Christmas: God's Unexpected Miracle

Isaiah predicted a virgin would give birth, but when it happened to Mary, even her loving betrothed husband, Joseph, wasn't willing to believe it had happened until an angel confirmed it.
Micah predicted where Jesus would be born, in the little village of Bethlehem, but when the wise men came from the east, they came to Jerusalem to find the birthplace of new King. Where else, but the capital city? Who but Micah would have ever picked the lowly Bethlehem?
And where in that little footnote of a town was our Savior born? Not in the best accommodations available, but the worst. Not in a hospital with white sheets with doctors and nurses in attendance, but in a lowly stable, shared with the animals, with a feed bin for His crib.

The three wise men are the only high and mighty characters in this Christmas story, and God probably had to send all the way to the Orient to find any "kings" who were worthy of these glad tidings. Who were the Angels sent to with the good news of the Son of God's birth? A lowly band of shepherds, watching their sheep in the hills outside Bethlehem. Shepherds in that time were on the lowest rung of society, the minimum-wage, manual laborers who didn't smell good and were not allowed into polite company. But they did fit right in at the Bethlehem stable.
And after Jesus' birth, when Mary and Joseph brought the baby to the Temple in Jerusalem for his dedication, who among the crowd recognized the newborn King of the Jews?
Not the High Priest, or King Herod, or any of the wise and learned experts recognized Jesus, only an old man named Simeon and an elderly widow named Anna, Luke 2:25-38 reports.
And what more unlikely forerunner of the Messiah could be imagined than Jesus' cousin, John the Baptist? If some weird looking fellow wearing camel hair and goat skins and eating locusts and wild honey wandered in out of the desert and started proclaiming "Jesus is coming! Repent!" how long would it be before the men with the net hauled him off to the funny farm?

Even John the Baptist had doubts about the One he prepared the way for, when his boldness at telling King Herod he was an adulterer got him thrown into prison. He sent word to Jesus from his cell and asked, "Are you the promised Messiah, or should we look for another?"
But don't be too hard on John the Baptist for his moment of doubt. When we do what we're sure the Lord would have us do and it blows up in our faces, aren't we prone to doubt also?
Jesus didn't rebuke John for his doubts. He told his followers to go back and tell John not what Jesus was saying, but what He was doing in fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies:
"The blind receive sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have the Gospel preached to them," Jesus says in Matthew 11:5. Jesus then adds a word of exhortation to John, and to any of us who are doubting His ways and wisdom: "And blessed is he who keeps from stumbling over Me," in Matthew 11:6.

But many did stumble over this most unlikely Messiah. His ways were even puzzling to the disciples who followed Him, like when He performed miracles but told the recipients to tell no one Who had done the miracle. He even warned His disciples to tell no one He was the Messiah. "But He warned them and instructed them not to tell this to anyone," in Luke 9:21.
And when Jesus began to explain to His followers that His real purpose here was to suffer and die, they were thoroughly confused. What kind of Messiah would allow Himself to be killed?
And though Jesus also told them of the greatest miracle of all, that following His death and burial would come His resurrection on the third day, they couldn't believe that promise either.
On the morning of the third day after His death, you would have expected that the whole band of His followers would have been waiting with great expectations outside His tomb. But only three women among them all were there, Mary Magdalene and two others, and they only came to bring burial spices to anoint His body. But they found no body, only an empty tomb.

And here's the most amazing of all God's miracles, the evidence of His love for us is an empty tomb. For we do not worship the great life and works of a man, but a risen Christ, Who proved how much God loves us by being born in a lowly manger, then living and dying for us all.
The Apostle Paul explains this great truth to us, how God humbled Himself through Christ, so that the lowly and humble among us could receive the greatest gift of all: eternal life.
"But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things that are strong," 1 Corinthians 1:27.
Don't miss the greatest truth of Christmas. Jesus Christ was born in the most unlikely way, lived and died in the most unlikely way, and His resurrection is the most unlikely event of all. And He did all that so that even the most unworthy of us all, you and me, could live forever.