GABRIEL BRINGS GLAD TIDINGS
The New Testament opens with an angelic pronouncement. Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God, brings glad tidings to Zacharias. His barren wife Elizabeth, a woman of many years, was about to conceive and bear him a son. His name would be John. Six months later Gabriel is sent by God to a city named Nazareth. He presents himself to a virgin girl named Mary. She is betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. Gabriel declares that she too will conceive and bear a son.
Bewildered for she has never known a man she inquires of the angel how this will be. Gabriel answers, “Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is born will be called the Son of God.” His name would be Jesus. Nine months later with an angelic proclamation to the shepherds in the field, the Savior, who is Christ the Lord, is born.
Except for a few snapshots of the young life of Jesus, the Bible is relatively quiet regarding His early childhood. When Jesus was about 30 years of age He began His public ministry. We first see Him coming to John to be baptized in water. As John sees Jesus walking towards the riverbank he declares, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”
Immediately the Jewish present that day knew exactly what John meant. A spotless lamb was sacrificed annually on the Day of Atonement to take away the sins of the nation. John declared in this one statement the purpose for which Jesus was born….Jesus was born to die. Yet the road that leads to the cross would take the Savior through the barren Judean wilderness. Being led there by Holy Spirit after His Jordan River baptismal, Jesus begins His period of temptations by the devil himself. For a total of forty days and nights the Son of Man fasted and then became hungry. It was essential that Jesus be tempted of the devil in God’s redemptive plan to restore order to the Creation Continuum.
JESUS FULLY MAN, FULLY GOD
Jesus being fully man and fully God had to experience temptation in order to identify with His brothers and sisters in the human race. Jesus also had to make the right choices in order to fulfill His role as the spotless lamb. In order to free humanity from the Law of Sin and Death, He had to be free from the penalty Himself. He could not be God’s ransom for mankind unless He was sinless. With every temptation there is a choice. Do right or do wrong. In every instance Jesus chose to obey God’s will. The devil tempted Him in every area of humanity; the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life. In each case Jesus, through the power of the Holy Spirit and the word of God, found the way of escape from every temptation. The example displayed by Jesus in the wilderness then, testifies to His disciples today, that we can escape temptations as well. Through the power of Holy Spirit and the word of God we can find the way of escape.
Yet that requires us to become intimate with Him. We must live a fasted life to become strong in Spirit to achieve victory. Jesus fasted to become weak in body to show us the way of escape from every temptation. At the end of Wilderness Road awaited a company of angelic visitor’s to minister to the Son of GOD.
For the next three years Jesus would pick twelve disciples to walk with Him as He taught them about the coming Kingdom. He also predicted His own death in saying, “The Son of Man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men and they will kill Him, and the third day He will be raised up.” Jesus knew the purpose for which He was sent into the Earth. It is here in this statement of being killed and being raised do we see initially why God became a man. He came to restore order to His Creation.
JESUS BROKEN AND BETRAYED
Jesus was betrayed by Judas as to His whereabouts. The Roman soldiers were led to the Garden of Gethsemane by the betrayer himself. With the soldiers on one side and the disciples of Jesus on the other, Judas identifies Jesus amongst the crowd by kissing him on the cheek. Immediately the soldiers arrest Jesus and deliver Him to the Jewish High Priest where the Son of God is interrogated, spat upon and beaten. The next morning Jesus again was bound and taken to Pontius Pilate the governor. Again He endures an interrogation and a brutal beating at the hands of the Praetorian garrison of soldiers.
Now beaten beyond recognition He is stripped of His clothes and wrapped in a scarlet robe. Next a crown of twisted thorns is placed upon His head and a reed in His right hand. The soldiers begin to mock Jesus as the king of the Jews. They spit upon Him as they take the reed from His hand and strike Him with it upon the head. Next they strip Him of the bloodied robe and place His own clothes back upon Him as He is led away to be crucified. Upon Golgotha, also known as the Place of the Skull is where the crucifixion takes place. The soldiers lay Him down upon a wooden cross and drive nails into His feet and hands.
Once firmly secured to the beam the Lamb of God is elevated to a height above the Earth. Jesus, the Son of God, who knew no sin, is suspended between Heaven and Earth. Many events transpired on the day of the crucifixion of Jesus. The sky became dark from Noon to Three. An earthquake shakes in Jerusalem resulting in many dead bodies resurrecting from the graves. The Temple veil was torn top to bottom signifying the way to God was now open and all could come freely. Many prophecies were fulfilled including the sour wine mixed with gall and the soldiers casting lots for His garment. Also a sign was fastened above His head declaring, THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS. The one prophecy that takes center stage is the quote of Ps 22:1, “My God, My God why have you forsaken Me?” What God did to Jesus that day is something He will never do to humanity…forsake us. In that moment God turned His back upon His Son as the Old Testament priest would turn away from the spotless lamb after slitting its throat on the Day of Atonement.
The eternal fellowship that was experienced between Father and Son was no more in that instance. Jesus, a sinless man who was not subject to the Law of Sin and Death was given as a ransom for all mankind who is shut up under sin. It was John, the disciple “whom Jesus loved” who recorded the last words of Jesus upon the cross when He said, “It is finished.” Jesus then bowed His head and gave up His spirit. Yes it was finished but it was not over. The second act of God’s plan was now complete.
