A Christmas Devotional Journey: Week 5

Meredith Flynn —  December 30, 2013

Christmas_bannerWeek 5: Home to obscurity

Read Matthew 2:19-25

Once again Joseph is the unsung hero. He is sensitive to God’s leading as he takes his stepson Jesus home. Joseph dreams, angels speak, God warns, Joseph turns. If anyone can say “wherever He leads, I’ll go,” it’s Joseph.

The carpenter sets up shop in Nazareth. He makes a home there with his young wife and “their” boy. And the Son of God lives in obscurity for the next 30 years.

“What good can come of Nazareth?” one disciple would ask later as Jesus emerged into public ministry. Well, to answer the question, the Messiah.

God chooses “the sticks” as the place to bring up the Savior of the World. And he chooses a rough-hewn woodworker to serve as His Son’s stepdad. And He chooses as his mother a little-known young woman whose only qualification is to say “whatever you want is fine with me” when an angel announces God’s wonderous plan.

In this obscurity, God quietly works to rescue remote, undeserving people. The King of Kings is willing to move to our neck of the woods, to endure obscurity, embrace humanity, and suffer ignominy on Calvary for our redemption.

Pray Lord, take your rightful place over all Your creation. Reign over my life this Christmas and always. Amen.

In Heartland , ,
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Meredith Flynn

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Meredith is managing editor of the Illinois Baptist newspaper.

One response to A Christmas Devotional Journey: Week 5

  1. 
    Michael Henderson December 30, 2013 at 8:10 am

    So esteemed was the place where Jesus was raised that He preached His inaugural sermon there from Is. 61:1,2 (see also Luke 4:16-21). Surely the people of Galilee were blessed.

    “Nevertheless the gloom will not be upon her who is distressed, As when at first He lightly esteemed The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, And afterward more heavily oppressed her, By the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, In Galilee of the Gentiles. The people who walked in darkness Have seen a great light; Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, Upon them a light has shined.”
    Isaiah 9:1-2 (NKJV)

    That area in the region of Naphtali had been heavily oppressed by foreign invaders such as the Assyrians and were carried away captive. It seems they were the first to suffer darkness and the first to see the light of the Messiah!

    God bless

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