Sukkot: Merry REAL Christmas!
 |
| What the first Christmas night probably looked a lot more like. |
It had been a long time
since the Jews had last heard
from the Lord, or gotten a word.
Had God forgotten?
Had He broken His vow?
For 400 years, the Jews wondered how
David’s line could continue
with no king and no throne.
Just a lowly carpenter in a town, all alone.
Then, without warning,
early summer one year,
to a priest in the temple, an angel appeared.
The silence was broken!
God spoke once again,
telling this priest that a prophet He’d send.
The old priest’s child
would make straight the way
for Messiah! Oh, what a day!
The niece of this priest
was a virgin engaged
to our lowly carpenter, just teen-aged.
An angel told Mary
At Chanukkah that year
that God’s Son, through her, would soon appear.
She questioned, then bowed,
saying, “God’s will be done.”
God the Spirit then placed in her womb God the Son.
Mary was scared.
What would Joseph say?
So she went for a while with her Auntie to stay.
Three months later at Passover,
herald of Messiah,
John was born in the spirit of Elijah.
Having seen God’s pledge
to the old priest fulfilled,
Mary went home to do God’s will.
When carpenter Joseph,
King David’s heir,
saw pregnant Mary, he just had to stare.
He guessed the worst.
His plans shoved off-course,
he made up his mind for a quiet divorce.
But an angel stepped in,
and in a dream declared
that Mary’s condition, God had prepared.
Caesar commanded
King Herod to count
all of the Jews to fix the amount
of the taxes they owed.
Herod delayed, but as scripture describes,
decided to count them, as Jews did, by tribes.
Sukkot was upon them,
so Joseph would climb
the hills toward Jerusalem and do both at one time.
When they got to Bethlehem,
their sukkah’s bower
was built in the shade of an old watch tower.
Micah said of Messiah,
and the sages agreed,
that Migdal Eder was his birthplace indeed.
Joseph was counted
To obey his King,
Then got ready to worship, his offering to bring.
But while they were there,
the time came for Mary
to show to the world the child she had carried.
The law said that childbirth
made women unclean,
so Mary stayed in their sukkah so green.
While Passover lambs
were born through the night,
Mary would soon have a special delight.
The feast of Tabernacles,
called Sukkot by the Jews,
reminded them that of all the places to choose,
God came to live
and have His special presence known
in their midst, and this was shown
by His glory cloud.
But soon in a more spectacular way,
God would appear with His people to stay.
This feast also declared
that God met their needs.
He’d sent the rain; He’d caused the seeds
to grow and had given
the next year’s supply
of fruit and of grain, of barley and rye.
But this year would see
more than wine in the skins.
For God was providing forgiveness from sins.
On the eve of the feast,
in the fields round about,
priestly shepherds heard an angelic shout,
“Messiah is here!
Peace, Goodwill, and Joy!
Make haste to the manger and worship this boy!”
No directions were needed.
There could be only one
sukkah now holding Messiah, God’s Son.
To the tower, they hurried.
Those shepherds could run!
They stopped fast when they saw him--God’s only Son
lying there in the straw-strewn
floor of a booth. Then they knew.
This scene made it clear what this baby would do!
Lambs born here, on this night,
in this place, had one fate.
For all of their blood, the altar would wait.
Tears came fast
to old sunburned eyes.
Their job had just changed; for all of their lives
they had made sure that lambs
born here and nearby
were fit for the altar. Born fit to die.
But here was The Lamb!
The last one they’d need.
A lamb wrapped in white was a lamb born to bleed.
That night in the temple,
a short walk away,
lights were lit that kept darkness at bay.
Water was poured out as
people in awe
shouted aloud, “Our eyes are toward God!”
Coming out of that sukkah,
in the still of the night,
shepherds told others they’d seen God’s true Light.
Seven days later,
Sukkot at a close,
being now clean, Mary arose
and rejoined the others
in her family’s home.
In their guest-room, no longer alone.
At the time of her cleansing,
Two prophets declared
“Salvation has come! God’s people are spared!”
