, I bring you Good News of great joy that will be for all people. For a baby has been born in Bethlehem and he is the Messiah, the Savior, the Lord. These were the names that the emperor used to describe himself and now the angel is saying that the true ruler, the true Savior of the people, the true bringer of Good News and peace, was in fact this little baby. And the angel told them that they would find this baby laying in an animal’s feeding container and wrapped up in strips of cloth. And then we go from one to many, many angels (the armies of heaven) saying, Glory to God in Highest Heaven and peace to all those whom God favors. For even the angels and all the company of heaven rejoiced at the birth of this baby.

This is a story most of us have heard many, many times.  So, what was the Good News of great joy?   First, this child was called the Messiah, the anointed one, the one they had been waiting for over a period of hundreds and hundreds of years.  Would this child be the one to save them?  Remember, the Jews thought they needed saving from their oppressors.  They had trouble wrapping their brains around any other kind of savior.

Think about what it means to be a Savior – someone who rescues another from destruction, ruin, or defeat. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that our world is quite a mess and we need saving. We can’t fix any of this mess ourselves. If we could, we would have already done it.

The Jews thought the only kind of saving they needed was from their Roman occupiers.  But they had no idea that there was a deeper, more insidious need.  What do we need to be saved from? Well, SIN.  We need to be saved from ourselves, our brokenness. On the cross Jesus saves us from our own failings, from our own darkness. Early Christians called Christmas “the light piercing the darkness” because at just the right time, just when humanity needed it most, God sent Jesus to be light in our darkness. 

And this, my friends, is just the beginning.  Let’s see what else Luke has to say about the incarnation.

Blessings,

Pastor Vicki