05/01/2024
THE NOBODY’S OF CHRIST.
We constantly search for “relevant to today” ways to present the Christian experience with authority, vitality & power.
“International Speaker”, “Powerful Evangelist”, “World renowned Minister of the Gospel” are catch words to draw attendance to conferences & church services.
Perhaps it is time we were reminded how “ordinary people” were drafted into the greatest story ever told.
When important people come to town, everyone one knows it. Sports stadiums sell out months before a celebrity arrives. People pay substantial money to obtain entry tickets (often for standing room only, or so far at the rear seats they observe on Video screens).When Sports persons & entertainers make public appearances, hundreds (thousands) of screaming fans show up hours ahead of time for a glimpse of their hero & idol.
When “Officials” & “Important guest” visitors arrive, they are greeted by Prime Ministers, Premiers, Mayors & other dignitaries, while the Media go mad with coverage & acclimation to present the best story for profit.
And all the while God says;
Luke 18:10-25. How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the Kingdom of God! “For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.”
When the Bible presents the Jesus narrative He does it entirely different. Mankind enjoys the fanfare & loud noise. Yet, when God speaks or shows Himself He is most often in a whisper & enters at the servant’s door. (1 Kings 19:11-13).
The most important person in the history of the world came to town late one night and found room in a barn. Jesus was smuggled into Bethlehem through the womb of a teenage girl, who gave birth in a barn. That’s different. God uses ordinary people in ordinary ways to perform extraordinary events!
We all know the story of Christmas: the baby, the barn, the shepherds and magi. We love the story of baby Jesus born in a manger surrounded by animals (baby lambs, & little calves etc.) But within that story, there is another story we need to see that reveals something about God & how He works in real life.
God isn’t in the celebrity business.
Luke ch.1-2. When we examine the event we observe a bunch of nobodies. There was no parade, no celebrity or advertisement of intended attendance & official welcome. God used the nobodies of the day to herald in the greatest event of all time. The arrival of the Saviour of the world! The course of man changed & prophesy fulfilled over the next 33yrs using the nobodies of the world.
Mary was a teenage girl from a small town. In Biblical times, small town women were not of any importance, teenagers even lower on the scale. Mix in her premarital pregnancy, and you’ve got a real nobody & shame job on your hands. Mary was chosen by God’s choice. She conceived the baby Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit.
God considered this nobody girl as somebody honourable and gave her a pretty tough assignment!
Joseph was the local Tradie. He was just a working man carpenter. “Nobody” special! He was faced with a choice between trusting God and protecting his small town family reputation. But reputations belong to important people, and most of the important people were in Jerusalem.
Joseph said yes to the shame, yes to love and yes to God, & God chose Joseph as the foster-father to the Saviour of the world.
The publican didn’t have a room at the inn but allowed them the stable to rest in comfort with the animals.
Shepherds are not important people, just the opposite: hired help who work outdoors. Minders of sheep was not exactly a celebrity rock-star kind of gig.
Yet they were the first guests invited to the celebration; they saw the skies torn open and heard the song of heaven.
In just one winter night, these social misfits witnessed more of God's glory than all the priests in Jerusalem could ever imagine.
The Magi: (Matt 2:1-13). they were nothings, rich pagan astrologers. It didn’t matter that they had money; they were foreigners. Foreigners have the wrong religion, the wrong clothes, and the wrong sacred books, yet the Father invited these rich pagan astrologers, strangers in Israel, to celebrate the birth of the King.
Elizabeth and Zechariah were a kindly old couple engaged in harmless religious activity. They are the kind of people society ignores or simply doesn’t notice. (Except when driving slowly in the outside lane on the Freeway). This childless couple found themselves unexpectedly drafted to care for and raise the greatest prophet of the Old Testament tradition, John the Baptist. (Another nobody wearing a camel hair coat & eating bugs) the forerunner (& cousin) to the Messiah. “Prepare the way of the Lord”
Anna and Simeon: Alone and elderly, they were two people almost completely invisible in Jerusalem. Invisible to everyone except the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit of God had been whispering to them for decades that they would witness the most important event in human history. Even after they held the baby Jesus that day in the Temple, the world would have considered them people at the fringe of society, yet Simeon and Anna were in on God's plan decades before the rest of the world knew what was going on.
The message inside the baby Jesus story declares clearly; God invites the nobodies. And when God invites you to the table, He provides everything you need. The powerful people, the beautiful people and woke crew might not make it to the celebration.
They’re welcome, been invited, but they might be too busy taking care of business, or being important somewhere else.
And God’s kingdom is filling up with the people no one notices, perhaps nobody cares about.
Luke 19: 1-10.
Luke 14:6-24.
As we enter the New Year ahead; if you’re nobody, rejoice!
You are noticed by God & perhaps not so far from His notice as you imagine
