Tag: resurrection

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The Revelation Christmas Story

Heaven answered Hell. This is the real point of the Christmas story.

The true Light came into the world. See John 1:9. It happened in the manger at Bethlehem, a small town set in a region shadowed by religious and political turmoil.

Dawn came when the night most exercised its presence and force. For this reason, the Church leaders in the fourth century made a choice to celebrate the birth of the Son during the winter season.

Moments of sunlight do grow shorter until we reach the winter solstice day, the one when parts of the earth experience their longest periods of darkness. The culture of the times used these days to celebrate Saturnalia, what one historian referred as the “jolliest of Roman festivals” related to an idol dedicated to farming and sunlight.

Was Christ born in December? Nothing definitive has been discovered about the exact birthday of the Son. He did come. This we believe.

And there was a lot going on when He arrived.

The Birth Wonder

We find a vibrant and poetic visual of this reality in the first five verses of Revelation 12. In this chapter, John the Apostle describes two wonders revealed to him about the coming of Jesus.

First, John saw a woman pregnant with the Child. It is a very real birth moment that he witnessed. This woman suffered and travailed with her labor pains as women do at such times. She cried out for the delivery to be finished at last the text tells us.

Jesus entered our world the way all babies were designed to come forth. Human births are attended with suffering, as God said they would be when He addressed Eve after the Fall in the Garden: “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children …” (see Genesis 3:16).

We can take something from this aspect related to the curse of sin. I think the pain of delivery correlates to the anguish of the Father in seeing the Son made the offering for sin upon the Cross.

A mother’s season of celebration at conception and the progress of gestation end somewhat in violence. She feels the contractions as they come steadily and stronger and then she steels herself to push out her baby — the child sometimes tears the fabric of her body in his emergence. It is a painful climax. It is also one I think serves to bring mothers very close to the feelings of the heart of God.

What comes soon after, however, is that she rejoices as the newborn is given to her arms. Tears of joy often fall when the baby finally rests upon her breast.

Think now of how the Father witnessed the wages of sin being heaped upon the humanity of Jesus, the Anointed One. Think of those terrible hours of separation when the Son was forsaken, alone, battered, blinded, and hung in the darkness on the Tree.

Consider the great contractions that shuddered Creation at Calvary. We read in the gospel accounts of the darkened, storm-clouded skies and the quaking earth and of rocks being split. Battle-tested soldiers were left stunned by this awe-filled finish of the Redemption Plan. The Temple itself was rocked and the curtain that veiled away the Holy Place was torn top to bottom.

These torturous scenes came on what we now call Good Friday. And then Easter came.

Alive again did Jesus emerge from the grave. Resurrection life – a new birth into salvation – was made available to all who chose to believe upon His Name.

The Hungry Dragon

The natural expression of the Son’s delivery scene in Revelation 12 has a contrast in the text for us to read.  Unveiled for John was the supernatural element of opposition to that very birth.

The wonder John described was that of the great red dragon. It was a monstrosity with heads and horns and crowns. This refers to the prince and the power of the cosmic world in his operations on earth.

The strange dragon points to how Satan manipulates governments and businesses and kingdoms with his deceptions. He attracted the allegiance of one-third of the “stars of heaven.” Angelic beings followed this rebel in his program to become as the Most High, according to Isaiah 14:14.

The devil had long looked for this coming of Jesus. He was ready to oppose the Son with everything at his disposal. His plot was to find His mother and “devour her child as soon as it was born” (Revelation 12:4).

Herod was among Satan’s instruments and one of the first to target Jesus. This ruler in Judea got wind about the birth of the King of Israel from foreign emissaries. We know them as the Magi, or the Three Kings as a popular Christmas carol calls them. These travelers had followed the Star, a sign that they took as pointing to the coming of the Savior.

The story they told bred tension in Jerusalem. Herod could not abide any threat to his reign. Through questioning Jewish religious leaders, he learned that the King was to be born in Bethlehem. He feigned interest in honoring this Son.

The wise travelers did find and worship Jesus, bestowing marvelous gifts upon Him. They also were warned not to return to Herod. They escaped Judea and returned to their homelands by another route.

Herod responded with viciousness. He ordered the slaughter of every baby boy 2 years of age and under in the vicinity of Bethlehem.

Christmas pageants omit this march of the killing soldiers. We see shepherds and wise men and animals, but not the swordsmen who carried out Herod’s diabolical decree.

Jesus was out of the area by this time. An angel warned Joseph to flee with Mary and the Baby to Egypt.

This begs a question from our tender hearts. How was it that only Joseph got this word from God? Were these other boys born about Bethlehem disposable afterthoughts in the divine story?

These are fair questions to pose to the Lord. How He chooses to answer them for you, I cannot say. The Bible has many answers for us. The Word also stirs questions aplenty.

Do we get the details about everything? We do not. Explanations are unsatisfying to the humanly curious who refuse to recognize the authority of the living God who made all and who is in all. Faith only comes by hearing the Word as the Word of God.

The coming of Jesus didn’t fix the world at once. The devil and his demons were active then and they remain active in our days.

Swallowed But Undefeated

Jesus faced the threat of murderers at other points before the Cross. In Nazareth, His words enraged the crowd in the synagogue. They were poised to toss Him from a cliff.

On a couple of other occasions, mobs fueled by offended religious leaders were ready to bury Him under a pile of stones. The assault of demons in Gethsemane was invisible but so intense for Christ that droplets of blood oozed from Him.

At the fullness of time, Jesus surrendered to the death ordained for Him. He gave Himself to the Cross to endure an execution orchestrated by Jewish opponents and facilitated by Roman imperial forces.

Was this a devouring? On the surface, it seems like it to me.

The reality is that the dragon bit off more than he could chew. He got his worldly powers to do his bidding and swallow the Savior with their machinations. Just as it was written, He was wounded for the transgression and iniquity of all.

And so the plan of God worked most effectively and completely. Christ finished the work and defeated death with His dying.

The Son, in the purpose of God, was born to get underneath everything. The curse of the earth brought forth by the sin of Adam could only be defeated by the One who is meek and lowly in heart.

Mary brought forth the Son of Man, the One destined to rule all nations with “a rod of iron,” a scepter He won through obedience to the will of the Father. Iron is an ore dug out from beneath the soil. Jesus gained His right to reign on earth with a life lived in perfection and offered as the ransom for the sins of men.

The Son came– small as an infant. The Son died as the Man of Sorrows, acquainted with grief. The Son rose in victory as the firstborn from the dead.

The Son also ascended. This Child was caught up to His Throne.

There Jesus now abides waiting, watching, and ever interceding for us who are His brothers and sisters.

And this King shall come again. Let us sing out: Glory to God in the Highest.

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Resurrection Words

“These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His Name” (John 20:31).

John the Apostle gave us the story of Jesus as he saw it and heard it. He said that he could have written so much more. The other gospels – Matthew, Mark, and Luke – were already circulating through the Christian communities by the time John got around to telling his version of the events. The timing of this gospel was likely the 90s of the first century, so this Apostle, the only one alive at the time, chose to tell things in his own way from the vantage point of “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (John 20:2).

I am grateful to John for giving us so many of the words of Jesus. More than 65 percent of John features sayings from the Savior. This means that the Apostle wrote in such a way so as to let the Son tell us about Himself.

In John 20, we read about Resurrection Day. Here, John had to devote his focus on the important details of that original Easter Sunday. And as a result we have fewer words from Jesus in these passages.

Oh, what words we do have here!

There are words to the sorrowing, to the cowering, and to the doubting. There are words of promise and hope and mission.

The Sound of Her Name

The disciples had spent an agonizing and sleepless Sabbath after the body of their Master was taken from the Cross, wrapped in linen, and laid in the tomb. The stone was rolled in place. It was sealed by the Roman authorities. A crew of centurions got orders to watch over the dead Son for He had said:

“The Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill Him. And after He is killed, He will rise the third day” (Mark 9:31).

The third day dawned, and Mary Magdalene came to find the stone moved and her Lord gone. She ran to fetch Peter and John. These two raced to the tomb and found it as she had said.

Both men were baffled and fearful. Even though they had heard Jesus speak of His rising, they remained mystified. And rather than stay and rejoice – or just stay and investigate the scene – Peter and John went home, leaving Mary there alone.

Perhaps, Peter and John dashed home as fast they could to make arrangements for their escape. They could have been preparing to run away from Jerusalem, as a couple of disciples would do, according the account found in Luke 24. For certain the disappearance of Christ’s body was going to become a cause célèbre, and all connected to Jesus were going to be marked ones.

Mary couldn’t leave, however. She wept as she surveyed the empty tomb. Angels were there and asked of the reason for her tears. “They have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where He is,” she told them and turned away.

Just then there was Another standing before her; He was the gardener she presumed.

There was once another Garden and another woman, the only woman actually. That woman heard the whispers of deception and slander. She listened and because she did, she fell for the lie and soon she wept in shame and hid away in fear.

In this garden, the woman Mary would hear afresh the Voice of Truth. It was the Voice of the One who set her free, and the Voice of the One who came to make undone all the ravages of defeat that began in that place called Eden.

 “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” This One said to Mary. She begged Him for her Master’s corpse. She wanted to see Jesus once more, even if He was lifeless as she thought He was. She spun from Him and sobbed out her heartbreak

 “Mary.”

So came to her ears the sound of her name, in a Voice that spoke to her pain.

“Mary.”

Spoken by the Voice she knew so well. Those bitter tears of ache and loss were transformed into ones of joy and wonder.

“Rabboni!”

She shouted as she reached to hold Him tight. This tender encounter with this woman once haunted and controlled by demons was the first sign demonstrated by the Firstborn from the Dead.

Like John, she was a disciple who saw herself as much beloved. Her deep love brought her to the tomb site by first light that morning. A woman, this woman, would receive the first words from resurrected lips.

Jesus had places to be and things to do; He had to get her to let go, so He could get going. He did, however, give her a significant message to share:  “Go to My brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’” (John 20:17).

Tell them, Mary did. And all through that day she also testified – “I have seen the Lord.”

A Surprise Visit

For their part, the disciples remained on lockdown and mired in disbelief of Mary and her report. The news from the tomb traveled about. Any sound of footsteps struck terror in these shut-ins. They feared for their lives. They took no chances. Doors were bolted tight. Windows were closed.

“Peace be with you.”

Jesus spoke, with His scarred hands held out and His wounded side made to be seen. He who was hung on the execution tree of Rome only days earlier stood before them.

Can you see them there? Stunned and silent, the mouths open with no power to utter even a sound. Mary had to be beaming as the reality of His Presence confirmed what she had been telling them all along.

“Peace be with you. As the Father has sent Me, even so I am sending you.”

The Savior once dead, was now alive – just as He told them He would be. Joy filled that room as He breathed out a word of promise upon them:

“Receive the Holy Spirit.”

One of them was absent from this amazing scene. Thomas missed it.

“We have seen the Lord,” the disciples said. To be fair, Thomas reacted as the others had reacted when Mary said that she saw Jesus.

Thomas said he had to have more to go on. His unbelief needed help. He had to touch the hands and the side of the Savior. That was the kind of proof he needed.

Jesus gave this gift to Thomas.

“Peace be with you.”

This greeting was sounded out again into the room locked tight. Eight days had come and gone. This time Thomas was present. The Son showed Himself and went straight to the doubter and bid Thomas to feel His scars.

“Do not disbelieve, but believe.” 

Thomas dropped to his knees. He worshipped Jesus with a loud shout:  “My Lord and my God!”

Believe

 Jesus chided this follower gently:  “Have you believed because you have seen Me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29).

That last sentence refers to us, of course. We have not seen Him in the flesh, but we read the words about Him as the Word made flesh – words that carry sacredness because of what they do in us. These words have changed people just like us down through the ages.

The Savior meets us where we are, just as we are. And it is comforting to read that those who were so close to Him — close enough to touch His wounded and scarred skin — were sad and frightened and skeptical as we sometimes are.

For every one of them and for every one of us, He has words of life and healing. He knows us and calls us. We hear words of forgiveness and hope, and we hide them in our hearts.

We believe and we have life in His Name – Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God. We are His brothers and sisters, made one with Him and in Him, living before our Father and our God.

Peace be with us.