Luke 2:16-21 - Amazed

2:16-18

So the shepherds hurried off and went to see Mary, Joseph and the baby. Note that very few details are given. After that they went and spread the news about what they had been told. So there are one or two important points here, mostly related to parallels with the spread of the gospel. First, they spread the word, just as the apostles and others were doing with the gospel itself. Secondly they spread the word about what they had been told. In one sense seeing the baby Jesus was secondary to what the angels had told them, and it really couldn’t be any other way. What had they seen? They had seen a baby in a manger, so what? Without the words of the angel telling them who this child was they could not have worked out the true significance of the event. So it is with the gospel. The facts of the gospel are clearly important, Jesus did die on the cross, and He did rise again, but we need the words of the gospel to reveal the true significance of these events. At the time of writing there is a big debate about some words of Andy Stanley, an American mega-church pastor, saying that we should tell people just about the cross before introducing them to the Bible (this is a very brief and inadequate summary, Google it and you will find much more detail). The key point is that we need the Word to reveal the significance of the events.

2:19-21

Imagine what Mary was thinking. She had indeed become pregnant by means of a supernatural conception. She had given birth to a boy. At one level the baby was just a normal baby, He wasn’t born with a halo over His head. But then these shepherds arrive saying they had seen angels and that the baby was the Messiah, confirming what the angel had said to her. So she pondered these things in her heart. We should dwell on the words that God speaks, and the things He does in our life. The shepherds, meanwhile, were just full of joy.

“On the eighth day ..” Circumcision on the eighth day was part of the Law, Jesus was brought up a Jew and was born to good Jewish parents. Note that He was not born to a priestly family. John was, and he pointed the way to Jesus. Jesus was a priest, but of a different order, not of the Levitical order, as the letter to the Hebrews explains. So the Levitical priesthood was not “it”, but was pointing to the true priesthood, that of Jesus Christ.