–Lloyd E. Foley  (Spirit of Lone Warrior)

       “The LORD shall go forth like a mighty man; He shall stir up His zeal like a man of war.  He shall cry out, yes, shout aloud; He shall prevail against His enemies.”

                         –Isaiah 42:13 (NKJV)
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There has been some argument in recent years that the Magi were not at the birth of Christ and that He was probably close to two years old when they came.  Partly right, maybe.  He was called a “Child” but that does not mean He was not still a baby.  Definitely, according to Matthew 2:11, He was in a house.  It does not change the story, or the wonder of it all along with the “Star.”  Most likely a small house became available shortly after the birth of Jesus and Joseph moved his family to more accommodating housing.  But look at who the Magi sought,

       “…Behold wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is He who has been born King of the Jews?  For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.’…  And when they had come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down and worshiped Him.  And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to Him:  gold, frankincense, and myrrh.”
                    –Matthew 2:1-2, 11 (NKJV)

       Age, it is not mentioned.  He could have been older, possibly a toddler, or still a baby crawling around.  Whichever, He was under two years of age, due to Herod’s declaration to slaughter the infant males of Bethlehem and its districts.
       The wise men must have recognized that He was to be a king.  They didn’t take back their gifts, they presented them before the Lord.  They were slightly mistaken, however, for He was far more than the “King of the Jews.”  Who they saw, baby or young child, was the King of Glory.  We must never forget and get caught up in the oohing and awing about the cuddly, cute baby that this baby was God Incarnate!  He was more than a mere Child, He was God lying in the manger or crawling through the house.  I like what Alistair Begg wrote on this,

        “At Christmas, many of us feel tremendously cozy as we think about the familiar Nativity story.  Filled with all kinds of sentimentalism, it is entirely possible for us to completely disengage from the whole panorama of God’s purpose:  to allow familiarity with the scene to blind us to the awe-inspiring truth that as we look at the baby in a Bethlehem manger, we are looking in on the Servant of God.  This Servant, Jesus, had a mission…”

       Read Isaiah 42:1-9 and contemplate the message of the Christ–the Child–coming as the supreme Servant, but also as a King.  I will call especially to your attention a couple of verses, “I am the LORD, that is My name; and My glory I will not give to another, nor My praise to carved images.  Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them.”  (Isaiah 42″8-9, NKJV)
       As the song declares, every time Mary kissed the Baby’s face she was kissing the face of God.  WOW!  The Magi partially right, recognized a king, but it goes much deeper.    David cried, “Who is this King of glory?  The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle.  Lift up your heads, O you gates!  Lift up, you everlasting doors!  And the King of glory shall come in.  Who is this King of glory?  The LORD of hosts, He is the King of glory.”  (Psalm 24:8-10, NKJV)
       So this Christmas season in adoring the Nativity and all that goes with it never forget that this Child is the King of glory.  He was more than a mere child, yet He came into this world as a child.  He allowed Himself to become man so that He could fulfill His mission and redeem mankind.  Who is this King of glory?  John tell us that He is the, “KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.” (Revelation 19:16, NKJV)

                         –Zane Grey  (The Rainbow Trail)

       “So when they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own city, Nazareth.”

                         –Luke 2:39 (NKJV)
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I have thought often of Joseph.  He must have been an extraordinary man.  The first thing we read about him, other than the genealogy is,  “And Joseph her [promised] husband, being a just and righteous man and not wanting to expose her publicly to shame, planned to send her away and divorce her quietly.” (Matthew 1:19, Amplified)  Before God and before man Joseph was a just and righteous man.
       Joseph had his plans set on a wedding, and having Mary as his bride.  Then he found out that she was pregnant.  We are not told how he found out; whether or not she told him, but the Scripture does say that “he thought about these things” (Matthew 1:20).  He wanted to do the right thing.  He wanted to act in a rightful manner.  It wasn’t immediately after he found out that Mary was with child that he received an answer; it was while he was thinking about Mary, and the right thing to do.  A dream came to him, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.”  (Matthew 1:20, NKJV)
       We do not see any questioning.  We do not see concern or being fretful, but we see obedience and faithfulness on the part of Joseph.  This was a man, who probably inside was in awe, who obeyed the voice of the Lord.  He took on the task of being the earthly father of the holy Son of God.  WOW!  Think of the responsibility!  It is a great responsibility to be a father.  That is one of the major problems in our country today–the lack of fathers taking their rightful responsibility.  There is one segment of society where 76% of families to do not have a father providing the leadership and the security that is his responsibility.  Then, how many families have what we would call “dead-beat dads”?  Men who are there in body only, but do not recognize their role as a father.  Oh they may be a buddy to a child, they may take them places once in a while thinking that the occurrence makes them a father, but they are not there to guide, to discipline, to teach.
       Joseph was a man who took on the responsibility to raise Jesus.  He was a man who was very familiar with the Old Testament, and now it was his duty to raise the One who would bring in the New Testament.  He must have been a man who was looking for the Messiah, and I wonder if he knew that he was raising the Messiah?  Notice, Mary was visited by Gabriel to tell her the good news and of her being chosen, but it was to Joseph that the messages came.  He was told to marry her, he was told what to name the child, he was told to leave Bethlehem, and he was told to return from Egypt.  The word of the Lord came to Joseph and he acted upon it.
       “And did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn Son.  And he [Joseph] called His name JESUS.” (Matthew 1:25, NKJV)  Here we have a man listening to the word in a dream, knowing the written word, and was going to be responsible in raising the living Word.  How about that for responsibility?  Upon Joseph lay the responsibility of raising Jesus in the words of the Law.  It was up to Joseph to name Him, to take Him to the temple and to present Him to the Lord.  What we see following that is, “And the Child grew and became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him.” (Luke 2:40, NKJV)
       In our day, the man of the house is to be ridiculed.  He is to be mocked, and as C.S. Lewis said, made to be a man without a chest.  No backbone in today’s society–that would not be true of Joseph.  He would have been a hard worker, he would have provided for his family both in the area of security, sustenance, and spiritual.  He was not rich, but he had a work ethic and he was a man of character.  He was a man who might not stand out in the crowd, but he was a man who stood out to the Father.  Upon this man–Joseph–was laid the burden and responsibility of raising His Son.

                         –Elmer Kelton  (Shotgun)

       “And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”

                         –Matthew 1:21(NKJV)
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I came across this little bit of history many years ago.  I’m not sure where I found it, possibly Guideposts.  The author of the article is Elizabeth Sherrill.  It’s a little different from my normal devotion, but the information is inspiring.  The title is, “Christmas, 1818.”

       My husband and I were staying in the little village of Oberndorf, Austria, when the letter reached us last December.
       “You picked the right Christmas to be away!” our friend began.  Our church back home–St. Mark’s in Mt. Kisco, New York–he went on, was having the asbestos insulation removed from the heating pipes in the basement.  Since the air intake for the organ was also in the basement, this meant that so long as asbestos dust was being created, the in-strument could not be played.  If the job wasn’t finished by Christmas Eve, our friend continued, he and his wife would go to church elsewhere:  “Can you imagine the midnight service without the organ?”
       I put the letter on the windowsill and looked across the swirling gray water of the Salzach River to the distant Alps.  The Salzach takes a horseshoe loop at Oberndorf, and where the river curves, a church used to stand.  High water had eaten away its foundations, and eventually the building was torn down.  But I wanted to tell our friend about the vanished church.  Because there too, one Christmas Eve, the organ was silent…
       Damp from the river had corroded the pipes until by Christmas Eve, 1818, the organ in Oberndorf was emitting only a wheezy whisper–and the itinerant organ mender was not due in the village till the following week.
       The bad news especially affected two young men.  One was the 31-year-old church organist, Franz Gruber.  As a boy, Franz had often been beaten for sneaking away from his linen loom to take music lessons.  Now he had worked hard rehearsing the village choir for the midnight service.  But to ask them to sing the elaborate Christmas chorales unaccompanied was out of the question, and Franz Gruber was in despair.
       Equally distressed was the 25-year-old pastor, Joseph Mohr.  An illegitimate child educated for the priesthood on the charity of the church, Joseph had only recently been ordained.  He’d dreamed of making this Christmas celebration an especially glorious one, but here it was December 24, and no organ!
       Joseph did own a guitar.  But a guitar could hardly substitute for the organ on a night like this, with its tradition of elaborate fugues and cantatas.  If only there were some melody simple enough for a guitar to carry alone, with homely words to capture the holiness of this night.
       Even as the wish formed itself, the words began to come.  The young priest seized a scrap of paper and began to write, his quill pen racing across the page.
       It was afternoon of Christmas Eve when Joseph showed the little poem to the organist.  Could Franz set the words to a melody for the guitar?  Franz Gruber said he would try.
       The choir was assembling by the time he finished.  It was too late to teach them the whole piece, so Joseph and Franz decided to sing the song as a duet, with the choir repeating just the last line of each verse.
       And so it was that the disgruntled congregation, muttering over their mute and useless organ, heard instead the new pastor’s tenor voice and the bass voice of their organist, sing a song to the plucking of a guitar, with the choir echoing the final words.
       The words stuck in the worshipers’ minds, and so did the tune; many were humming it as they left the church.
       They were still humming it when the organ mender arrived in Oberndorf a few days later.  He liked the song so well he committed both the words and music to memory and played it as he journeyed from town to town.  In the Tirol a group of traveling singers added it to their repertoire.
       Joseph Mohr and Franz Gruber never knew the end of the story.  Neither man guessed that the song they had created the night the organ failed was to become the world’s most popular Christmas carol.
       But it was about that original organless service back in 1818 that I wanted to write our friend.  There must have been many in that congregation who’d been tempted to go somewhere else that night.  And that would have been too bad.  They would have missed the chance to see what God can do with bad news.  They would not have been in Oberndorf to hear the very first singing of “Silent Night, Holy Night.”

     Amazing how God can work through man.  It is important to remember, not just at Christmas, that we can worship the Lord any time, any place.  Worship comes from the heart; it is a lifestyle.  I don’t know who said it, but there’s truth to the following–“You can’t always have a good day.  But you can always face a bad day with a good attitude.”