Christmas began via the "Burning Bush"

Christmas began via the “Burning Bush”

After over 400 years of exile in Egypt the Hebrews were anxious to leave but they were also waiting for the Messiah to come.  Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants shall be aliens in a land not their own, where they shall be enslaved for four hundred years.”  *Gn 15: 13).  

God heard the cry of his people and chose a man of his character to do his bidding of bringing them home (although he hadn’t revealed a name for it to them).  Since God wanted one who was familiar with Egypt and the Pharaoh he sent one who was one of his daughter’s children taken from the river floating in a basket.  The Pharaoh was threatened by the multiplication of the Hebrew nation and decided to kill all new-born Hebrew Males.  So the mother of Moses (not his name by his biological mother) placed the child in the basket and hoped he would not be killed.  So the Pharaoh's daughter raised Moses as her own and he became a Prince of Egypt.   

As Moses grew up he witnessed an Egyptian striking a Hebrew and Moses slew him.  Word got out and Moses was ejected from Egypt.(Ex 2: 11 - ff).  All of this fit into God’s plan to save his people and ultimately you and me as well, many years later.

A long time passed, during which the king of Egypt died.  Meanwhile Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian.  Leading the flock across the desert, he came to Horeb, the mountain of God.  There an angel of the Lord appeared to him in fire flaming out of a bush.  As he looked on, he was surprised to see the bush, though on fire, was not consumed.  So he decided, “I must go see this remarkable sight, and see why the bush is not burned.”  (Ex 3: 1 - 3).  

 Again, the plan of God was unfolding just as he had planned.  Remember with God there is no such theme as luck or chance.  When he makes a plan he sticks to it throughout its journey.

Moses was sent to Egypt pronouncing that the Lord, I AM, sent him as their deliverer.  He was not the Messiah, but Moses is considered the forerunner of Christ and compared with his ten plagues and the ten similar actions of Christ for his people.

As we read through Isaiah we see the very pronouncement by the prophet bringing into the kingdom of the Lord when the entrance of our God and Lord, Jesus Christ is fulfilled; “Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign:  the virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and name him Immanuel.”  (Is 7: 14).

The great Celebration of Christmas had its beginning long before the Angel Gabriel appeared to Mary; It even went further back than Moses and the Burning Bush.  It was always the prime thought of the Creator’s love for his children who would sin; yet in his Mercy God only saw perfect human beings since he couldn’t create anything bad.  His love is the perfection of what Christmas is all about.

Ralph B. Hathaway