Luke 1:37 For with God nothing shall be impossible.
Last night my folks and I were talking about an old family friend who is a pastor. Years ago he had a special Sunday at his church in Appalachia. The idea was to have Santa Claus come to Sunday School. I know you may be thinking that it is a bad idea to bring Santa Claus into the church. I get that, and it is probably true. But, this good man wanted to have a special Sunday to tell people about Jesus. Well, he told people that on the special Sunday they were going to have a special personality who had been on television and was known the world over. It just took off. I have seen newspaper clippings where the newspapers speculated that it might be a former President or astronauts from the Apollo missions. The morning of that special Sunday the church was jam-packed with people, and the pastor was back in the room behind the pulpit with his Sunday school superintendent who was getting him into a Santa Claus outfit. It was a broad disappointment to people, and he was a little bit chagrined.
A lot of times, the characters surrounding Christmas and other holidays are fictitious. Think about Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. When we think about events that regard the life of Christ, the world has often added fictional characters. So, just like Saint Nick has been expanded to this fictional character, Santa Claus with reindeer and a sleigh that fly, so Jesus has been expanded into mythology. But, that is not at all what God is saying in Luke 1 or any part of the Bible. This is not the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, the Loch Ness monster, or whatever.
Luke 1:1-4 says, “Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word; it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed.”
The very premise you are going to find for the birth, life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is found right here. It is written because it was certain. It was not obscure. These were not cunningly devised fables. This story of Jesus is attached to history. The Bible is a book that is attached to history. Jesus is a figure Who is attached to history.
This is a story that is attached to promises. Verses 55 and 73 talk about how God was keeping His promise to Abraham by sending His Son as the Messiah. This story is attached to genealogy. There are many genealogies in the Bible that culminate in the last genealogy in the Bible and in Luke, the genealogy of Jesus. Every genealogy in the Bible is there because it is one narrative that is culminating in the Messiah that God would send, the Lord Jesus Christ, the One we think about at Christmas time.
So, Christmas as a story and as a truth is something you find in Luke, and the whole premise of the Christmas story to follow is that it was not obscure. It was attached to history, genealogies, and promises that God had made. There are a couple things to remember.
First, only God could make these promises. These are not limited in scope. These are not promises that a person could foist on other people and somehow make happen. These are promises only a God could make.
Second, these are promises only God could keep. That He would send a Savior for every person that has ever lived is a promise only God could keep, and these are promises only God will keep. It is interesting that Luke 1:37 says, “For with God nothing shall be impossible.” People oftentimes have problems with the Virgin Birth. The fact of the matter is that if there is a god who is not miraculous and way beyond anything you have seen or could do, then he is not God. If there is a god you can fully comprehend and put in your little brain, then he is not worthy of the name.
Think about the miraculous birth of John the Baptist to a couple who was old and barren. That is not much different than the Bible claiming that God would give His Son through a virgin espoused to a man named Joseph. Here is Mary without a man and here is Elizabeth with an aging man. Both are miracles. If you can get past “in the beginning God,” then there is no miracle in the Bible to which you will object. God is not like you. God is not a super version of you. God is God, and that is exactly what is being claimed in the pages of Scripture. Only God could make these promises regarding the Savior. Only God could keep these promises. Only God will keep these promises.
This story of Christmas is just the beginning. When Herod tried to kill the Lord Jesus when He was a child, he did so because he could not afford to let Jesus grow. That is where a lot of people are today. They cannot afford to let Jesus grow. I don’t know what your circumstance is today, but if God could make and keep promises like we find in the Scriptures, then with God, nothing shall be impossible. That’s why verse 45 says, “And blessed is she [Mary] that believed: for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.”
I don’t know what you need today, but God is a God Who makes and keeps promises. With God nothing shall be impossible.