Luke 1:26-27

"Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary." Luke 1:26-27

Some of the greatest people have come from lowly births. Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin and was raised in rural Illinois. John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim's Progress, was born to a craftsman. There is no denying that both men have made great inroads into human history. There is another born of lowly birth. Day before yesterday we talked about Jesus' divinity. Today we will look at his human birth.

The wise men from the east certainly didn't expect to find the new King where they did. You recall that they stopped in Jerusalem first. After all, Jerusalem was the home of the governing ruler. It seems logical that the son of a king would be found in a royal palace. Instead, the scholars of Jerusalem sent them to Bethlehem, and the star led them to a stable behind an inn. There, lying in a manger and wrapped in the garb of poor infants, they found Jesus, the newborn King. They did not seem particularly repulsed at the idea of finding a king there, though I suspect they had some interesting conversations on the way home!

But the story did not begin in Bethlehem. Indeed, the physical birth of Jesus began in Nazareth when the Angel of the Lord spoke to a young engaged girl named Mary. He made an announcement that every woman of childbearing age in Israel had hoped to hear, she was chosen to be the bearer of the Son of God, the Deliverer of Israel, the long awaited Messiah. Of course Mary though the infant would be the son of Joseph, her betrothed husband, but that was not to be. The angel promised that her son would be the direct descendant of God, the Father. In short, she would be an unwed mother bearing an illegitimate son. In Israel, a person did not get much lower and more humbled than that! And, to further complicate things, Joseph who took Mary as his wife any way, was just a simple carpenter. His prospects weren't great. He would never be able to send the Messiah to the proper schools so He could become a noted scholar who would be in a position to transform Israel. Yes, the birth of the Son of God was lowly.

Oh, there is one more thing that we need to discuss. The lineage of Jesus from His earthly parents went straight through the ages to King David! Mary, whose lineage Jesus bore by blood lead there. But God in His infinite wisdom knew that the Jews did not have much respect for a woman's lineage, therefore He had arranged for the visible father of the King of Kings to be from the same family line as well! It is a certainty that Jesus had a human side to Him. And this is important. Some thirty years after His birth, Jesus would begin His ministry with a period of temptation. If he were purely God, this would have been nothing to brag about. But His humanness made the temptation real. Three times Satan tried to get Jesus to forsake His true role as redeemer and follow the "path less traveled." Three times Jesus rebuked the devil and resisted the temptation, even though He knew the ultimate outcome of His ministry on a Passover Day just three years later.

With the knowledge that Jesus is of human descent, we can rest assured that our flesh can overcome evil, for we who have been "born again" have been remade in the spiritual image of Jesus, the God-man, the Son of God and the Son of Mary. With the knowledge that Jesus is totally divine in His parentage, we have the assurance that we, having been made in His likeness, are true sons and daughters of God the Father and share in the same inheritance as Jesus! Amen and Amen.