(Matthew 1:21) She
will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."
Irony is often
linked to humour but no easily seen by the typical brain; one normally has to
look a little deeper to understand satire. One needs to tap deeper into those
crevices to unlock that understanding. How the mechanics actually works within
ones brain I cannot say, God knows! Let’s take the life of the Lord Jesus or a
facet of it, He proclaimed that His kingdom had come; it was a time in history
where God the Father had ushered in his role on earth as the baby, boy and then
the man Jesus, this happened about two thousand years ago. We know that the
Word became flesh (Jesus was born of a virgin and live as a male up until the
age of 33 and then he was crucified). History has that recorded, but its John
that takes us a little deeper – “And
the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as
of the only Son from the Father, full of
grace and truth.” (John 1:14) - John pens these words and speaks as a witness,
verifying a truth that he had witnessed and had now come to understand; the
person whom he himself had handled was in fact the Word of God and that his
mission was to live amongst the population of that time. The place, Nazareth
and its surrounding provinces; his mission, to give sight to the blind and to
breathe live into some, equipping them to become the forefathers of the
Christian faith with the majority of those individuals being Jews, and yet as a
nation the ones who rejected Jesus as their Messiah, which is still in play
today.
The very same Jesus entered this world like all of
us, through the womb of a woman; he grew up with simple comforts and learnt the
trade of his earthly father, carpentry. He subjected himself to the care of his
parents and all that that entailed. As a baby he would have suckled to develop
and I have no doubt that his mother loved him dearly. He found himself under
their counsel and he reverenced his parents. He lived a life of sinlessness,
the only person to ever achieve this, making him the perfect sacrifice for our
sin. He was never tainted by the ruin of sin; he was perfect in applying the
same rule on earth as he had applied in heaven. He revered his Father in heaven
and his life was all about his heavenly Fathers will. He had a job to do and he
did it perfectly. Its not that he never had to deal with puberty as a teenager,
but rather that his life in accordance with Gods commandments was perfect and
without breech. This however did not keep him from the lures of temptation and
their entrapment's; at times they were fierce but he overcame all
of them, praise God, Amen! This is a shared view by all
Christians throughout the ages, he was badly treated and falsely accused
of breaching God’s
commandments by those who supposedly where the spokesmen for God. The
Jewish rulers of that time threw out accusations against him; “The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, 'Look at him!
A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!'” (Luke
7:34) - But they where in breech,
they were the liars and not HIM!
The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob then stamped
His approval on the man Jesus by raising him from the dead. We must look and
ponder upon that facet of the resurrection, although Jesus was in fact God, he
was now reduced to a man with the capability of death, hence they crucified him
and he died on a cruel Roman cross. The proof of his achievement in bridging
the gap which sin had destroyed was now repaired and confirmed by the Father.
It’s the resurrection that proves that He was the One whom God had chosen to
save the world, or rather the believers of the world.
Not all of mankind is loved, but only those who
believe in Jesus’ merit to save them from eternal damnation. This is an obvious
conclusion; “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not
obey the Son shall not see life, but
the wrath of God remains on him.” (John 3:36)
With this understood it is here where irony has its
part to play; although the Lord Jesus Christ is the King of kings. The Apostle
Paul has this instruction for the Christian; “I charge you in the presence
of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony
before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until
the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will display at the proper
time--he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of
lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells
in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor
and eternal dominion. Amen.” (1Timothy 6:13-16) – When kingdoms inaugurate their kings into power
they crowned him with a crown of gold, but the Lord Jesus was crowned with a
crown of thorns. His throne was not a throne of nobility but rather a cruel rugged
cross. He was elevated with death and not the reign of power. The King of kings
died so that we (the Christian) could escape the wrath of God. He sacrificed
his life for ours. In fact this truth was taken so far that an inscription was
placed above his head on that cross, which read; “…This is the King of the
Jews."
Who are those loved by God? It is only those who
believe in the finished work of the cross and all it stands for. Those who
reject it are not loved by God by remain in their condemnation, which is this,
they will stand before God on Judgement Day and ultimately be cast into the
Lake of Fire, which was originally prepared for Satan and his followers.
Therefore all those who reject the love of God with suffer the same fate as
Satan; “and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire
and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be
tormented day and night forever and ever. Then I saw a great white throne and
him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no
place was found for them. And I saw the
dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then
another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by
what was written in the books, according to what they had done. And the sea
gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in
them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had
done. Then Death and Hades were thrown
into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone's name was not found written in the
book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.” (Revelation 20:10-15)
Signing off
Tyrone
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