Good Morning!
Yesterday we woke up to a winter wonderland here in SW Louisiana. There was snow everywhere! Since it's a rarity of course we had to get pictures. Here are a couple for you to enjoy.....
Over the last couple of months we've met Dr. David Biebel and he's shared
thoughts and
treasures with us and introduced us to his Christmas book,
Away in a Manger. Today Dave is sharing an excerpt with us.
Take it away Dave.....
Away in a Manger:
The Christmas Story from a Nativity Scene Lamb’s Point of View
(Excerpted from
Chapter 4: “Angelic Visitations”)
by Dr. David Biebel
This is how Jesus the
Messiah was born. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. But before
the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant
through the power of the Holy Spirit. Joseph, to whom she was engaged, was a
righteous man and did not want to disgrace her publicly, so he decided to break
the engagement quietly.
As he considered this,
an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. “Joseph, son of David,"
the angel said, “do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. For the child
within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit. And she will have a son, and you
are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."
All of this occurred
to fulfill the Lord’s message through his prophet:
“Look!
The virgin will conceive a child!
She will give birth to
a son,
and they will call him Immanuel, which means ‘God is with us.’
When Joseph woke up,
he did as the angel of the Lord commanded and took Mary as his wife. But he did
not have . . . relations with her until her son was born. And Joseph named him
Jesus.”
“To me, one
amazing part of this passage is the message of the angel in Joseph’s
dream," the pastor [narrator] said. “Joseph knew that Mary, to whom he was
engaged, was pregnant, and that he was not the father. But he was a just man
and he loved Mary, so he was going to divorce her secretly.
“Have you ever
wondered how the angel knew what Joseph was thinking? The point is that God
knows us through and through—our thoughts before we have them; our words before
we say them; our deeds before we do them. That is definitely a sobering truth,
and one that should motivate us to keep our mind stayed on him, for when we do
that, we are so much more likely to live a life that honors him.
“But
of course there’s another side to this story, and that is presented by Dr.
Luke, who must have interviewed Mary in order to obtain the details that are
included. Reading from Luke 1, in the New Living Translation:
In the sixth month of
Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in
Galilee, to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named
Joseph, a descendant of King David. Gabriel appeared to her and said,
“Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you!”
Confused
and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. “Don’t be afraid,
Mary,”
the angel told her, “for you have found favor with God! You will conceive and
give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be very great and
will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne
of his ancestor David. And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will
never end!”
Mary asked the angel,
“But how can this happen? I am a virgin”
The angel replied,
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will
overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the
Son of God. What’s more, your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old
age! People used to say she was barren, but she has conceived a son and is now
in her sixth month. For the word of God will never fail.”
Mary responded, “I am
the Lord’s servant.
May everything you
have said about me come true” And then the angel left her.
“So Mary went to
visit Elizabeth and this is what happened next," the pastor said:
She
entered the house and greeted Elizabeth. At the sound of Mary’s greeting,
Elizabeth’s
child leaped within
her, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
Elizabeth gave a glad
cry and exclaimed to Mary, “God has blessed you above all women, and your child
is blessed. Why am I so honored, that the mother of my Lord should visit me?
When I heard your greeting, the baby in my womb jumped for joy. You are blessed
because you believed that the Lord would do what he said."
Mary
responded,
“Oh,
how my soul praises the Lord.
How my spirit rejoices in God my Savior!
For he took notice of his lowly servant girl,
and from now on all generations will call me blessed.
For
the Mighty One is holy,
and he has done great things for me.
He
shows mercy from generation to generation
to all who fear him.
His
mighty arm has done tremendous things!
He
has scattered the proud and haughty ones.
He
has brought down princes from their thrones
and
exalted the humble.
He
has filled the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away with empty hands.
He
has helped his servant Israel
and remembered to be merciful.
For he made this promise to our ancestors,
to Abraham and his children forever."
As if on signal,
someone started playing a guitar and singing “Away in a Manger,” while the adults
and teens joined in loudly, and the children ran forward to pet the animals.
Many of them headed right for Ransom [the lamb] who was watching intently for [his
new friend] Jenny, but she was nowhere to be seen. His countenance fell, well
it fell as much as any lamb’s countenance can fall, but he knew he had to pay
attention to the other children, whose caresses took away his sadness in a very
short time.
On the way back
to the ranch, Ransom asked, “Mommy, what is ‘lineage’? Do I have one of those?”
“Everyone does,
dear,” she replied. “It means your parentage or family tree. This helps place a
person like Jesus in history, and shows how his lineage could be traced back to
King David, which was one element of the prophecies about him.”
“Is a family
tree like a spruce or an oak?” he asked.
“Well now, I’ve
never thought about it that way. An oak loses its leaves each year, but it also
grows a little bit with each new spring, and it branches out so if you look up
from the trunk, you can see branches in all directions, some of them with their
own branches off the main branch. Since the phrase ‘family tree’ is using the
idea of a tree that branches out, I’d say it’s more like an oak than a spruce.”
“So where am I
on our family tree?”
“You’re like a
bud at the very end of one of the branches. And if you become a father someday,
you’ll then become part of a branch that has grown even longer.”
“And you are
part of the same branch, only a little closer to the main trunk. I think I
understand. . . .” Ransom stopped mid-sentence. “But I must also have a father.
You’ve never mentioned him.”
“His name was
Virgil, and for many years he was the master ram of our herd. But this spring,
just after you were born, and I was not strong enough to defend you, he gave
his life to save us from a mountain lion. He won the battle, but the lion
wounded him so badly that there was nothing that could be done to save him.”
“Oh,” Ransom
replied, not knowing if he should be sad he’d never gotten to know his father,
or proud that his father had laid down his life to save the herd.
And for the
first time in a long time, he couldn’t think of anything else to say.
-----
NOTE: This article
is adapted from Away in a Manger: The Christmas Story from a Live
Nativity Scene Lamb’s Point of View, published (2017) by Healthy Life
Press, all rights reserved. No part of this book, including its segments or its
illustrations, may be copied, printed, or redistributed without the express,
written consent of the author. Original artwork is © Marina Calin.
Unless otherwise
noted, Scriptures are from The Holy Bible, New Living Translation Copyright © 1996,
2004, 2007, 2013 by Tyndale House Foundation, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All
rights reserved.
------
Dr. David B. Biebel is a minister, author, editor,
and publisher. He holds the Doctor of Ministry degree from Gordon-Conwell
Theological Seminary. He invested 25 of his 40-year ministry career in editing
two national magazines for Christian doctors: Physician magazine
for Focus on the Family, followed by Today’s Christian Doctor for
the Christian Medical & Dental Associations.
Dr. Biebel has authored or
co-authored twenty books, including one bestseller: If God Is So Good,
Why Do I Hurt So Bad? and the Gold Medallion winner, New Light
on Depression. His recent releases include Making God Visible and
his latest, Away in a Manger.
This full-color book is
available in two sizes, 6.5x6.5 and 8xl0 (Large Print). The ISBN for the 8xl0
(Large Print) version is: 978-1-939267-85-6, $15.99. The ISBN for the 6.5x6.5
version is: 978-1939267399, $12.99. It is also available for $6.99 as an eBook
in various formats, at Amazon.com or HealthyLifePress.com.
What a lovely way of presenting this story, Dave! We wish you the best of luck and God's blessings with it!
Well friends, hope you enjoyed today's spotlight and that you'll check back weekly for Tuesday Treasures, Thursday Thoughts and Saturday Spotlight.
Until next time take care and God bless.
PamT
