The Life Challenges Podcast
The Life Challenges Podcast
Faith and Life Challenges in the Nativity
Join us to unravel the truth behind the Christmas narrative. We'll revisit the roles of Mary, Joseph, and others within this sacred story, shining a new light on their profound faith and the hurdles they overcame. We delve into the roles of the shepherds, highlighting their pivotal presence in receiving the angel's message and the broader theme of inclusivity in God’s plan. This episode invites listeners to reflect on how ordinary individuals were chosen for extraordinary purposes, emphasizing the timeless relevance of faith, obedience, and divine timing in our own lives.
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on today's episode.
Jeff Samelson:One thing that we can learn from every one of these figures and their part in the Christmas story is a lesson in faith. In trust, we see that God is able and willing and he will work everything out for our good and in keeping with his promises, not just even, but especially, when things seem most unlikely, impossible or confusing.
Paul Snamiska:Welcome to the Life Challenges podcast from Christian Life Resources. People today face many opportunities and struggles when it comes to issues of life and death, marriage and family, health and science. We're here to bring a fresh biblical perspective to these issues and more. Join us now for Life Challenges.
Christa Potratz:Hi and welcome back. I'm Krista Potratz and I'm here today with Pastors Bob Fleischman and Jeff Samuelson, and today we're going to do a fitting with the season type of episode as we look at the Christmas story and look at their life at the time that they're mentioned in the story as it relates to different life challenges that they were going through. We know that God uses all people for his glory and the Christmas story is just like that too, where you have regular sinful human beings being used to bring glory to God. There just really is a lot, and I mean, as you start going through the list of the different people in the Christmas story, it really does make you realize, wow, they really were going through a lot of life challenges and God used that to bring about his glory.
Jeff Samelson:Part of the challenge with this whole approach to things is that there are so many ideas and things that people know about the Christmas story that aren't actually in the Bible, and there's so much that's assumed as just no, of course that's true, and that kind of puts a straight jacket on a little bit in terms of interpreting some of these things like no, of course that's true, and that kind of puts a straight jacket on a little bit in terms of interpreting some of these things like well, what was this actually like? Once you step back and you look at, okay, what does the text actually tell us about Mary or Joseph or Zechariah or the shepherds, only then can you let your sanctified imagination in there to say, okay, what would that really have been like? Just as a, for instance. You know, we've got this idea of okay, there's this lonely stable that's out in the middle of nowhere, it's not connected to anything, because there's my nativity set, doesn't have, you know, any buildings around it or anything like that, and they're all crammed in there with all these other animals and it's just Mary and just Joseph and all the cute animals.
Jeff Samelson:And then later on the shepherds arrive and so do the wise men, and that's just not what it really would have looked like. And when you realize, okay, mary probably had the help of a midwife Okay, that's another character who should probably be in here. But then there would have been the challenge of how do you find a midwife in a town that's not in your hometown? How do you get one that you trust, maybe if you haven't had much time, all sorts of things like that that we need to be a little more careful not to assume so much that we're just told that. That's there. One classic example. Of course, people always want to talk about the innkeeper.
Christa Potratz:I was about to say, as I was making the list, I was like, oh yeah, we can talk about the innkeeper and I was like, wait a minute, there was no innkeeper. Or we don't know. You know, it just isn't described.
Jeff Samelson:Yeah, there's no information about an innkeeper. There's no mean and nasty guy saying get out of here, we don't have room for you. No, it's a simple statement. There was no room at the inn. And I'll just throw this in there Some very interesting scholarship from a Middle Eastern Christian scholar or a Christian scholar of the Middle East that suggests that that's been a mistranslation all along and that what it was really saying is there was no room in the upper room because most houses that time they would have had the lower level, which is where the animals were kept, and the upper level, which was where the people lived, and particularly if you had guests, that's where they were. But because Bethlehem was busy, the upstairs was full where Mary and Joseph were staying, so they had to be downstairs and the only place to put the baby was in the manger, which makes really good sense. But then that really throws out the whole idea of the evil, nasty, unfriendly innkeeper. But without the innkeeper you lose a character in your Christmas drama.
Bob Fleischmann:It always reminds me, you know so much of what we do is formulated by what have become Christmas customs, which is whether it's very familiar Christmas carols that bring things into the Christmas story that aren't in the biblical account.
Bob Fleischmann:Like snow Like snow yeah, yeah, I got to sprinkle the snow around the nativity scene. It just reminds me of every year my mom and dad put up a little nativity structure in their one side room and my mom just thought that it needed to look warmer. So could I come in and put little lights hidden up behind the rafters just to kind of warm it up a little bit.
Bob Fleischmann:I mean, we go through an awful lot of effort in order to try to create a vision of what it was like.
Bob Fleischmann:And I think the other thing I want to say too is and I'm trying to remember, but sometime in our 30, 40-year history, I believe, we devoted a workshop or something to the topic of using biblical stories to bring about a life message, place somehow a conversation with the Christmas story, and there's a ton of stuff going on here that allow you to venerate on the positive side, caring for others. By the way, I've always thought that sending Mary and Joseph, you can look at it negatively and say, well, why didn't you take my spot? I'll go and stay in the barn with the animals, but on the other side it's like go and stay in the barn with the animals, but on the other side it's like I don't have any room, but you could stay in a place with the animals, which, by the way, was not as big of a problem for people back then. I mean for all of you who sleep with your dogs this is probably pretty comparable.
Bob Fleischmann:I just mean we don't need the magnificence of the story. Is God becoming man? That's the magnificence of the story. Is God becoming man? That's the magnificence of the story. Everything else is like fluff.
Christa Potratz:You just kind of dress it up a little bit Well, and I think, too, just going through the different people in the story today will just help shed light a little bit on what was really happening. And so I wanted to start with Zachariah and Elizabeth, figures that maybe don't make the nativity scene that we put up, but that were in the story too. I mean just a little bit recapping too. With Zachariah and Elizabeth, we are told that they are older and that they don't have any children, and so thinking in terms of a life challenge, being an older married couple and not having children would have been something in that culture to be that way.
Bob Fleischmann:Even back then. If you think that all the sophistication today, back then they realized at some point in life you just don't have children anymore.
Bob Fleischmann:I mean you can't. This is where we were. They understood that. And yet kind of the reminder that a lot of us pastors have told people in our offices. And that is God always gets his way. Whether you think it's challenged by medicine or health or it's challenged by circumstance, god gets his way. And I've often found a lot of comfort is that I think it's in Galatians, when the fullness of time had come, but it's the idea that God knew what he was doing. He had a timescale that he was using. Because I don't know about you, but when you're looking at this time you're going, is this really the best time to bring the Savior of the world? We could probably use him about now, and maybe that's where Advent and the Second Coming come in. But the point is that you've got Zechariah and Elizabeth. They're beyond the ages of having children and yet God has determined that those people at that time in that place are going to be part of the greatest story ever told.
Jeff Samelson:Yeah, and it's interesting that we normally talk about Zechariah and Elizabeth in the season of Advent, you know, the lead up to Christmas. I mean, technically those events are a year or more out from Christmas itself, but actually I suppose that makes the stage for everything that's going to follow, because not that they had anything specific to do with Jesus's birth, but well, john the Baptist, the child that Elizabeth became pregnant with, he was the forerunner for the Messiah. And so this is where God starts this thing, that that long period of silence from the end of the old Testament up until the new Testament, here was coming the prophet that had not been around for so long and he had a very specific job of introducing the world to its Savior. And this is how that got started. And again, it's the care that God went to to make sure that just the right people at just the right time and just the right circumstances.
Jeff Samelson:The life challenge aspect of it that I think really comes out strong in the case of Zechariah and Elizabeth is a question of belief and disbelief. Zechariah Gabriel appears to him and tells him your wife's going to have a baby, and he's like, yeah, right, and he doesn't really believe it. You know it's too good to be true. He is chastised for that. He's unable to speak until the child is born and given the name John. But think about Elizabeth. Zechariah is going to have to try to explain to her what happened with this angel in the temple and what he said. Not being able to talk. He has to explain this to Elizabeth.
Jeff Samelson:Then others are going to have this disbelief of could it really be that Elizabeth is pregnant at her age? Maybe she's just been eating too much, or maybe this is some kind of disease or something like that. Just all of this disbelief that's out there. But God wants them to believe and that's what they have to do and that's what they do do in the end. And of course, their faith is rewarded, as it always is. But so many little challenges. I mean the things that most of us, when we're married and we have children, we're in our 20s or 30s the first time it happens, we've got some energy, we've got some curiosity about life and everything like that. You hit 45 and 50 and beyond and he's like I could never do that again.
Christa Potratz:I mean nothing happens in accident with God. I love the aspect of the story where Zachariah is in this part of the temple because basically he won a lottery or the casting of the lots, and I mean it kind of seems like, oh, that was really random. Well, not with God. That was planned, that was where God wanted him to be. And so I just I wonder too, like with Mary coming, and obviously you know, if Elizabeth had had this baby, like back in her younger years, mary would have been too tiny or not old enough to be there to be able to help Elizabeth, and so just the kind of that aspect of just, I mean, them being cousins and everything too Well, you know you ask the question.
Jeff Samelson:Well, how did Mary find out? It wasn't posted on Facebook that Elizabeth was pregnant.
Bob Fleischmann:You know she wasn't able to send a letter.
Jeff Samelson:How did she find out? It was the angel, gabriel himself, who said after she asked how's this going to happen? Because, you know, I'm a virgin. And he tells her that she's going to bear the Savior. He says okay, the Holy Spirit's going to come on you. The power of the Most High will overshadow you. And then he says listen, elizabeth, your relative has also conceived a son in her old age, even though she was called barren, and this is her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God.
Jeff Samelson:Even setting aside all the other stuff we've talked about, this was a sign that God used, proving to Mary hey, this can happen, because God can do anything. And then again Mary may have been thinking oh okay, wow, that's amazing, maybe I should go see her. And again, this is the imagining, things that aren't in the text, kind of thing. But I strongly suspect that Mary's visit to her was partially a. I'm going to get out of town before I start showing that this is going to be a better place for me to be, because it's going to avoid some scandal. People aren't going to be asking all these questions or whatever. I'm going to go see Elizabeth.
Christa Potratz:And I mean this really does lead into Mary's life challenge too. At the time being pregnant, I mean, she wasn't married yet out of wedlock.
Bob Fleischmann:I'm always taken back by the fact that it's just not the way I would have done it If I were God. Why do it this way? First of all, the story really keys off of the women for a while, which is not typical of the culture. In other words, women in that culture were oftentimes bystanders. Everything was kind of dictated by what the men do and everything. And so first of all Zechariah shut up. You know. So he can't say anything, you know. And so now the testimony all comes from his wife. Did Mary need the bolster to her confidence that not only is your relative pregnant, but your relative who's not supposed to be ever pregnant anymore is pregnant?
Bob Fleischmann:And you know it could be. Why not Jerusalem, why Bethlehem, why, in other words, all of these pieces? And this is something you know. Again, I want to try to give it kind of a contemporary application, and that is oftentimes you wonder about. You know God can do anything, and why doesn't he? Just, god uses immense periods of time, promises made centuries ago, and he just, you know, for God a day is like a thousand years, a thousand years is like a day. So fullness of time has come. And so, first of all, I've got a lady who shouldn't be able to be pregnant. She's pregnant. I have another lady over here who shouldn't be able to be pregnant. She's pregnant. I have another lady over here who shouldn't be able to be pregnant, she's pregnant. And both of them for opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of chronologically.
Bob Fleischmann:It already began in incredibleness. And if I were to try to write a story to sell a concept, to sell a religion, this is just not how you would write it. You know you just wouldn't. And yet God does this throughout the whole unfolding of Scripture, especially through the time of Christ. Look at the resurrection. Who are the first proclaimers that the tomb is empty? It's women, and it's women who weren't always of high repute. It was incredible, it was remarkable, and I think that there's a richness in the story, just in what's there, without adding any of the fluff with things kind of going on and not really understanding things.
Christa Potratz:And then the angel talks to him and through the dream and tells him what he should be doing now and I just, you know, you kind of wonder, maybe a little bit about what his personality was or what he was kind of thinking, but just trying to, okay, do what the angel is saying.
Bob Fleischmann:And then also now having to take this road trip, essentially to Bethlehem, and Joseph's, that mysterious element in the Christmas story for a lot of us, you know, because he's there, and he's there when Jesus is 12, and then he's no more. He's there and he's there when Jesus is 12, and then he's no more. And of course he's no more because God saw fit that he doesn't. We don't need to know more. So you look at the richness of what you're told. I've had this kind of this running track in my head. Well, I have a number of running tracks in my head.
Bob Fleischmann:This one playing out is saying that perhaps one of the innate problems of the sinfulness of man, of humankind, is that we don't grasp thinking more of others than of ourselves. And you know, you get that in the story of Joseph. He was looking for a way to kind of quietly, discreetly, divorce her, separate this off, but then he takes it on. Why? Because sometimes even God's servant needs to be nudged and reminded that how are you thinking more of others? Granted, it wasn't going to be embarrassing for her if you quietly divorce. You're trying to remove that, but she still was going to have this to carry. And instead he takes on the responsibility, he becomes the surrogate father and raises him, at least through the age of 12, if not older, because we don't pick up on Jesus again for another. What 18 years after? So a lot could happen in that 18 years that Joseph played a part in his life. But I think it's remarkable that he gets kind of brought around to. I'm going to care for him.
Jeff Samelson:Another place where imagination comes in. Well, I think you imagine, okay, joseph, finally he's finding out he's going to be a dad. You think of yourself today, if you're a responsible father, or whatever you find. Oh wow, my wife's pregnant, I'm going to be a father, and all the misgivings you have. How am I going to do? You know, am I smart enough? Am I wise enough? Do I make enough money? Do I? Will I be able to be the kind of dad that my dad was or wasn't? You know all these kinds of things. You know all these kinds of things.
Jeff Samelson:Now, then add that in. It's like oh yeah, the woman I married, yes, she's pregnant, but it's not my child, but I'm going to raise it as my own. So all those questions that you already had just get moved up a big notch of. Okay, you know, how am I going to be this child when somebody else is the biological father? How's he going to figure into this? What are all the dynamics here? Am I going to still be able to do a good job?
Jeff Samelson:Now, imagine Joseph's situation, where he's not only all of that that he's dealing with, but oh yeah, the dad, the real dad is God himself, and he's got a plan for this boy that my wife is going to be giving birth to, just the responsibility that he was going to have to deal with there. Just imagine quiet hours as they're walking from Galilee down to Bethlehem or whatever along the road and all the thoughts that are going through his mind, which relates to kind of a question that's lingered for me, and that is why silence Zechariah and let Joseph keep speaking you know, I mean think about it.
Bob Fleischmann:There has to be, I mean—.
Christa Potratz:Maybe he was a quieter kind of guy. Yeah, how you mentioned all these life challenges, so to speak, with taking on Mary and kind of in more of an adoptive role type of father. But then there's like all this traveling too and being the provider, and, ok, you know, so you got to take your business or whatever to Bethlehem. Oh, you got to go to Egypt now, oh, we're going back to Nazareth. I mean you're just going all over the place too and I mean there may be. I mean you just don't know. But like the sense of hey, I mean I want to just provide for the Son of God here, and now I'm having to go to all these different places. I mean I just think of that too in terms of just another element in what Joseph was dealing with too, from a challenge standpoint.
Bob Fleischmann:And you know what's interesting is somebody who, with my wild imagination, might want to raise the question was it fair? Was this fair to Mary and Joseph? Obviously, it was a source of great joy for Elizabeth and Zechariah and it became great joy for Mary and Joseph. But how about, like somebody who's already living in Bethlehem? Maybe Wouldn't that have been kind of a little bit easier? Not so much traveling, you know, not having to go.
Bob Fleischmann:And yet the thing I've always gotten out of it, when I started to dissect the Christmas story, is that God almost never thinks like I do. And it's important for me to remember that, because when we walk through life and we think things should pan out a certain way because of our concept of God, god says my ways are not your ways, your ways are not my ways. You've got to keep in mind that there's a specific purpose, a specific reason why it happens. Like I said, zechariah gets silenced, joseph can continue to talk. I would imagine he has a few things to say.
Bob Fleischmann:On a trip, people are going, well, what's going on here and so forth, and there's just all sorts of these things. And if you presume that nothing happened by accident and there is no insignificant feature. Our problem isn't that we—well, our problem is we don't know what the significance is of all the features. We're not told why Joseph was permitted to talk. We're not told why, like Mary said, why you know all people, why me you know. And yet it's God says I know what I'm doing. We have to keep that in mind.
Christa Potratz:Another group of people I guess to kind of mention too in the Christmas story are the shepherds. I've always found it fascinating just with the shepherds and the fields and the angels coming, more of an outcast member of society and they were really poor and I was always maybe kind of taught more like okay, it was the angels coming and showing that really God had come for all people, type of thing. But you know what was maybe some of the significance like with the shepherds or what we maybe kind of know about the shepherds in general.
Jeff Samelson:Well, similar to Bob's point earlier about women being central to this Christmas story and also Easter story, these were people that were kind of on the outside. It's again not how, if you were putting together a religion, you would have written it. Instead, you would have had the angel appearing to the local equivalent of the mayor of the town or the rich merchants or something the influential people. Instead, the angels appear to those who are not going to be people of great influence, but people who have time to think and talk and observe and things, because that's what shepherds are going to do, and observe, and things because you know that's what shepherds are going to do. And they happen to be out there at night, ready audience for the angels and their message. But again, it's. You know, they had the same challenge that everybody has of belief.
Jeff Samelson:We just got this incredibly weird, shocking, amazing message. What are we going to do with it? Are we just going to sit here, twiddle our thumbs and say, wow, that was really amazing? What do you think the angel meant? No, they followed up. They said, okay, let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that we have heard about. And it wasn't just that event, but also this is Christ the Lord. That was part of the angel's message there, the good news of great joy. And they didn't just say, oh wow, that was cool, go back to their fields and keep it as some kind of secret between them. You know the text says they told everybody about it.
Jeff Samelson:You know, and that's exactly what they're supposed to do. It's as if my sister just gave birth to my first nephew. I'm going to tell everybody because I'm so excited about it. This was more than that. This was the Messiah, and they had to follow through on that.
Bob Fleischmann:You know we had a pastor who was big into baseball, all of his. You know we had a pastor who was big into baseball. All of his sermons eventually would have an illustration from baseball. You just had to wait for it and it was there. People who know me know that I've often said if I wasn't going to be a preacher I was going to be an architect. So I tend to kind of lean towards architecture analogies and so forth. And so then you get God, and so Jesus is raised by a handyman.
Bob Fleischmann:The scholarship says that Joseph was probably more than a carpenter. He was kind of a handyman, did all sorts of things. And so what are the most memorable illustrations in Jesus' conversation? It was shepherd and sheep. The other category is fisherman. Those are the illustrations he uses. I think there's one or two having to do with carpentry or something you know.
Bob Fleischmann:But really there was a richness in picking this audience. I'm not sure if they were the lowlifes of society, but I do know that when the disciples were picked they were seen as buffoons. You know drinking, have they drank? Are they drunk? You know that kind of stuff. So I would imagine the shepherds were not the most reputable, but there was something about the shepherds and something about taking care of sheep and something about that predicament that seemed to permeate the entire life of Christ's story. And you know, I am the good shepherd and I've always, whenever I get to that part of Scripture, I always think of the shepherds in the field. He never said you know, in the field. He never said you know, I am the good king in terms of the people, I am the good Pontius Pilate, I am the good mayor, I'm the good shepherd. And so I sometimes have wondered, at a stage plus the other two.
Bob Fleischmann:Thing to remember is for us, the story is ingrained. We know the story when the story is happening for the first time, can you imagine the story Shepherds are saying you saw what in the field? You know, it's just kind of weird. And you know, I don't think shepherds were inclined to tell weird stories. I just think they were the non-presumptive spokespersons. Which I think is something important for all of us to remember. Is you keep saying well, we're going to leave that to the pastor. Well, let him do it. Well, he didn't leave it to the pastor when it came to the shepherds. He left it to the shepherds. He didn't call the pastors. He called the fishermen. Again, there's a richness to see where God was focusing.
Jeff Samelson:Yeah, and even further connection there is why Bethlehem? Because, well, according to the Romans, joseph had to go there because he was at the house and line of David and Bethlehem was David's town. Well, what was David before he was called out from among his brothers?
Christa Potratz:and everyone else, me, me, me.
Jeff Samelson:Yes, krista. What was David?
Christa Potratz:A shepherd Right.
Jeff Samelson:So there's again that really nice circle there of everything connecting back.
Bob Fleischmann:Plus the archaeological critics. If it wasn't going to be the shepherds, let's just say it would have been fishermen or something. I'm sure they would have said well, you know, there weren't fishermen in Bethlehem at that time. This was a shepherding community. They had a social standing, but they also were a profession that was prominent at that time. This was a shepherding community. They had a social standing, but they also were a profession that was prominent in that area.
Christa Potratz:Looking at all these different figures in the Christmas story too, it just does again just reiterate the point that we don't understand the different circumstances necessarily that everybody was going through and why God chose the people that he did. But it just does illustrate that God uses everything and that even things that we think well, that doesn't make sense or why would that happen it can be always used to God's glory. It is meaningful to in our lives to also think about how different circumstances that we're going through, different challenges. Sometimes I mean especially during the holidays we maybe like want everything to be nice or to have these expectations for different things. But really no matter what we're going through, god is able to use it all.
Jeff Samelson:Yeah, one thing that we can learn from every one of these figures and their part in the Christmas story is a lesson in faith. In trust, we see that God is able and willing and he will work everything out for our good and in keeping with his promises, not just even, but especially, when things seem most unlikely, impossible or confusing. And we can remember that and look to that and just think you know, if God worked out everything for them, their trust was well-founded at that point. But even more if he worked everything out in all of history so that in the fullness of time the world would be given its savior from sin, well then we can be sure that in love, he's going to always work everything out for us and for our good as well. No matter what challenges, no matter what problems, no matter what tests, no matter what pains or sufferings or whatever we might be facing, god's got our backs in the most wonderful and powerful way, and we really see that coming out strong in the Christmas story.
Christa Potratz:Well, thank you for everything today, and we want to also thank all of our listeners, too, for joining us, and if you have any questions on this, please reach out to us at lifechallengesus, and we wish everybody a blessed Advent season and look forward to having you back next time. Bye.
Paul Snamiska:Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Life Challenges podcast from Christian Life Resources. Please consider subscribing to this podcast, giving us a review wherever you access it and sharing it with friends. We're sure you have questions on today's topic or other life issues. Our goal is to help you through these tough topics and we want you to know we're here to help. You can submit your questions, as well as comments or suggestions for future episodes, at lifechallengesus or email us at podcast at ChristianLifeResourcescom. In addition to the podcasts, we include other valuable information at LifeChallengesus, so be sure to check it out. For more about our parent organization, please visit ChristianLifeResourcescom. May God give you wisdom, love, strength and peace in Christ for every life challenge.
