Denise Gallichio

CONSIDER THIS

Jesus came to us not only from a people and a story; he also came to us in a place: Bethlehem, in Israel.

Big cities hold great appeal to the modern mind. The lights, the activity, the opportunities, the options, and even the anonymity provide a draw to those wanting to experience the very best that life has to offer. In a city, you can get known. In a city, you can get whatever you want, whenever you want it. In a city, you can hide away, and perhaps no one will come knocking on your door because it takes too long to get there.

But for we who grew up in small towns, we had a different experience. The lights are quaint down at the hardware store, especially at Christmas and when the “A” in the neon sign is flickering. The activities are, well, limited. The opportunities are endless, if you know someone at one of the three businesses offering a job. The options are interesting for dining; in my town there was the pizza place and the breakfast place and a few other almost-out-of-business spots, and then the diner if you were in the mood for less gourmet cuisine. And as for anonymity, it’s pretty hard to escape the fact that literally everyone in your town probably knows where you live, and could guide someone to your house without even looking up your address.

Bethlehem seems to have been the latter. At the time of Jesus’ birth, the population may have been one thousand or less (some estimates say three hundred or less). Bethlehem is the birthplace of David, the son of Jesse the Bethlehemite (1 Sam. 16:1), the root from which Jesus comes to us. The name “Bethlehem,” in Hebrew, means the “House of Bread.” Beautiful. The Bread of Life comes into the world, in a small village named the “House of Bread” on the outskirts of Jerusalem. How fitting. A small town feeds the world, like the loaves of bread in Jesus’ hands fed the masses.

In my university years, I studied for a season at an institute on a hill near Bethlehem in Israel. Through a strange series of circumstances, after taking a bus across the country to ask for my wife’s hand in marriage (it’s a long story), I ended up being lost outside of Bethlehem at 2 a.m. I had gotten off the bus at the wrong stop, and there were no more buses to be found. When I was finally pointed in the direction of the school where I was staying, I had to run across a field to get home. For a moment, I paused, looked up at the stars, and thought, Jesus was born here. My eyes welled up, and I continued running to my destination.

From the small places, the out of the way places, the places where one wonders if anything good can come out of them, comes God’s greatest deliverance of all. “Though you are small,” little town, “out of you will come a ruler, who will shepherd my people Israel” (Mic. 5:2; Matt. 2:6).

Do you ever feel small, hidden, out of the way or misunderstood? If so, count it all joy. The Lord loves to come to, and work through, the small.

THE PRAYER

Jesus, you entered the world through the small. It’s from the small places, where our best intentions crash into our daily struggle, that your glory radiates. You know how small we can feel at times, how insignificant our day-to-day lives can feel in the scope of eternity. But it is in the small things you work, and we know you will work through us. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

THE QUESTIONS

• Are there small things you are doing right now that the Lord has led you to do, but you are wondering if they are significant?
• In light of today’s daily text, how might you see them in a different light?

Roots: Advent and the Family Story of Jesus by Dan Wilt

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.  Isaiah 7:14

CONSIDER THIS

Another Advent prophecy that feeds the roots of the family story of Christ is one that speaks into Christ’s coming to us in his first advent, and reflects into Christ returning to us in his second advent (or second coming). It is found in Isaiah 7:14 and carries the freight of the entire Christmas story in one, single sentence: Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.

The Lord himself is going to give a sign, according to the prophet, and that sign will be threefold in its clarity and provision: 1) a virgin will give birth, 2) the child will be a son, and 3) the child will be given the name “Immanuel.”

First, the Lord is God of the unexpected process. A virgin will have a child. That sentence doesn’t sound normal in any way. In other words, how we think a thing should happen, isn’t always the way (if ever) the Lord thinks it should happen. “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts’” (Isa. 55:8–9).

Second, the Lord is God of the human process. The child born will be a son. Unlike the sentence before it, that sentence actually sounds too normal. We seem to need more spiritual confetti and fireworks to confirm that God is present than God desires to give. Yes, there were many wonders that surrounded the birth of Jesus, but we have no indication that Jesus’ birth, in the stable with Mary and Joseph, was anything other than normal. A woman gave birth to a son. This is the Lord’s grand entrance, and sets the stage for the combined normalcy, and miraculous quality, of Jesus’ life among us.

Third, the Lord is God of the relational process. The child will be called Immanuel. In other words, there will be no distance between the covenant-making God and his beloved people. Jesus will say hello, will share meals, will walk and talk with us as anyone else would. But his name, and the meaning behind it, will make the relationships different than any other we could imagine.

Jesus’ name is Y’shua, or Joshua, which was a common Jewish boy’s name at the time. It means, “the Lord saves.” Yet Jesus’ name is infused by a powerful name unused by anyone else in the Scriptures—the name, Immanuel, “God with us.”,³ When Matthew uses the name in 1:23, he translates it for the reader to confirm the connection between the naming of Jesus and the naming prophecy in Isaiah 7. Then, at the end of his gospel, in 28:20, he confirms that Jesus, Immanuel, will be “with us” until the end of the ages.

The Father is whispering his agenda into the world by the very process we will see unfolding in Jesus’ birth. The Lord will be present with us, coming to us by an unexpected process, a very human process, and a very relational process. Here is the Advent God of the inconceivable, the conceivable, and the communal— the surprise, the normal, and the near.

In Immanuel, the Father is present to us, and says “Here I am.” In response, we say, “Here I am.” “Here I am” is one of the most powerful phrases that can be prayed by a human being; to be present to God, to be utterly attentive and wholly available, is the goal of the Christian life.In Jesus, the great I Am says to you, to me: “Here, I am.”
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^3. For more on this, I commend N. T. Wright’s Matthew for Everyone, Part 1 (Westminster: John Knox Press, 2004).

THE PRAYER

Immanuel, we are entering a day where knowing you are with us is as important as it will ever be. Here we are to respond to your “Here I am”; lead us in your ways as we encourage others to experience the nearness of your presence. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

THE QUESTIONS

• In what situations do you most sense the Lord’s name—Immanuel, God with us—being true to your relationship with him? In worship? In prayer?
• In this Christian New Year, how can you cultivate being present to Jesus as he is present to you?

Roots: Advent and the Family Story of Jesus by Dan Wilt

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.  Isaiah 9:6–7

CONSIDER THIS

Feeding the roots of Jesus’ family story are prophecies, this one delivered to and by the prophet Isaiah, who lived roughly seven hundred years before the birth of Christ. This Advent prophecy, beginning with the words, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given,” is brought out into the light every year as the Christian New Year begins.

While the world searches adamantly for gifted leaders to guide us, with their promises of a prosperous nation and a kinder
society, Jesus was given as a gift to us from a source beyond us—our Creator. The one who made us knows the exact kind of
leader we need.

Jesus was given to us, from the Father, for humanity and our condition, to lead each one of us from spiritual imprisonment to
the freedom of the new creation life. Jesus leads us from simply living to a life of awakening.

Jesus was given to us, from the Father, to model for us a mode of kingdom leadership that puts the Father’s ends and goals
first—a remarkable form of leadership that springs from an unwavering, transcendent perspective on what is best for us all.
Learned through intimacy with the Father, Jesus speaks what the Father speaks and does what the Father does in full view of us all (John 5:19; 12:49).

Jesus was given to us, from the Father, to establish a kingdom that would inhabit the human heart rather than a geopolitical location, an establishing of an inward reign by which a person is truly and utterly changed, and through which a renewed humanity would lead others to wholeness, to belovedness, and to the true shalom (peace) of God. Nations are collections of individuals, and Jesus pursued the individual knowing that changing the heart of one leads to changing the hearts of the many. The eternal government, the providential politics of Jesus, will always transcend the human structures so exposed and humbled by time.

Jesus was given to us, from the Father, in the form of a child. Innocence, growth, maturity, and dependence are integral to his
story, as they are integral to our own. In other words, he came like us, in every respect, that he might lead us into the fullness of being a child of God (Heb. 2:17).

Jesus was given to us, from the Father, named by names that characterize his divine-human life unveiled before us (John 1:9–13). He is called Wonderful. Amazing. Breathtaking. Beyond understanding. He is called Counselor. Guide. Educator. Encourager. He is called Mighty God. Strong. Immovable. Unchanging. He is called the Everlasting Father. Son of the Most High. One being with the Father (John 10:30; the Nicene Creed). He is called the Prince of Peace. Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operations Officer, and Chief Creative Officer of Shalom—the all-pervasive peace of God. Leadership is what the world needs from a Messiah—leadership that is motivated by pure, divine love and that is faithfully guiding us to the new creation ahead.

Be assured of this: Jesus will rule and reign over the kingdoms of this world, and they will become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ (Rev. 11:15). The Lord’s passion, the Lord’s energetic purpose, will make it so. Let it be, Lord; let it be.

THE PRAYER

Jesus, you come to us in a time when the ways and politics of humankind have failed us as much as they have served us. You choose the human heart to reign within, and we yield ours once again in this passage through Advent. Let our allegiance to you and your lordship rule over all other loyalties in my life. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

THE QUESTIONS

• In the past years, have you had any allegiances or loyalties that you felt ruled over your inward commitment to Christ from time to time? What were they, and how can you get back on track?

Roots: Advent and the Family Story of Jesus by Dan Wilt

But the Lord said to Samuel,“. . . The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” . . .

Then the Lord said, “Rise and anoint him; this is the one.”

So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers, and from that day on the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon David.  Ruth 1:16–17

CONSIDER THIS

“Once in royal David’s city,” goes the familiar Christmas carol. It reminds us of the ancient promise that through a royal family line, from the lineage of the great Hebrew King, David, the Messiah would be born. Our Advent verse returns to us: “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse [David’s father]; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit” (Isa. 11:1). David, the son of Jesse, will be a key star in the constellation of spiritual royalty that leads to the birth of the bright Morning Star (Rev. 22:16), Jesus—the King of the human heart.

David. In 1 Samuel 16, Samuel the prophet is told by the Lord to seek out the new king chosen to lead his people, a king God would choose from among the sons of Jesse of Bethlehem. Samuel finds Jesse and evaluates each of his sons, searching for kingly qualities and a royal bearing in each young man. But the Lord God will have none of it: “Do not consider his appearance or his height,” the Lord says. God knows exactly what he’s looking for. While Samuel looks on the outward appearance, God is looking on the heart (1 Sam. 16:7).

David is framed in history as a man after God’s own heart (1 Sam. 13:14; Acts 13:22). Why is he framed that way? He is anything but morally perfect and behaviorally sound. Power can corrupt, and David’s lusts led him into adultery and the murder of an innocent man. Once again, Jesus’ family tree, royal as it is, is full of the kinds of real people whose stories should make us all grateful that the Lord of abundant grace accepts and works with us just as we are.

What attributes did David show that made him so noteworthy as a man whose heart was after God’s own? David was a worshipper at heart. His focus on intimate praise and the acclaim of his Father in heaven fills the book of Psalms, which in turn has filled the hearts of worshippers for millennia. David knew he was loved. David also knew how to repent when he had sinned, even in his most hard-hearted moments. He understood that without the favor and presence of God he was nothing. David was humble in this respect, and though he did a few glaringly wrong things in his lifetime, he could receive correction. David was a man who sought to obey God over the trajectory of his lifetime, and this kept him tethered to the heart of God toward him, and the will of God being done through him.

The Lord is never after perfection; our journey will always be uneven at best. He is after the heart. And like David, he uses the small, foolish things of this world, those people that break the “how a leader should look” rules and lead from a heart devoted to God, to confound the wise in this world’s eyes (1 Cor. 1:27). When Jesus comes on the scene, he comes as an infant—with the heart of a King. Who would have thought that an infant would make great kings tremble; that a child would shake the very foundations of hell? When the hands are moved by a heart after God, there is no end to what God can accomplish through us.

From the root of David’s heart will come a branch, and that branch will be known as Jesus, the Messiah, the King of the human heart.

THE PRAYER

King of the human heart, we stand in awe of your great love, a love that is changing us from the inside out, taking us from glory to glory as each day passes. Your wisdom is guiding us, your love is transforming us, and your patience is pacing us along this journey of faith. This Advent, we say, once again, that there is no one in heaven or on earth that we desire more than you (Ps. 73:25). Give us a heart like David, like Jesus—that pursues your glory above all else. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

THE QUESTIONS

• Have you ever looked at the outward appearance of others, comparing yourself to them and falling short of your own inward expectations of yourself?
• If God looks on the heart, instead of on the outward appearance, what is he seeing in your heart right now?

Roots: Advent and the Family Story of Jesus by Dan Wilt