A friend was telling me of an interesting question her pastor asked last Sunday: who was the first person to recognize Jesus as God in the flesh?
Hint: it wasn’t the shepherds. Nor the magi. Nor Simeon or Anna, in the temple.
You could make a good case, of course, for Mary and / or Joseph – and they certainly affirmed, through their remarkable obedience, what was told them by an angel. But neither of them is really the first recorded as recognizing what believers around the world, across two millennia, have so joyfully confessed: that Jesus is Lord.
No, the first person to testify to the lordship of Christ, even when he was still in His mother’s womb, was … another babe, in another womb.
Luke tells us, in the first chapter of his gospel, what happened when Mary, newly impregnated with her son and Messiah, journeyed to visit her aging relative, Elizabeth – six months pregnant with her own son, one day to be known as John the Baptist:
When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!”(Luke 1:41-45)
Elizabeth said the words, but little John gave her the joyful nudge. Which tells us several things.
One, babies in the womb are living beings. “Fetuses” don’t respond to fetuses.
Two, even in the womb, living beings are spiritually impressionable. In ways “fetuses” are not.
Three, if a baby in the womb is spiritually sensitive enough to recognize the presence of God … so are the rest of us. At any age. Under any circumstance.
As the Apostle Paul put it, “what may be known of God is manifest in [human beings], for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse ….” (Romans 1:19-20)
What baby John could know, anyone can know. And everyone does know.
So, being lost – like being saved – is a choice.
That should give those of us who believe in the Lord a greater measure of confidence, as we weigh the opportunities He gives us to talk with others about Him. We’re not really telling people anything they don’t already know. We may be able to explain it a little better, with the words He gives us to say. We may be able to encourage them in the right direction, as His luminaria, aglow with His joy and peace.
We may be able to give them examples of selfless love and a transformed, abundant life … standing out like a well-lit Christmas tree from the rest of the dark winter forest.
But whether we speak or glow or not, as the Scripture tells us, He cannot be hidden (Mark 7:24). People will see what they want to see. Hearts will embrace what they choose to embrace. And sharing what we know of Christ is a sweet privilege, not an onerous obligation.
Do we think any of the angels over the shepherds’ field resented being sent out into that starlight?
Or imagine that the shepherds themselves felt an unseemly pressure to go and tell what they’d seen?
We know what love is. We have hope to share – a faith to pass along. We are invited to introduce Jesus, born in Bethlehem, to people who feel so sure they know that name from somewhere …
This is supposed to be fun.
It’s Christmas time. I wish you a sense of the nearness of God. A gasp of wonder at His love for you. And a chance to share with some lost soul the joy that sings in your heart.
When the opportunity comes, I hope, like baby John, you’ll make the leap.
And I hope, like Elizabeth, you get a kick out of it.
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