Luke 2:1-7 - "...about 6 months later...baby #2 is born!" - The Big Event

 

Let me describe to you where this squinting person is at.  The sign in the background tells of another hairpin curve on the Trail Ridge Road that is closed to traffic over the winter months.  I have made it up to turn number 5 as indicated on the sign.  My goal was the Farview Curve Overlook but I ran out of time.  A 7 mile round trip at this point and 900 feet in elevation gain.  It is a unique way to see the snow capped Never Summer Mountain Range.  It was so blinding white that I was thankful for grabbing my sunglasses before I left.  

This last shot gives some perspective of the elevation gained from the valley below.  I have been logging this hikes on a new trail map for 2025 and also on my Facebook page to have a record of where I have been.  

Back in the saddle as they say after 2 weeks out of the pulpit at Stillwater.  We were back at our in depth look at the first coming of Christ.  This Sunday we started the very traditional reading passage of Luke 2.  It was time to keep looking at the details and dismantling what the church and the world have done to the Christmas story.  We started with an open book all group quiz that showed us all the details we have covered so far.

I am so thankful for Luke's gospel and his introduction in Luke 1:1-4.  He shares who he is writing this for and also how he has gathered this information.  Couple this with his profession of being a doctor adds to the precision he would have wanted to convey.  Being led by the Holy Spirit as the Scriptures instruct us, his personhood comes out in the details that help us to keep the Christmas story accurate and therefore keep our focus on keeping the gospel accurate also.  

We as the church have sometimes spent more time on the images of the innkeeper or the donkey or the created little drummer boy or the perfect looking manger scene rather than putting heavy emphasis on the fulfilled prophecy, the fact that God is with us and the ultimate "why" He came.  Christmas is God keeping His covenant with His people and putting Himself in a cradle (manger) to ultimately hang on a cross to be put in a cave (tomb) for 3 days before rising as He said He would and ascending to the right hand of the Father to be coronated and waiting to come again at His Father's command to retrieve His bride, the church.  A lot of "c's" there.

I will end with this quote I have loved have from Mark Dever from 9 Marks describing the gospel.

"The good news is the truth that the one and only God, who is holy, has made us in His image to know Him.

But we have sinned and cut ourselves off from Him.

In His great love, God became a man in Jesus, lived a perfect life, and died on the cross, thus fulfilling the law in Himself and taking on Himself the punishment for the sins of all those who would ever turn from their sins and trust in Him.

All of those sins He bore as a sacrifice.

He rose again from the dead, ascended to heaven, and presented His completed work to His heavenly Father, who accepted Christ's sacrifice, thus declaring His wrath against all of His own people exhausted.

God now sends out His Spirit to call us through this message of repentance and faith to trust in Christ alone for our forgiveness.

If we repent of our sins and trust in Christ only, then we are born again into a new life, an eternal life with God."

This is why Christmas happened.

Adam