Mary in her own words

This blog post is a reading from my book The People Who Knew Jesus: Monologues for Advent and Lent. If you click on the link, you'll be taken to the book's page on Amazon if you want to purchase the book. 

Mary

I was a young virgin who was engaged to Joseph, an older man who was a carpenter. He would be able to take good care of me.

But one day, while I was praying, the angel Gabriel visited me.  I was frightened.  Why would an angel want to talk to me?  “Hail, O favored one,” he said. Favored by who? By God?

Gabriel said that I would conceive and bear a son.  His name would be Jesus and He would be the Son of the Most High, and that He would be given the throne of his father David.  I realized that Gabriel was speaking of the Messiah. 

But I was confused.  How would be the baby be conceived if I was not yet married to Joseph?  I asked Gabriel how this would happen.  Gabriel explained that the Holy Spirit would overshadow me and I would conceive, so that my son would also be the Son of God. 

Gabriel also had other news – my aunt Elizabeth was six months pregnant.  I remembered that Elizabeth and Zechariah had been praying for a baby for a long time.  I told Gabriel that I would be the Lord’s servant and bear the Son of God.

I told Joseph I was pregnant by the Holy Spirit, but he was upset. I went to visit Elizabeth.  Elizabeth’s baby leapt in her womb when he heard my voice. I stayed at Elizabeth’s house for three months and then I went home to my family.

Caesar Augustus, the Roman ruler, ordered a census and Joseph and I had to travel to Bethlehem to be counted, since that was where his family was from.  It was a long journey, especially riding on the back of a donkey, and it was close to time for baby Jesus to be born.  As soon as we got to Bethlehem, my labor pains began. 

We went to the inn, but we were too late – there were no rooms left. Joseph was angry and I was worried and in pain.  Where would baby Jesus be born?  Finally, the innkeeper offered his stable to us and Joseph accepted.  Where else could we go? At least in the stable, we would be out of the cold.

Baby Jesus was finally born, and I wrapped Him in a cloth and laid Him in the manger.  The animals looked at baby Jesus, as if they realized that their Creator had come down to visit them.  The shepherds came to the stable and told us about their angelic visitors.  They knelt down at the manger and worshiped baby Jesus.

I will never forget the night Jesus was born.  The world’s long wait was over; the Savior had finally come down to the earth He created, in the form of a child.  And I was blessed to be the Savior’s mother.

Thanks as always for reading! And Merry Christmas! 

Diane

Joseph in his own words

This blog post is a reading from my book The People Who Knew Jesus: Monologues for Advent and Lent. If you click on the link, you'll be taken to the book's page on Amazon if you want to purchase the book.

Joseph

Mary and I were engaged to be married.  But before we could be married, it was discovered that she was going to have a baby.

I was hesitant to stay engaged to Mary after she told me she was with child. Her story that the baby’s father was the Holy Spirit was even more suspicious.  I thought to divorce her privately, so as not to cause her any shame. 

Mary left after her confession to spend some time with her aunt Elizabeth, who was with child.  Mary thought that by the time she returned that everything would be settled.  

I was still uncertain as to whether or not to divorce Mary.  But the angel of the Lord came to me one night in a dream.  He told me not to be afraid to take Mary as my wife.  He also told me that Mary had been overshadowed by the Holy Spirit and that the baby in her womb would be a boy.  The angel said I should name the baby Jesus, because He would save people from their sins.  After that visit from the angel, I decided not to divorce Mary.

Caesar Augustus had decreed that every male had to travel to his hometown to be counted in a census.  Since my family was from Bethlehem, Mary and I had to travel there to be registered.  But when we got to Bethlehem, Mary said that it was time for the baby to come. 

I was worried.  We finally arrived at Bethlehem’s only inn, but the innkeeper said that all of his rooms were full and there was no place for Mary to have the baby.  He offered us the stable, so I accepted it.  What else could I do?  I hoped and prayed that everything would be all right.

It didn’t take long for baby Jesus to arrive.  He was a beautiful Child.  Great love stirred in my heart as I looked into His face, and I knew that I would protect Him and be the earthly father He deserved.  

The next blog post will be from Mary in her own words. Thanks for reading! Merry Christmas!

Diane

The Shepherd in his own words

This blog post is a reading from my book The People Who Knew Jesus: Monologues for Advent and Lent. If you click on the link, you'll be taken to the book's page on Amazon if you want to purchase the book.

The Shepherd

It was just another cold, dark night out in the fields.  Some of the other shepherds and I were taking turns watching over the sheep to protect them.  The only things we saw in the sky that night were a few stars.  I was on watch, so the rest of the shepherds were asleep.

Suddenly, an angel appeared in the sky.  I thought I was dreaming. I was very scared. Why would an angel appear to shepherds? Prophets were the only ones who saw angels. Then the angel said, “Do not be afraid. I come to bring you tidings of great joy.  You will find a baby lying in a manger, which is Christ the Lord.”  I woke up the other shepherds to see the angel. 

Then a large group of angels appeared with the angel.  They sang, “Glory to God in the highest! And goodwill to men, with who He is pleased.”  It was so beautiful.  It was a sight I will never forget.

After the angels had left, I told the other shepherds, “We must go find the baby. We must go see the Messiah, who was promised of old.”  Someone had to watch the sheep while we went to Bethlehem, so one of the other shepherds stayed behind with the sheep.

We found the stable next to the inn.  And Joseph, Mary, and the baby Jesus were in the stable.  The baby was all wrapped up and lying in a manger, asleep.  The animals watched over the little family.  We bowed our knees and got up close to the manager to get a closer look at the baby Jesus.  We told Mary and Joseph about the angels who had appeared to us in the fields.  Mary smiled and it looked like she was thinking about what we had told her. On our way back to the fields, we met the innkeeper.  We told him about our angelic visitors and the baby Messiah in his stable. 

We went back out to the fields and I thought about what we had seen and heard.  Shepherds were the lowest of the low, but we were the first ones to hear about the newborn Messiah!  It was a night I will never forget.

In the next blog post, we'll hear from Joseph, Jesus' earthly father. Thanks for reading! See you next time!

Diane

 

The Innkeeper in his own words

This blog post is a reading from my book The People Who Knew Jesus: Monologues for Advent and Lent. If you click on the link, you'll be taken to the book's page on Amazon if you want to purchase the book.

The Innkeeper

There were so many people in Bethlehem that day.  They had come to town because of the census that Caesar Augustus had decreed.  I own the only inn in town, and every room was full because of the census.  There were no more rooms left for me to rent out when Joseph and Mary came to the door.  They didn’t get here in time.

Joseph was very angry when I told him that there were no more rooms available.  “Can’t you see that Mary is in pain?” he asked.  “It is time for her to be delivered.  Are you sure there are no rooms available?”

The only other room available was the room my wife and I slept in, and if I gave that up, where would we sleep?  I thought for a moment.  “I do have a place,” I told Joseph, “if you don’t mind staying in the stable with the animals.”  Joseph nodded. 

I took Mary and Joseph to the stable and made them a bed in the hay.  I made sure that there was plenty of hay for them to stay warm.  Then I went back to the inn.

I had trouble sleeping that night, so I put on my robe and went outside.  Some shepherds ran up to greet me.  They told me that the baby Messiah was lying in the manger of my stable, and that angels had told them about the baby. The Messiah? Here in my stable? I had to go and see. And there was Mary and Joseph, with the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes in the manger.

I went back to bed and told my wife. She was very angry with me. “A woman was having a baby and you put her in the stable? Tomorrow we will find a place for them to stay. A stable is no place for a baby,” she said.

Especially when that baby was the Messiah, the Redeemer that the Jews had been praying to see for many centuries. And I was one of the first to see the Messiah, lying in that manger bed. I will never forget that night as long as I live.

Stay tuned - the next post will feature the shepherd in his own words. Thanks for reading! See you next time! 

Diane

Sometimes, a kiss just means more

When we see the word "kiss," we often think of a romantic kiss between lovers, a platonic kiss between friends, or the kisses between a parent and a child.  The Bible, however, lists six different types of kisses. 

The first type of kiss we see in the Bible is the kiss of blessing. In the Old Testament, the father kisses the firstborn son, or the son kisses the father, to receive the blessing before the father dies. Genesis 48:10 tells how Jacob (disguised as Esau) kissed Isaac to receive his father's blessing before he died.  In 2 Samuel 19:39, King David kissed Barzillai and blessed him because Barzillai had provided David with supplies when he stayed at Mahanaim after David had escaped from his son Absalom, who had taken over David's throne.

The second type of kiss we see in the Bible is the kiss of anointing. In 1 Samuel 10:1, the prophet Samuel poured oil over Saul to anoint him as the first king of Israel and kissed him. 

The third type of kiss we see in the Bible is the kiss of greeting. This kind of kiss is found in ten locations in the Bible. In Genesis 29:13, after Rebecca told Laban that his nephew Jacob was at the well,  Laban ran to meet him and greeted him with a kiss. In the New Testament, in one of the most beloved parables, which is found in Luke 15, the father of the Prodigal Son ran to meet his son upon his return and kissed him. In Romans 16:16, Paul instructs the believers to greet each other with a holy kiss. In 1 Peter 5:14, Peter also instructs the believers to greet each other with a holy kiss. 

The fourth type of kiss is the kiss of betrayal. In 2 Samuel 20, Joab grabs Amasa by the beard to kiss him, but while doing so, Joab plunged his sword through Amasa's stomach and killed him. This was in revenge for Absalom appointing Amasa as commander of the army instead of Joab, who was loyal to David. The most well-known kiss of betrayal is when Judas kisses Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. You can read about this in Matthew 26:48 and in Mark 14:45. That kiss was the signal for the Pharisees to seize Jesus, and you know the rest of the story.

The fifth and final type of kiss is the kiss of farewell. The kiss of farewell can be found in six different locations in the Bible. In 1 Samuel 20:41, David and Jonathan kissed each other farewell before David ran away from Saul. In Ruth 1:14, Orpah kissed her mother-in-law Naomi goodbye before returning to her people.   In Acts 20:37, the believers in Ephesus fell on Paul's neck and kissed him goodbye because Paul told them in verse 20 that they would never see him again. 

Neither the kiss of greeting, the kiss of anointing, nor the kiss of farewell is practiced in today's church, at least not that I've seen. We live in a different world today, where we are worried about propriety and/or lawsuits.  The COVID pandemic also put the kibosh on non-romantic or friendly kisses. When we all get to heaven (what a day that will be!), we will be able to greet each other with kisses for all eternity without fear. Won't that be nice? 

In case you didn't know, I have an author page on Amazon.com, where you can purchase books of my blog posts, and you can purchase a book of my Advent/Lenten monologues. The link to my author page is in the right-hand column. Thanks in advance for your consideration!

And thanks as always for reading! See you next time!

Diane

The big snip

In my previous blog post, I discussed the difference between the physical heart and the spiritual heart. In this blog post, I will discuss the difference between physical circumcision and spiritual circumcision. 

Physical circumcision is first mentioned in the Bible in Genesis 17:10-14.  God told Abraham that to keep the covenant between Him and Abraham's descendants, every male child was to have his foreskin removed. The circumcision was to occur on the eighth day after the male child's birth. God also told Abraham that every male child is to be circumcised, whether he was a family member or he was bought with money; otherwise, the uncircumcised male would be cut off from his people. This is important because in Exodus 4:24-26, we read that Moses was returning to Egypt when the Lord met Moses on the road. The Lord was going to kill Moses, since Moses didn't have his son circumcised. Moses' wife circumcised Moses' son and threw the foreskin at Moses' feet. Even Jesus was circumcised, because He was a Jewish baby boy (Luke 2:21).

God is the Creator, and He had a good reason for selecting the eighth day for physical circumcision.  The level of Vitamin K in the blood is highest on the eighth day, and Vitamin K controls the clotting factor that helps stop bleeding. Today, baby boys are circumcised a few hours after they are born. Jewish boy babies are circumcised on the eighth day after birth during a religious ceremony called a bris. 

Spiritual circumcision refers to the foreskin of the spiritual heart, which I touched on briefly in my last blog post. The first time the foreskin of the heart is mentioned in the Bible is in Deuteronomy 10:16, where Moses tells Israel to circumcise the foreskins of their hearts so that they would not be stiff-necked (a/k/a rebellious) any longer. Moses also tells Israel in Deuteronomy 30:6 that if they fall away from faith in God but return to the Lord, He will circumcise their hearts and the hearts of their descendants to love the Lord with all of their hearts and souls so that they may live. In Jeremiah 4:4, Jeremiah tells Israel to circumcise themselves to the Lord and take away the foreskins of their hearts, lest the Lord's fury come forth like fire.

In the New Testament, Jews are referred to as "those of the circumcision," to differentiate them from the Gentiles, who weren't circumcised. In Romans 15:8, Paul refers to Jesus as the servant to the circumcision (the Jews) for the truth of God to confirm the promises made to the fathers (i.e., the Jewish fathers). 

So, how is the spiritual circumcision of our hearts accomplished? Paul states in Romans 2:29 that circumcision is of the heart in the Spirit. He then states in Colossians 2:11 that the spiritual circumcision is made without hands by Christ Himself. When we repent of our sins and put our faith in Christ, He will circumcise the foreskin of our spiritual heart so that we have a spiritual heart of flesh rather than a heart of stone.  

Dear reader, what is the condition of your spiritual heart? Have you experienced the circumcision of the spiritual heart but have turned away from God like the Israelites did? If so, the promise God gave to the Israelites in Deuteronomy 30:6 applies to you also. Repent of your sins and turn back to God so He can circumcise your spiritual heart and you can love the Lord with all your heart and soul, and truly live. 

Thanks, as always, for reading! See you next time!

Diane

The state of your (spiritual) heart

There are two types of hearts - the physical and the spiritual. Our physical heart pumps blood into the body's veins and arteries. When our physical heart stops working, we become ill and our bodies can die. But our physical heart cannot think. Our physical heart also does not control our feelings or our actions. Our physical hearts cannot desire. 

The Bible has many verses that refer to the heart. You will find a great majority of them in the Psalms. These verses, however, are about our spiritual hearts. The Scripture writers had to be writing about the spiritual heart because they wouldn't have been able to see the physical heart - the X-ray machine wasn't invented until 1895. Per GotQuestions.com, the heart is that spiritual part of us where our emotions and desires dwell. For ease of reference, I will refer to the non-physical heart as the spiritual heart in this post to avoid confusion.

Interestingly, the spiritual heart has a foreskin, which a physical heart does not have.  The spiritual heart's foreskin can be read about in the Old Testament in Deuteronomy 10:6, Deuteronomy 30:6, Jeremiah 4:4, and in many other places in the Old and New Testaments. I will delve further into spiritual circumcision in a future post. 

Those who believe in God have spiritual hearts that are pure, clean, and that glorify God. Our spiritual heart instructs us (Psalm 16:7). If we delight in the Lord, He will give us the desires of our hearts (Psalm 17:3). Our spiritual hearts, however, can be dismayed because of sin or because of circumstances (Psalm 38:8(b)). If we do sin and repent of our sin, however, God will give us a clean spiritual heart (Psalm 51:10) Our spiritual hearts believe unto righteousness and we must believe in our spiritual hearts before we can confess with our mouths that Christ is Lord and Savior (Romans 10:10).  

As for those with spiritual hearts that don't believe in God? Jeremiah 17:9 reads: "The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?" This verse describes those who are unsaved and don't believe in God. They are tempted and lured by the things of this world. In Romans 1:21(b), the apostle Paul writes: "because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened." Their foolish hearts lead them into darkness and God will punish them for that, as explained further in verse 24: "For this reason God gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves." 

But those who believe in God but depart from the faith are cursed, as it reads in Jeremiah 17:5: "Thus says the Lord, 'Cursed is the man who trusts in man, And makes flesh his strength, Whose heart departs from the Lord.'" Dear reader, what is the state of your spiritual heart? Do you believe and trust in God with your whole heart? Or do you just know of God and do not glorify and believe in Him? (And if this is you, how did you find this blog?) Have you followed the Lord once but have departed from the faith? If this is you, return to the Lord and pray for forgiveness and reconciliation with Him. The time will come when it will be too late for you to make the choice to return to God. 

Did you know that I have an author page on Amazon.com? The link is in the right-hand column, but here it is for easy reference: Diane's author page on Amazon  I have self-published books of posts from this blog, and there is also a book with Lenten and Advent monologues. If you purchase a book, please leave a review; it helps the algorithm.  

Thanks as always for reading! I'm so sorry it's taken me so long to publish a new post. I hope to start writing more regularly again soon. 

Diane