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    Dec 24, 2015

    Stable Talk

    Stable Talk

    Passage: Micah 5:2-4

    Preacher: EricStapleton JohnRepsold

    Series: Christmas 2015- Stable Talk

    Category: Holiday

    Keywords: changes, innkeeper, plans, shepherds, stable, joseph. mary

    Summary:

    This Christmas Eve devotional focuses on the "stable talk" that might have happened in the heads, hearts and conversation of those who were actually at the stable the night of Jesus' birth. The theme is that God's best is often not our first choice.

    Detail:

    Stable Talk

    Christmas Eve 2015

    [Eric’s Drama:  Stable Talk

    Joseph

    So, my dad says that when putting a project together, you need to make a plan and a to do list. He says you can have lots of things on your to do list but there can only be one “1” thing. Although, you can have lots of twos and threes and fours even but you can only have one number one. So I figured the thing that I had to do, the number one thing that is, was find a safe place for Mary to have her baby. And that’s a very natural thing for a husband to do for his wife except, technically speaking, I’m not her husband… Yet. And the whole thing would not have been so hard if we could have just had the baby in Nazareth, you know. And that was the plan, reasonable right? I mean, the bigger plan is to make a life in Nazareth, I’m a carpenter and that’s what we’re going to do as soon as we’re done here.  And it didn’t bother me, well it bothered me a little, that all my neighbors did not want me in Nazareth anymore when they found out Mary, my fiancé was already pregnant. It would give the neighborhood a bad name. I was going to stay and do it anyway but there was this census to take into consideration and our hands were kind of forced. The Roman government said we all had to go back to our hometown and register for the census. This was not part of my original plan. It wasn’t on my to do list, it wasn’t a number 4, or a number 3 and definitely not a number 1. The Original plan, the original original plan was to marry Mary but that got interrupted by God’s plan or God’s version of the original plan. So this necessitated a plan B except now really we’re on plan C because …oh I don’t even know anymore. So, we made arrangements to take Mary to Bethlehem. I am able to rent some camels and we’re ready go but Mary insists that it has be a donkey, a colt, the foal of donkey and we got to make sure we swing through Jerusalem first. I don’t even that part or what that has do with anything. I know she’s my wife and she’s so young but…she has some nuts ideas sometimes. The number one thing is finding a safe place to have the baby. So, we get to Bethlehem fully expecting to stay with family, especially since Mary is nine months pregnant! It turns out that is precisely the reason the family won’t let us stay with them. ‘Unclean’ they say, and not because don’t believe that the child is from God, “of course we believe you,” but Moses’s law dictates that ‘blah blah…’ besides, a crying baby will wake everybody up. Everything was totally out of control. I don’t like that. What’s the point of making a plan when that plan is just going to get trashed by … well, God? Wasn’t I relieved to find out there was an Inn nearby.

    Innkeeper

    Nobody likes these Romans. Really they ain’t half bad though. They’ve been really good for business. Take this census for instance. This has been terrific. I’m making money hand over fist. Finally, thanks to the Romans, I’m totally in control of my financial situation. I have this business, I have an Inn, a little hotel. We serve food, a little wine, new wine that is. But I have all these restrictions. I got permits from the Romans plus taxes. I can’t be open on Friday night (Sabbath) which is when all the drunken Roman soldiers want stay somewhere else besides their barracks. These restrictions cut into your profits. But then this census becomes the law of the land and turns everything around. Total game changer. I’m open 24/7 I got people coming in from all over the Israel. And you get all types. For instance I get this guy who says his wife is pregnant and they need a place so she can have her baby. She wasn’t even pregnant. She had swaddling cloths stuffed up her shirt. How do I know? They weren’t married. They guy says they’re married but they’re not married and that it’s complicated. Yeah, it’s complicated alright. Besides, I know what a married man smells like, any prostitute or innkeeper could tell you that this was “Mr. and Mr. Smith” if you know mean. This is a respectable place and we don’t put up with no hanky panky…not without a surcharge anyway, and these garlic eaters didn’t look like they had two shekels to rub together.  I’m the boss, I’m the one decides who stays here and who doesn’t, I’m the one get to judge who’s pregnant and who’s not pregnant. So, I sent them round the back to the stable to have their baby…well, sometimes you just can’t never tell. And here’s the kicker, a few, three, four hours later a bunch of mangy, flea bitten shepherds come around with some cockamamie story saying that the angels were talking to them…

    Shepherd

    “this will be assigned to you, you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” Dude, don’t you get it? This is our assignment. We’re on a mission from God, man. When God speaks, we got to listen and obey. You know, we gotta just put our plans to the side. That’s what I’m talking about here. We are totally not in control, you know what I mean? Just trying to keep it real, bro.

    Joseph

    That’s when it hit me. When those shepherds just walked in all wide eyed with wonder. That’s when I realized that this whole thing was 100% God’s plan. Who better to welcome a shepherd into the world than other shepherds? Who better to watch over our little lamb than those who tend sheep? I’m curious though, what does a carpenter have to do with the destiny of this child? I work with wood, strip it, stain it, and hammer nails into it. What do a hammer, nails, and a sinful man like myself, have to do with God’s Son? I don’t know yet but in light of all this….I don’t need to know how it all plays out. I don’t why this had to happen in a stable or in Bethlehem for that matter. Mary thinks she knows but I’m not so sure. I just need to know that God is in control of it, I’m not and he is good.]  

    Shepherds, a carpenter, a pregnant teenager about to deliver, a crowded inn, a Roman census, angels, crowds of people, weary travelers—they were all part of Bethlehem that night when Jesus Christ was born. 

                But it was really a very select group…of very down-to-earth people…who had any inkling of what was unfolding that night.  In fact, it might have been just those who found themselves in the stable that night—Joseph, Mary, a handful of shepherds, perhaps an innkeeper and anyone else who might have stumbled upon God invading human history.

                Eric helped us imagine what some of the “stable talk” might have been that night…at least in the minds of these few onlookers.  But God had been speaking about this night for centuries down through the corridors of time.  In fact, 7 centuries before, God had whispered to his prophet, Micah, about this night that would change the course of human history like none other.  In His message to Micah, God revealed precisely what city would host His entrance into humanity.

    Micah 5:2-4

    “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
        though you are small among the clans of Judah,
    out of you will come for me
        one who will be ruler over Israel,
    whose origins are from of old,
        from ancient times.”

    3 Therefore Israel will be abandoned
        until the time when she who is in labor bears a son….

    4 He will stand and shepherd his flock
        in the strength of the Lord,
        in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
    And they will live securely, for then his greatness
        will reach to the ends of the earth.

    A “ruler over Israel” who existed “from of old”, one whose greatness will “reach to the ends of the earth” because he will shepherd people from all over this earth!  Only God could have made that prophecy come true. 

    But what nobody saw coming was that THE most important birth in human history would happen in…a stable, of all places. 

    • There would be no attending physician or even midwife, only a totally unprepared young husband.
    • There would be no climate-controlled hospital, only a drafty street-level stable or cave.
    • There would be no sterile sheets for Mary to lie on, only straw, hopefully fresh…at best.
    • There would be no soft baby blankets with which to wrap the newborn, only swaddling clothes… strips of cloth, to be exact.
    • There would be no warm incubator, no beautiful baby bassinet in which the infant could sleep, only a bovine feeding trough filled with, if they were lucky, scratchy clean hay.
    • There were no bright lights under which to examine the health of this child or get an Apgar reading, only the faint glow of a lamp or 2 penetrating the rodent-riddled darkness.
    • There were no adoring relatives doting over the new parents and child…only the dark eyes of a few donkeys or perhaps the innkeeper’s cow looking down from the shadows.
    • When visitors finally arrived that night, they brought no gifts like the Eastern wise men would in later years. They came dressed in their work clothes… from the fields where they had been sheep-herding.  When they entered Bethlehem, they searched, not the inns or estates of the wealthy where one might expect to find a promised Messiah, but surrounding caves and stables where one would never have looked if you had not been told to look there first-hand from angels.  At last they found the sign they were searching for—a newborn baby… weighing less than a lamb, swaddled in long strips of torn cloth, using a feed trough for a cradle. 
    • With dirt under their fingernails and hands as rough as tree bark, these humble graveyard shift workers…reached out to touch… the face of God.

    As the drama reminded us, none of this was expected.  None of this was going according to plan…at least according to human plans. 

    But in the muck and mess of a Roman census that had forced thousands of people to make the uncomfortable trek to family birthplaces, God’s plan was right on track. 

    You see, sometimes life’s most confusing and inconvenient developments are precisely the plan of God. 

                Way back at the beginning of the human race, in the Garden of Eden, after Adam and Eve had so thoroughly messed with God’s best by choosing the path of sinful rebellion rather than faithful obedience, God unfolded a bit more of His mysterious but divine plan.  In the midst of judging the creation from top to bottom, God gave a clue about what he would do to undo the devilish work of the Serpent when he said to Satan,

                “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers….”  Then speaking specifically of the coming Messiah Jesus whom we celebrate tonight, God said, “He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel” (Gen. 3:15).  Satan would strike a painful blow to the promised Messiah (the woman’s offspring), but God would strike a mortal blow to Satan. 

    Fast-forward several thousand yeasrs to the night we celebrate tonight, the birth of the Messiah Jesus.  Certainly having a child before completing the marriage union was not Mary’s “plan” for life. But it was God’s. Certainly facing the ridicule of neighbors, family members and even strangers at the claim of a “virgin conception and birth” was not Mary’s “Friends and Family Plan.”  But it was God’s.

                For Joseph, being a poor working class carpenter was not his dream “plan”; but it was God’s.

    Being on the road with a pregnant wife wasn’t even #2, 3 or 4 “plan” for this man.  And certainly, having their 1st child while away from home was not Joseph’s #1 “plan” either.  But it was God’s.  Using a barn for a delivery room wasn’t “their plan”…but it was God’s.

                When it came to shepherds, you can be sure that being half scared out of your wits was not the their idea of a good night in the field; but it was God’s.  Searching for a newborn most of the night in stable after stable in that little town of Bethlehem instead of sleeping peacefully at the sheepfold was not the shepherds’ plan; but it was God’s.  Touching the face of God with rough, dirty hands was probably not their plan when they went to bed that night; but it was God’s.

    You see, our plans are not God’s plans much of the time.  But God’s plans are always best, even when they include unexpected or unpleasant surprises. 

    • God knew that a virgin birth was needed to separate His Son Jesus from the sin of Adam and all who came before Jesus.
    • God knew that a poor carpenter was the best earthly father for His Son to have, God’s Only Begotten Son, who would one day be nailed to a cruel cross in order to take away your sin and mine.
    • God knew that Bethlehem was the best place…really the ONLY place…where the Messiah could be born if He were to fulfill that prophecy about his birth.
    • And God knew that shepherds were the perfect guests to have at the birth of the Good Shepherd of the souls of people.

    So as we contemplate God’s great plan in the midst of our lives of undone plans, let me invite you to come and worship before Jesus Christ, the one who planned his own humble birth into human flesh and his own terrible humiliation and death on a cross…all so that His BEST plan could be worked out in your life and mine. 

                The best and deepest act of worship any of us can give to our God who gave himself to us is simply embrace Him by faith. 

    • (Invite people to receive the gift of life with God in Jesus Christ.)
    • Invite people to trust God and His love to be working out His plan despite our limited vision in life.