What Child Is This? Joseph and Mary’s Son, Jesus

Passage: Luke 1:26-38

People who study history talk about the year 1809 as a bumper crop year for babies who would influence and change the world. 1809 was the year of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, William Gladstone prime minister of England; biologist Charles Darwin; three famous writers, English poet Alfred Lord Tennyson, and American writers Oliver Wendell Holmes and Edgar Allan Poe; two inventors, Louis Braille who invented the braille writing system and Cyrus McCormick who invented the McCormick reaper; and world famous composer Felix Mendelssohn. What a bumper crop year for babies who would influence and change the world. Baby of all babies. This Advent season we have looked at the Bibles own bumper crop of babies. Four babies God used to influence and change the world and more importantly to prepare the world for Jesus. During this Advent season we have seen how babies point us to God’s plans in redemptive history. Isaac showed us our need for a substitute and a sacrifice. Moses delivered God’s people from physical bondage, but we still need a Savior from spiritual bondage. Samuel was a priest who anointed kings, but Jesus would be both priest and King. John prepared the way for a Savior but he was not the Savior. Jesus’ birth is not only the hinge point of history, it changed the destiny of the universe.