Getting Here Part XII: Impossible Isn't in God's Vocabulary

Do you believe your life can change on a dime? It certainly can change on a ten-minute prayer. Before the month was out our old friends had decided we needn't come visit anymore. We were different, they told us. I guess they meant we weren't fun now.

After September 1975 we were pretty busy. In a rather short time I was assisting in controlling the sound equipment on Sunday Morning, ushering, on the visitation committee, teaching Vacation Bible school, acting as a leader for Boys' Brigade and Lois and I were elected to lead the Adult fellowship.

In 1976 Campus Crusade for Christ launched the international outreach called, "I Found It!" It found me and named me the Publicity Coordinator for South Jersey. This entailed meeting with ministers of various churches and with media outlets. I also found it involved making cold calls and door-to-door evangelism, things way out of my comfort zone.  A few years earlier I had been visiting churches to tell ministers they were preaching a lie and now I was knocking on doors of perfect strangers to explain what Christ could mean in their lives.

By 1977, Lois and I were Youth Ministers for Word of Life international. That is we in the photo at the top. I'm the guy in sunglasses toward the left and Lois is resting her head on my shoulder. With us are other leaders and some of the kids we served. No one here is lifting any glass in a toast. What is being held are paper towels and Windex. We were headed out to a parking lot to clean window shields, not as a fund raiser. No, we never took money for our Christian Service outings. We simply washed car windows and left a tract or if possible spoke to the driver.

If anyone reading this has ever been a youth leader they will confirm it is a very time consuming endeavor. Most of our time outside of our jobs was taken up planning and conducting meetings and outings for these teenagers. All this activity was beginning to overwhelm my wife. We weren't to learn until more than a decade later that my wife suffered from a problem that made life often difficult for her to deal with. Nonetheless she had committed to this because she knew I wanted to do it. There was also that factor that we would never be parents ourselves, so why not devote our time to these children?

God has impeccable timing. Between September 1975 through September 1977 we had been deeply involved in a lot for new babes in Christ. You talk about a crash course in James 1:22-25, this was it. But sometimes in youthful enthusiasm we did more than is healthy. But God found a way to slow us down.

Lois said, "I think I'm pregnant."

"How?" Not as dumb a question as it sounds. "I thought you had your tubes tied?"

"No, I didn't."

There was a problem. When we visited her gynecologist he refused to take her case. It was impossible for her to carry a baby to term. She was foolish getting pregnant again. It was a risk to her own life and there was no way with her history and scarring that this baby could survive.

There was a doctor at the church who heard of this situation and he arranged for her care. It was going to be difficult. She was going to have to stay in bed for the term. She could walk from the bedroom to the living room and to the bathroom when necessary, but nothing else. She had to stay off her feet, no cooking, no housework, no going out. And no guarantees this would work.

So I arranged a control center in the living room. From the sofa, where she would lay, she could control the TV. I put a cooler next to her with some food and drink so she could have lunch or snack. I took care of the housekeeping and making meals.

Fortunately, on the meal front, a group of people at Laurel Hill Bible Church formed a prayer group to pray for Lois and the baby. The women began bringing us meals in the evening.

In the dreaded fifth month, late February 1978, Lois called for me. She was losing it. I drove her the several miles to the hospital in a snow storm. Here we go again, this was a movie I'd seen too many times. There she was, in a labor room, a monitor beeping off the little heartbeats and an IV in her arm with chemicals to retard labor.

This went on a few days. A doctor came to us and said there was an experimental drug he would like to try if we agreed. It was something new called Steroids. He thought it might help strengthen the baby's lungs, but it was experimental and he couldn't say there weren't risks.

We said do it.

A couple more days passed and then the doctors came to me and said my wife was risking infection if they tried to retard delivery any longer. This baby had to come out.

And out she came yelling her little head off. The Steroids may have worked, they could hear her crying long before her head appeared. She just didn't like being wakened up so early in the morning and never would. She weighted just over 5 pounds and went right into an incubator. Her weight would drop and so Lois came home leaving the baby behind. She couldn't be released until she got back to five pounds.

Oh, how the nursery staff laughed at us when that day came and we tried to dress that little bitty girl for the first time. We had gotten the smallest baby clothes we could find, but even this was too large. We should have gotten doll dresses, I guess.

We named her Laurel Christine. Laurel in honor of those at Laurel Hill Bible Church who prayed her into this world and Christine (Little Christian) as her middle name because Christ was central to our lives.

Laurel was a person that it was said could not be born. She was and she is a very nice young lady now with a passion for helping those who can't help themselves, both human and animal. (Right - Laurel aiding Sandy victims.) Yet some may credit this to the doctor's putting Lois to bed or the injection of steroids or some other aspect of modern medicine. Some may, but Laurel's birth is not the end of this story.

To be continued...

 Laurel as VetTech at SPCA

Getting Here Part XI: You Got to get Down to get Up

Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.

Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins. James 5: 13-20 (NIV)

I stood by the bed saying words I would never have expected to say.

"Maybe we should give church a try again."

I expected an argument and a rejection. Religion was the past long gone.

"Where," she asked in a whisper.
"I don't know? How about that new church down the road?"

Just a few weeks ago this new church opened on the Balckwood-Clementon Road, down the hill from us and just a bit from our street. I knew nothing about it not even which denomination. It looked like many Protestant Churches, steeple on top, big cross on the front.

"Okay," she said.

What was left at this point. We had talked in the hospital and it seemed decided she would have her tubes tied while there. This was the end of the road for that dream, that persistent hope of hers to have a child of our own. I had given that hope up five years ago. Where do you go when you wake up from your dreams and find they are all nightmares?

She had wanted children and a home of her own. This didn't appear to be on the menu of our life. Children were officially an impossibility and although I had a descent job, we had not put anything away in the bank. Remember, we were going to have fun and worry about that later when we got old. 

I wasn't even writing much anymore. My last published paid article was in "Animal Lover's Magazine" a year ago. I had been promoted so-to-speak at Welded Tube. I say so-to-speak because I was still Assistant Controller, but Computer Systems Manager had been added to my duties. Between my added responsibilities, which had me on-call 24/7, and our party-hardy lifestyle there wasn't time to squeeze in any writing.

There was nowhere to go from where we were. Lois was in the deep doldrums of depression and I just didn't have any enthusiasm for anything anymore. Where was any help for us? More sex and more drink, was that the escape from misery? Most my life I was confident in myself to overcome any adversity. I was a loner, who constantly plotted my own course in life. Now I felt like a captain of a boat lost at sea in high waves, a think fog with a broken rudder and a leaky haul. Yeah, it was that bad.

But there was a God. I heard his voice in that baby's heartbeat. I didn't know much about Him, but I felt that maybe church might help in finding out. What was the worse that could happen, more disillusionment? So the next Sunday we went.

We sort of dragged ourselves up the walk that day. I guess we both thought about our past experiences visiting churches, but at the door were a couple of people who smiled and asked us our names. Another man came and handed us a bulletin and led us to a pew halfway down the aisle. It was a compromise. I like to sit down front, Lois prefers the back, so we sat in the middle. Another man came over and introduced himself and welcomed us. No one was glaring at us as if we were interlopers on their private island.

It was then I glanced at the bulletin. At the top was the church name, Laurel Hill Bible Church, which really told me nothing. It was the next line that really caught my eye, "An Independent Fundamentalist Church". 

Whoa, baby, what had I gotten us into? My immediate inclination was to get up and run for the exit, but that would be too embarrassing. We'd just sit and ride it out if somewhat nervously. My idea of a Fundamentalist Church was people rolling down the aisles and kissing snakes. These were going to be a  bunch of Bible-thumping fanatics, brainwashed zombies, pie-in-the-sky freaks.

Although, no one looked very freakish. No one was waving some tract at us. People were just saying good morning and nice to see you and being just plain friendly everyday people.

The Pastor gave a sermon on James 5 that morning. I sat stunned. I sat sweating. I sat feeling he was preaching directly and only to me. I had never felt that way in a church service before in my life. How could this man know so much about me? At the end he gave an alder call, something I learned he always did. No way I was going to walk up to the front. That would have been so humiliating, but when he asked if anyone felt the need for prayer I did raise my shaking hand.

It was on the next September 1975 Tuesday afternoon I went into my little writing den at our apartment. I got down on my knees. I felt like crying. My whole body was quivering. I wasn't certain what to say. When I was 14 and in the Boy Scouts one of my patrol members was also a friend. His name was Jim Dawson and he was pretty religious. He often talked about Jesus during campouts. Once he gave me this card to put in my wallet. It said, "If you were to die tonight where would you be tomorrow?" This was followed by H______. You were supposed to fill in the blank as either Heaven or Hell.  I asked him, "How am I supposed to know that?" I was kind of angry about it.  I told him I thought I was a pretty good guy, so I would hope heaven, but didn't see how you could really know. 

I guess I remembered some of what Jim had said way back then because I stuttered out a pretty disjoined prayer asking God to forgive me and for Jesus to come into my heart.

I'm sure what I said wasn't elegant, but it worked. I knew it the moment I stood up. It would be hard to make someone who hasn't experience it understand how different I felt. I felt lighter. I also soon discovered other changes. Now I wanted to read the Bible. I did still have one about the place. More amazing, when I read it I was understanding it. I knew a lot of the stories, of course, I had been forced to Sunday School and I had seen those Hollywood movies like the Ten Commandments, Samson and Delilah, Solomon and the Queen of Sheba ( oh yeah, that movie was real Scriptural) and King of Kings. Reading the Bible was a struggle with all those thees and thous, begots and begats and other arcane words that I didn't understand. The Bible had been mostly gobbledygook to me. Now it made sense when I read it. I could understand it, not just the surface stories, but the shades of meaning in every verse.

On the next Sunday, humiliating or not, I walked down the aisle at the alder call.

Now some might discount any real miracle here. I don't see it that way. If God could open my eyes to His Word, then he could do anything. I was to find out that was true in the next few years. What God was to do in Lois and my life was impossible. If nothing else, what was to happen is proof positive of the power of faith in Jesus Christ and the mercy of God.

To be continued...

The song, "Help Me" written by Larry Gatlin of the Gatlin Brothers (partial lyrics below) seemed so apropos to where I once was and how I asked that I have shared it here. The little video is Johnny cash singing it and I think cash captured that voice of the desperate man calling out to God better than anyone.

Oh, lord, Help Me walk
Another mile, just one more mile;
I'm tired of walkin' all alone.

And lord, Help Me to smile
Another smile, just one more smile;
Don't think I can do things on my own.

I never thought I needed help before;
Thought that I could get by - by myself.
But now I know I just can't take it any more.
And with a humble heart, on bended knee,
I'm beggin' You please for help.

"Help Me" by Larry Gatlin


This is Johnny Cash singing Larry Gatlin's song "Help Me, which captures the essence of a broken man turning to God. 

The Heavier the Cross, the Stronger the Shoulders by Rachel King

These are all warning markers—danger!—in our history books, written down so that we don't repeat their mistakes. Our positions in the story are parallel—they at the beginning, we at the end—and we are just as capable of messing it up as they were. Don't be so naive and self-confident. You're not exempt. You could fall flat on your face as easily as anyone else. Forget about self-confidence; it's useless. Cultivate God-confidence.

No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; he'll never let you be pushed past your limit; he'll always be there to help you come through it. 1 Corinthians 10:11-13 (The Message)

For the first time, I am welcoming a guest writer to “Night Writing in the Morning Light. This article submitted to me by Rachel King seems apropos to our current little series on depression. Hopefully Ms King will appear occasionally at this site with her perspective. Below is some information about Rachel taken from the site for which she writes regularly as well a brief blurb of that site’s purpose.

       "Ms. King recently graduated from the University of Houston and has experience in the print journalism world. She was involved in many different Christian organizations while attending college. She uses this to her advantage while researching and producing Christian material for this website. Ms. King focus is to provide adequate and reliable information to the Christian community at large. Her hobbies include being active in her church community, knitting and watching a good movie.

       "Christian Universities is devoted to providing Christian students who are considering attending an online Christian university with an explanation of their choices and reviews of the costs and benefits."

The Heavier the Cross, the Stronger the Shoulders

by

Rachel King

Being human means we must undergo pain and suffering; no one goes through life with just positive experiences alone, and in fact, some of us endure more trials and tribulations than others. If we ask the question Why, we would have no answer. How do we know why certain people are chosen to suffer while others are not? The Bible tells us that God has a reason for everything that happens, that it is all part of his greater plan. So when something bad happens, perhaps you were chosen to be at the receiving end because:

·      God knows that you are strong enough to bear it. He has given you a cross that your shoulders can carry. If someone else with a weaker mentality had suffered this trouble, they would have broken down under the strain. Remember, the heavier the cross, the stronger the shoulders that God has chosen to bear it.

·      God trusts that you have the courage and strength to solve the problem and get past it. He has given you the tools needed to meet troubles head on and tackle them without batting an eyelid. He has made you a shrewd, mature and clever person who knows how to solve problems and get past them.

·      Troubles make us stronger people; they condition us to be able to take the ups with the downs and the rough with the smooth; and they teach us to take things in their stride instead of being affected by trials.

·      They bring us closer to God. It’s a sad but true fact of life that we think of God and become closer to Him only when we’re affected by troubles. We hardly ever pray when we’re happy and satisfied with life, even to offer gratitude and praise the Lord. So perhaps a small setback is just what you need to renew your relationship with God.

·      This setback is just a stepping-stone to achieving greater things. When I had to undergo knee surgery, little did I know that it was the foundation for me gaining stronger legs and a slimmer body. All the physical therapy in the gym to get my knee flexible and mobile again made me reduce my weight significantly and completely changed the way I looked. So in essence, my torn ligament was a blessing in disguise, a blessing I had to wait a year to realize.

So the next time you feel a problem is insurmountable, just close your eyes and pray for strength to accept and solve it, and you can rest assured God will show you a way out. After all, if He has led you to it, believe that He will lead you out of it too.

 

By-line:

This guest post is contributed by Rachel King, who writes on the topic of Online Christian Universities . Rachel welcomes your comments at her email address: r.king8383@rediffmail.com.

What's in a Name; Service and Miracles

Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. Romans 1:28-32

And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. 1 Corinthians 6:11

No other name but Jesus,

No other name can save,

With Him His peace possessing,

No other good I crave,

'Tis he who heals my sorrow,

And bids my soul rejoice;

And, of, the sweetest music

Is my redeemer's voice.

              by Henry V. Neal

On a Tuesday in September 1975 I had prayed the prayer of salvation. When I got up everything

was different. Oh, not the world around me, but inside me. I knew it at once. It is difficult to explain. You want to say you had to be there, it had to happen to you, then you would understand, and if you have never been there it would be difficult to grasp.

I want to go back to the "Why me?" in the first post of this confessional. I said there were those verses in Romans 1 I thought meant you could go far enough that God left you to your own devices and you had no way back. But I came to realize those verses spoke of mankind in general. Otherwise, why wasn't I lost forever? Hadn't I turned 180 degrees away from God? Hadn't I stopped seeking?

But I wondered, when I declared myself an Atheist and I began arguing with those ministers was it their faith I was trying to destroy or was I trying to find mine? Was I hoping that one of those men would say the thing proving me wrong? 

It doesn't matter, God for whatever reason He had, drew me to Him, even me.

Things happened quickly afterwards. My wife and I became members of that church I said we wouldn't be back to the next week. We were soon involved up to our eyeballs. I found myself doing things I would never have thought it was in me to do, such as cold-call evangelism, being the regional publicity coordinator for a national revival campaign, speaking from the pulpit, understanding passages in the Bible which had never made sense before and in 1976 my wife and I became youth pastors at the church. That is some of the youth group in the picture as we set out to wash car windows at a shopping center. I am standing third from the left wearing sunglasses and my wife is the dark-haired lady leaning her head on my shoulder. This was a Christian Service outing. We went about washing the windows of the cars in the shopping center parking lot and leaving a tract. Sometimes someone came as we did this and offered money, which we refused. It was our policy on all Christian Service to never take money. 

We were very busy those years, especially I. It takes a lot of hours to properly lead young people. (We had the junior high aged kids.) Plus I was adding to my duties at work. In 1976, I was named Systems Manager as well as being over the accounting functions. Now I was on call all the time in case the computer hit a snag. It usually hit those snags about dinner time.

I was writing again. I wrote a play which was performed by the youth group at venues such as retirement homes and other churches. I was editing a Christian magazine. 

Some of our old friends left us, finding our new outlook at odds with the lifestyle we had shared with them. We made new friends. We were doing well. The Pastor talked to us about our lost children and we came to accept what had happened. Then...

Then one day in 1977 my wife says to me, "Honey, I think I'm pregnant again."

"Whoa, now, how? You said you had your tubes tied?"

"I lied."

Immediately we had a problem. No doctor would take her case. Not her old doctors and seemingly no new doctor. They said her history showed it was impossible. We had been fools to let this happen. It was a terrible risk and there was no hope of a successful birth. I guess they feared malpractice suits if they took her case. 

But there was a Doctor who belonged to our church and he agreed to attend her. then the members of the church formed a special group to pray for us. My wife was put to bed for the term. I rearranged the living room for her, pulled the TV to within easy reach of the sofa, placed a cooler by her so she would have some cold drink and food at hand while I was at work. She was allowed to get up to go to the bathroom and to bed at night. 

The people at church began to stop by to help clean and especially to bring dinners for us. But mostly to pray for us.

Snow came in late February. My wife had made it into the dreaded fifth month. Then the signs came and in a blinding snow storm I drove her several miles to the hospital.

It was deja vu all over again as Yogi Berra put it. We were in a labor room with her hooked to an IV drip designed to stall off labor. There was another monitor, another beat-beat-beat and another week of waiting and expecting the usual dead end. 

The doctor asked if he could inject my wife with an experimental drug, something called steroids, in hope this would strengthen the babies lungs. We said yes. After a week, they said once more any longer delay was dangerous, they had to induce labor now.

And on March 1, our baby girl was born weighing in at 5 pounds. The steroids must have worked on those lungs because she came out protesting loudly. 

We named her Laurel. Many people assume this was after me, since my name comes from the same root and both Larry and Laurel mean Victory. This is not the case at all. We named her in honor of the members of Laurel Hill Bible Church who prayed constantly for her delivery. We gave her a middle name meaning "Little Christian", because Christ was now central in our lives. 

My wife assured me that this time she did have her tubes tied. 

Those gentle readers who have been regular followers of this Blog know God wasn't through proving what man couldn't do, He could.

   

One autumn day in 1980, as we walked along a chill street going to an early Christmas party, my wife says to me, says she: "Honey..."

"Ut oh."

"I think I'm pregnant again."

"But your tubes..."

"Lied...again."

"How long?"

"I don't think long. Maybe I'm in the second month."

A couple weeks later I am sitting in the waiting room of a hospital waiting to hear she had a miscarriage when a doctor comes out saying, "Congratulations, you have a daughter."

There was no human hand this time, no prayer circle, no laying in wait in bed, no steroids. My wife who could never have a baby and had that proved wrong now had it proved wrong medical aid was needed to do so. In a couple more years, we had a third, a son...and then she really did have her tubes tied. (More about these children next time.)

Today I believe in God. I believe in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. I believe the Bible is God's Word. I believe all the promises God has made and that Jesus is coming again, perhaps very, very soon. I believe anyone can be saved if God draws them to Him. I don't believe it is ever too late until you die. In September of 1975, I was 34 years old. I had been spiritually dead a long time. I was a sinner who though he was a good guy, who didn't think the things he did were sins. Now next September I will be a Christian for 34 years. Half a life of sin, half a life of Salvation, half a life of growth in the Lord to go (using Yogi Berra logic again; I know fractions better than that).

So when I got saved I never faced any troubles again.  Yeah...right!

To be Continued: A Fairy-Tale Ending?                                              

Fairy-Tale Ending?

"You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again'. John 3:7

 "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33

Brothers, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. As you know, we consider blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job's perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about.The Lord is full of compassion and mercy. James 5:10-11

We hear the term "Born Again" so often it has become a cliche and, for far too many, a joke. Yet, it was Jesus, who is God, who used the term and He said you had to be "Born Again" or you could not enter Heaven. It is more difficult for a person to get into heaven than for a person to get through airport security.

I don't particularly mind the comedians making jokes about being Born Again. It tells us who they are and they need our prayer. It is the same with all those celebrities who get busted and show up in court with a spanking new Bible under one arm claiming they found Jesus.

Who bother me are those electronic evangelists who tell one and all being Born Again is the end of troubles. If you just trust in them, you will be prosperous and healthy. If you send them $100, then expect a thousand dollars back. If they place a hand on your forehead the aches in your liver will go away. If you just listen to their version of God's blessings you'll get the job you want, the house you want, the woman or man of your dreams and a big shiny luxury car at Christmas with a shiny red bow on top. Too many of these types give the impression getting saved is like getting a big old sundae with a cherry on top. Its like winning the Powerball.

Sometimes getting saved comes with a hole in the ceiling.

With the birth of an actual living, breathing daughter in 1978, our life was going very well. My wife had two of her three wishes: I was happy and doing great in my job, and had been at the same employer for over five years, and she had a baby of our own. We still didn't have a house, but that would come -- with a price.

We were active in the church, well-liked and with several friendships that neither required removal of any clothing or downing a bottle of whiskey. Sounded like those "prosperity-preachers" might be right.

Jesus said:  "I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent."

You know what? I think Satan and his cronies have a different reaction when a sinner repents, not one of joy, but of anger. I believe when you get "Born Again" you become a target for the Devil, especially if you are an activist about it. Lucifer may not be able to snatch you out of the hand of Christ, but he might be able to find ways to distract you and make you ineffective, maybe even make you a detriment to others who are watching.

Early 1978 began with a miracle, but by the end we were in the middle of a war.

1977 had been a banner year for the steel fabricating company where I worked. We set a new sales record both in volume, sales and profit. It 1978 in all rolled south. The Japanese were allegedly dumping steel out west. United States steel corporations were collapsing. The U.S. steel industry could not compete with the import price of Japanese steel and be profitable. The owner of the company I worked for refused to buy foreign steel. His patriotism was admirable, but buying domestic also meant we could not compete with our competitors on price either. We went from a record year in profits to a record year in losses.

There were many days that year when I had all my work finished by 10:00 in the morning and could only sit twiddling my thumbs, along with my co-workers, for the rest of the day. By early autumn rumors were circulating about the company's future. Some people found jobs elsewhere and left, including my immediate supervisor. I was called to the CEO's office and told he was shutting down the Philadelphia operation and moving the headquarters to our Chicago plant, he hoped I would move with them. He offered me a 47% salary increase to do so.

There are other things beside money. Most of our other things were here, our families, our friends, our church, our life histories. We didn't want to go to Chicago, but what to do? We had a child now, I would need a job. And one night in November the phone rang...

It was the man who had been my boss, the one who had left when the rumors began. He had taken a job as Financial Vice-President of a large medical center, one with two major hospitals, a college, a nursing school, and axillary clinics. He offered me the job of Budget Director, which I accepted. It seemed an opportunity, but was in truth a nightmare of interdepartmental rivalry and office politics to the extreme. It didn't take me long to learn that either.

It also meant we had to move to make the commute practical. We still were near our families, friends and history, but we had to leave the church in New Jersey and find a new Bible-believing church in Pennsylvania, which we did. 

We couldn't afford to buy a house, but were tired of apartments, so we rented a house. We specified strongly to the realtor we wanted a house that would stay a rental, we wanted to stay in it for a few years, we were tired of moving. This was the eighth move for us in the 17 years we had been married, one more move than companies I had worked for in that time. We had a baby; we wanted to settle down. 

Six months into 1979, I was mired in the political intrigue between doctors, nurses, nuns and administrators, everyday was a struggle to accomplish anything. I was not working directly with my old boss who had hired me, but with a new comer, a job-hopping, ladder-climbing guy who cared less about patients, staff or people in general, then his own advancement. He was already angry at me. He wanted me to fire my secretary, a long-time employee, not for any fault of her's. He told me to fire her because that would put "the fear of god" into the other employees and they would respects me. I refused to fire her; he said I was weak.

Six months into 1979, the realtor, our rental agent, knocked on our door and said the lady who owned the house planned to sell it and wanted us to have first crack. Would we make an offer. Hadn't we told this man we wanted a house that would not go on the market, that we wished to stay a few years? Now we had to move to another rental house. Because the lady was anxious to sell, they didn't hold us to the lease term and in August we had moved again.

A third of the way into 1980, the constant office warfare continued, but despite it, I had brought last years budget in on time for the first time in a decade, I had automated the reports of my office and upgraded my secretary's responsibilities and created a solid communication program between departments for dealing with any and all budget issues. I expected a nice raise. I was asked to come to the personnel department (they weren't using the term Human Resources yet).

The Head of Personnel was very nervous. He kept stuttering, hemming and hawing. he didn't know how to put it, what to call it.

"Was I being fired," I asked.

"Well, no, I wasn't being fired. No, no, he wouldn't say I was being fired."

I wasn't being fired, but I was losing my job. The hospital was owned by an order of nuns. Now this order wanted a nun in my position. I could stick around until I found something else. I had an office, a telephone, my salary and absolutely nothing to do. This was even worse than when I had to twiddle my thumbs at the steel fabricator. At least there I had work until 10:00 AM. here I had nothing. So I listened to the radio a lot, sent out a lot of resumes and in between read a lot of novels.

To be continued: The Attacks Scale Upward

And The Attacks Scale Upward

In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.1 Peter 1: 3-7

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. Romans 5:1-5

When last we saw our intrepid hero, he was dangling over the cliff of unemployment by his fingertips with a baby in one arm. I had been sending out what seemed like hundreds of resumes and being sent on wild goose chases by an employment agency with whom I had signed. It reached July 1980 and I had received no positive feedback. I felt the medical center might be regretting telling me I could stay until I found something. Perhaps I felt that way because they were now hinting...well, telling...me I must be gone by September. 

Near month end, I got a call from a large bank in Delaware. 

Delaware? They had banks in Delaware? I had been in Delaware off and on during my life, but always on the way elsewhere. I didn't see Delaware as a place where people actually lived. It was a little state you went through to Maryland, Virginia or other points south. But indeed, in the flutter of resumes I had mailed, I had answered a newspaper ad for this bank in Delaware. It was for a job as Financial Analyst. I had never been a Financial Analyst, but I had once worked in a bank and I knew how to add up figures on a ledger sheet. I mean, how much more did I need to know?

I drove the forty-five minute trip from our PA. home to Delaware. This was my first time in Wilmington and it seemed to be all one way streets all going the opposite way than I needed to go. Good thing I left extra time. I found a lot to park in and walked back and found the building on Tenth Street.

My meeting was on the sixth floor, which was really the seventh floor, unless you counted the mezzanine, then it was the eight floor. (I don't know what distinguished it as a mezzanine -- lower ceilings, perhaps.) It is this way in the buildings down here. All the first floors are on the second floor. All the actual first floors are called Street Floor. (We don't count the one, two or three below ground floors as floors, just as basements.) 

My meeting with Mister K., who was Vice-president of Finance at the time, seemed to go well until his last sentence.

"I'm not sure Financial Analyst is the right position for you..." Well, that wasn't too encouraging. "But we have this new position in another department that might be right."

So he took me to talk to Double W. Double W was 11 years my senior and Vice-president over what was called Deposit Services and Data Preparation. There was a chemistry between us. We liked each other at once and he took me to meet the Assistant-vice-presidents of his three sections, who preceded to fire questions at me. At the end of this, he thanked me and said he'd be in touch.

A few days later, he called and said his staff liked me and things looked good. I just needed to meet his boss. He set up a luncheon appointment.

I traveled down again and we ate in the Brandywine Room of the Hotel DuPont, a restaurant full of dark wood. His boss was Mister C., Senior Vice-president of Operations. Once again I fielded a bunch of questions and felt it had went well. They would get back to me.

Once again, Double-W called me and told me he wanted me for the job. A few details had to be worked out and then he'd let me know when I would start. Great, I went into the medical Center and informed them I was going to a new job. They said, great and good bye, nice to have known you and my medical career ended like that.  

Then the waiting began. I was sweating it out in the dog days of August and the telephone wasn't ringing. Had something went wrong? After two weeks of growing anxiety, I called the bank. Oh, it was just procedures. Then I was told for my level the Senior Managers had to make the final decision at their meeting, which didn't take place until the 25th of August.

Though it cost me some toss and tumble nights, a positive call did come and I began my new job on September 3, 1980. Had an private office, too.  It didn't have any windows, but it came with a paycheck. I even began going back to evening college, now at a third university taking a major in accounting.

We were getting back on our feet. The house we were renting was nice, but maybe now we could start saving for a place of our own. Looked as if it was smooth sailing ahead, and for the next two months it was, right up until we were walking to that Christmas Party and my wife said, "Honey, I think I'm pregnant again." 

OK, she lied about tied tubes again and we weren't in Jersey near that Christian doctor and one can't expect too many miracles, can one? It wasn't a bit surprising a week or so later, before ever even seeing any doctor about it, she came and told me she was miscarrying. 

I got the minister's wife to stay with Laurel and we rushed off to the county hospital emergency room. They took my wife off somewhere and I sat on a hard bench in a massive waiting room. After a while a doctor came up to me, put out a hand and said, "Congratulations, you have a daughter."

What? How? My wife thought she was no more than two months along. She wasn't showing, not even a bump. She had a baby with no medical attention prior to birth and the baby lived? That's great.

Until they said the baby probably wouldn't live the night, she was too premature, too light. Today newborns under four pounds are probably at less risk, back in 1980 it wasn't promising. 

Then they told us they were sending her to another hospital, one which had a neonatal intensive care unit, one of the hospitals I use to budget, my last employer. We were then told even if our daughter survived, she would be blind and severely mentally retarded. "It would be better if she didn't survive," was their opinion. 

There was another problem. I had left the medical center at the end of July. I had started in the bank in September. My medical insurance had ended with the medical center. I had new medical insurance with the bank, but coverage for pregnancy did not kick in until I was employed there for six month.  It was now only December.

Our new daughter lived through the night. She was behind wired glass, inside a small glass rectangle called an incubator with a thousand tubes running into her. Every couple of hours they stuck a needle in her heel. She had jaundice and had to be under special lighting. my wife and I had opposing RH Blood factors, so the baby had to have a blood transfusion. She had a fever, she had something else, she had that. We could only hold her outside her little box for a brief time each day. The kid looked like a yellow plucked chicken with a tongue too large for her mouth. I said she looked like Alfred Hitchcock. She weighed 3 pounds 6 ounces.

Three weeks later, Noelle came home on New Year's Day 1981 inside a big red Christmas stocking (Picture on the right).

God had blessed us with another miracle. The hospital blessed us with a number of bills. Well, we'd just have to put off owning a house for awhile.

My wife's father had been acting erratically for awhile. (Her mother had died when she was 17.) He was convinced there were people hiding in his bushes at night, that someone might break in to rob him. He had demanded my wife return the house key and he kept a loaded gun under his pillow. He said if anyone tried to break in he would shot first and ask questions later. Needlessly to say when he wasn't answering the phone in May, my wife was concerned. We drove to his house, but no one answered the knock.  My wife went up the street to her uncle, who was her father's best friend, and he called the police. No one wanted to try and break in remembering that gun with which he slept.

He was unconscious. An ambulance took him to the hospital and they took him to surgery. the man had suffered from emphysema for years. He had lesions in his brain, apparently the effect of working with asbestosis in his youth. During surgery he had a heart attack and died, but the doctors brought him back to life.

If you call it life. He was on machines. The doctors told my wife any decision to turn off the machines were hers. They couldn't advise one way or another. I looked into her father's eyes and there was nothing there. Why they brought him back when he died made no sense. I talked with my wife. We prayed. She told them to turn off the machines and when the electricity died, so did he.  

She was an only child. All his estate went to her. We had a house of our own, but like the first car I got at 16 when my grandfather died, it came with a mortgage of guilt. 

The house was free and clear, but something of a mess. He had kept the outside up nicely, but ignored the inside. It was dingy and dark. junk was piled everywhere, old TV parts, a lifetime of old papers, the power mower and other yard tools stashed in the dining room. We found over $3,000 dollars in envelopes taped to the bottom of bureau drawers. The house was not really fit to move into with a baby and a three year old.

I spent all my free time in this house fixing up, cleaning, hauling away junk and painting. We wanted it ready to move into by the end of July because our lease was up August 1. I was working hard to make it and finally, sometime in July, I brushed on the last dab of paint and it was ready.

I didn't go there the next day, because I had classes that night, but on the day after I took my wife and two kids to see how nice a job I did. 

When I put the key in the lock, I thought I heard a strange noise. I threw the door open and I saw the source. Water was running down all the walls. The living room ceiling lay in a heap upon the floor, all the wallpaper had peeled off and all the hardwood floors were buckled.

I dashed down to the basement where the water shut off valve was located. I jumped into water up to my waist, fortunately I wasn't electrocuted. Firemen had to come to pump out the water. 

A inflow pipe had burst in the upstairs bathroom. How long it had been flooding the house, I don't know, but our interior ceilings were ruined as were the floors, all the kitchen cabinets and appliances and the furnace.All the wiring and plumbing would have to be replaced. Basically, the house had to be gutted and rebuilt to be livable. 

My daughter Laurel huddled shivering on the stairs. For years after she would have nightmares when it rained. The photo at the beginning of this post is my wife feeding Noelle in the ruined living room. You can see the despair on her face.

My father-in-law had insurance, but it would do only limited and basic repairs. We had to decide whether we wanted to stay there or sell the place. We were tired of moving. We decided we were going to stay in this house for a long time and would spend the extra money to built it with higher quality than the insurance would cover. Now I had to get a mortgage to cover the costs of this rebuilding and the remaining bills from Noelle's birth. 

But it seemed my wife's three wishes had been granted: I had a job I liked, we had babies of our own and now we had our own home. Maybe we really could settle down for a while.

And then in early 1982 my wife said: "Honey, I think I'm pregnant again." 

There was no thinking about it. She was. This time she got to a doctor and he determined so much scar tissue had built up she wouldn't be able to deliver naturally. Once again it was back to bed for the term and in August she had a Cesarean delivery of our last child, a son. he was also born prematurely.

He was the giant of our litter. He came into the world weighing 6 pounds 10 ounces. The hospital placed him next to a baby weighting over 10 pounds. We named him Darryl, not realizing that in the future this would subject us to a never-ending series of "Larry-Darryl-and-Darryl" jokes thanks to Bob Newhart.

Having a third child brought up another decision. The house we had was somewhat small for a family of five. Combining this with my long drive to Delaware everyday, we decided to sell the house after all and move once again, this time to Delaware. We have lived in this Delaware home for over 26 years now. I was employed by that bank for 21 years. Our kids grew up healthy into nice people and Noelle was not blind. Both she and Laurel were Honor Students. My wife and I have been married 47 plus years and I've been a Christian almost 34 of them.  

Through it all we have persevered.

And the first thing I did when we moved to Delaware was look for a Bible-Believing church.

What it is All About

Merry Christmas! 

Here this morning, before any other festivity begins, let's remember why we have this day and what it means to us.

Here is the Christmas narrative put together from scripture. The passage source book are indicated by color:

GENESIS   MATTHEW    MARK    LUKE     JOHN

Black text are interjections by me. The New International Version was used to construct this. 

May the Holy Spirit be among you as you read and may you be brought ever closer to our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.

THE FIRST CHRISMAS

 

The Eternal Christ

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not extinguished [or overcome or understood] it. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.

The Historical Genealogy of Jesus From Abraham Through Mary

A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham:

Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar, Perez the father of Hezron, Hezron the father of Ram, Ram the father of Amminadab, Amminadab the father of Nahshon, Nahshon the father of Salmon, Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David.

David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah's wife, Solomon the father of Rehoboam, Rehoboam the father of Abijah, Abijah the father of Asa, Asa the father of Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram, Jehoram the father of Uzziah, Uzziah the father of Jotham, Jotham the father of Ahaz, Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, Manasseh the father of Amon, Amon the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon.

After the exile to Babylon: Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel, Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, Abiud the father of Eliakim, Eliakim the father of Azor, Azor the father of Zadok, Zadok the father of Akim, Akim the father of Eliud, Eliud the father of Eleazar, Eleazar the father of Matthan, Matthan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.

Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Christ.^[b]

 

The Legal Genealogy of Joseph

He (Jesus) was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, 
the son[-in-law] of Heli, the son of Matthat, 
the son of Levi, the son of Melki, 
the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph, 
the son of Mattathias, the son of Amos, 
the son of Nahum, the son of Esli, the son of Naggai, the son of Maath, 
the son of Mattathias, the son of Semein, 
the son of Josech, the son of Joda, 
the son of Joanan, the son of Rhesa, 
the son of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, 
the son of Neri, the son of Melki, 
the son of Addi, the son of Cosam, 
the son of Elmadam, the son of Er, 
the son of Joshua, the son of Eliezer, the son of Jorim, the son of Matthat, 
the son of Levi, the son of Simeon, 
the son of Judah, the son of Joseph, 
the son of Jonam, the son of Eliakim, 
the son of Melea, the son of Menna, 
the son of Mattatha, the son of Nathan, 
the son of David, the son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the son of Boaz, 
the son of Salmon, the son of Nahshon, 
the son of Amminadab, the son of Ram, the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, 
the son of Judah, the son of Jacob, 
the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, 
the son of Terah, the son of Nahor, 
the son of Serug, the son of Reu, 
the son of Peleg, the son of Eber, the son of Shelah, the son of Cainan, 
the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, 
the son of Noah, the son of Lamech, 
the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, 
the son of Jared, the son of Mahalalel, 
the son of Kenan, the son of Enosh, 
the son of Seth, the son of Adam, 
the son of God.

 

 

The Birth of John the Baptist Foretold

[The Temple in Jerusalem B.C. 6]

In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron. Both of them were upright in the sight of God, observing all the Lord's commandments and regulations blamelessly. But they had no children, because Elizabeth was barren; and they were both well along in years.

 Once when Zechariah's division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, (he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside.

 Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. But the angel said to him: "Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth. Many of the people of Israel will he bring back to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord."

Zechariah asked the angel, "How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years."

The angel answered, "I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their proper time."

Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zechariah and wondering why he stayed so long in the temple. When he came out, he could not speak to them. They realized he had seen a vision in the temple, for he kept making signs to them but remained unable to speak.

When his time of service was completed, he returned home. After this his wife Elizabeth became pregnant and for five months remained in seclusion. "The Lord has done this for me," she said. "In these days he has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace among the people."

 

The Birth of Jesus Foretold

(Nazareth in Galilee Late B.C. 6 or early B.C 5)

 In the sixth month [of Elizabeth’s pregnancy], God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you."

Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."

 "How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?"

 The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God."

"I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said." Then the angel left her.

Mary Visits Elizabeth

(Judea Early B.C. 5)

At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea [a distance of 90 to 120 miles], where she entered Zechariah's home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!"

Mary's Song

And Mary said: "My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me—holy is his name. His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation. He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever, even as he said to our fathers."

Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home.

The Birth of John the Baptist

(Spring B.C. 5)

When it was time for Elizabeth to have her baby, she gave birth to a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her great mercy, and they shared her joy.

On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him after his father Zechariah, but his mother spoke up and said, "No! He is to be called John."

They said to her, "There is no one among your relatives who has that name."

Then they made signs to his father, to find out what he would like to name the child. He asked for a writing tablet, and to everyone's astonishment he wrote, "His name is John." Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue was loosed, and he began to speak, praising God. The neighbors were all filled with awe, and throughout the hill country of Judea people were talking about all these things. Everyone who heard this wondered about it, asking, "What then is this child going to be?" For the Lord's hand was with him.

 

Zechariah's Song

His father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied:

"Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come and has redeemed his people. He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David (as he said through his holy prophets of long ago), salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us—to show mercy to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath he swore to our father Abraham: to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace."

 

Joseph’s Visitation

9Nazareth B.C. 5)

This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus [Hebrew, Joshua, which means God is salvation], because he will save his people from their sins."

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: [Isaiah 7:14] "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"—which means, "God with us."

 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son.

 

The Birth of Jesus

(Bethlehem Autumn of B.C. 5)

In those days Caesar Augustus [63 B.C – 14 A.D.] issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius  [Circa 51 B.C. – 21 A.D.] was {governor} of Syria.) [The word translated in Scripture as “governor” was  “hegemon”, which means “ruling officer or procurator”. Quirinius did not become actual governor {legatus – different word} until later, but there is no reason to dispute Luke calling him a ruling officer at this time. There were many censuses taken during this period of time, any number of which could have been this one.]. And everyone went to his own town to register.

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. [Given the status of women at the time, questions have been raised as to why Mary would have went with him. I think it is silly speculation to think she wouldn’t, but here are possible reasons. God’s direction to them that she should go seems a reasonable explanation. Also, given the nature of Mary’s pregnancy and the suspicions this probably aroused, Joseph could have taken her for her own protection. Saying she couldn’t have gone or made the trip while being pregnant are just spurious arguments of disbelieving critics.] While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

The Shepherds and the Angels

(Near Bethlehem)

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, 
"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."

 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about."

So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

Jesus Presented in the Temple

(Jerusalem, eight days after the birth; distance from Bethlehem to Jerusalem is only 6 miles)

On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise him, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he had been conceived and he gave him the name Jesus.

(Jerusalem, 40 days after birth according to Jewish Law)

When the time of their purification according to the Law of Moses had been completed, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, "Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord" [Exodus 13:2]), and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: "a pair of doves or two young pigeons."

Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord's Christ. Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying: 
"Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, 
you now dismiss your servant in peace. 
For my eyes have seen your salvation, 
which you have prepared in the sight of all people, 
a light for revelation to the Gentiles 
and for glory to your people Israel."

The child's father and mother marveled at what was said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: "This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too."

There was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem, when Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord,

The Visit of the Magi

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod [73 B.C. – 4 B.C.], Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him."

 When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the people's chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born. "In Bethlehem in Judea," they replied, "for this is what the prophet has written: 
 " 'But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, 
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; 
for out of you will come a ruler 
who will be the shepherd of my people Israel. [Micah 5:2]'"

Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, "Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him."

After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east^[e] went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

The Escape to Egypt

When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. "Get up," he said, "take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him." So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: "Out of Egypt I called my son." [Hosea 11:1 (Greek: egontos, eks aiguptou ekalesa ton huion mou meaning “Out of Egypt have I called the son of Me”.  Matthew was saying the statement was made perfect in Christ.]

When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah [Jeremiah 31:15] was fulfilled: 
 "A voice is heard in Ramah, 
weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children 
and refusing to be comforted, 
because they are no more."

The Return to Nazareth

(4 B.C. – Year Herod the Great died)

After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child's life are dead."

So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, they returned to Galilee and he went and lived in their own town, a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets: "He will be called a Nazarene." [Note this states “the prophets”, not “a specific prophet”. What is being said is the various prophets predicted Jesus would be despised or considered common. Nazarene was a person looked down on, a prejudice of the time. Look to Nathanael’s question in John 1:46: “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” But don’t look for the quote in any particular prophet.]

And the child [John] grew and became strong in spirit; And the child [Jesus] grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace