Jesus Arrives in Glory

Okay, we are in week three, as I mentioned, next week we're gonna take a week and kind of looking at maybe of a theme for the year as we look at things that we've focused on over the years of looking at, hey, we wanna build community and we wanna get outside our walls. And then just kind of mix this in a little bit of who are we? And is the church? Is hope community, church more than this? And I think we can look around the room and go, I sure hope so. Right. And that it's true. That's a good thing. I'm not discouraged by this morning. I am warmly encouraged by your faithfulness and being here. So let me. Let's just jump into this week three again. We've looked at Jesus arrives in history, Jesus arrives in reality. And this week we will look at how Jesus arrives in glory. We'll be kind of looking at the end of Luke 2, but then we'll also look at how Matthew records the story. And so the question, maybe a question I have is what does real power do when it sees people who can't help themselves? There's just two different ways of someone who is in a position of power that they can either step on that person and use them to their own advantage, or they can love for them and care for them in a way that they, that individual might not even be able to care or help for themselves. A book that I have really enjoyed and I've read it a few times over the years, is called the book that made your world. It's by Indian authority, Vishal Mangawati. And he talks about how the Bible influenced Western culture even to the point of superheroes, that when you look at even our image of a superhero, just take Superman or any one of them. Superman could enslave humanity, right? It could just say, I'm God and you will do my bidding. But what does Superman do in a Western view, or not even just a Western, but in a biblical worldview that he has ultimate supreme power. He actually uses his power to help those who can't help themselves. Maybe a more practical one would be like a parent who is with their child who's sick or just having a bad night. They don't even want to go upstairs or away from that child. They will sleep on the floor. They will put themselves in discomfort to care for this little one. And maybe even more so than that, a physician, someone who has their doctorate. Right? Like an actual doctor, medical doctor, and who is able to help someone who just walks in, who can't. Doesn't have a dime to their name and says, I want to serve you, I want to care for you, and I'm going to help you. That's what we see in Christ. We see him, someone who is in ultimate power and authority, who, in a sense, humbles themselves. He gives that up so that he can enter into our space to serve. He enters in the form of a baby for our joy and ultimately his glory. And so he arrives in glory. So let's look at, just quickly, the shepherds. They were looking at Luke, chapter 2, verse 8. In the same region. There were shepherds out in the field keeping watch over their flock by night. At Christmas. We last several years at least. We've always done a candlelight dinner during the season. And it's amazing how dark it is, right? And we have candles, but you can imagine being out in a field, there are no candles, right? You've got the starlight and a little bit of moonlight. It wouldn't have even looked like this picture. That looks like there's some backlights of a movie set or something. And so that's just not what's happening, right? It's pitch black. It's incredibly dark out there. And the shepherds here are watching their flock by night. Why shepherds? It was a common job. There was a lot of sheep, there was a lot of cattle, a lot of animals that needed attending. But it wasn't necessarily a desirable job. Matter of fact, within Judaism, you were unclean in a lot of aspects that you had to do as a shepherd. And so it wasn't like a job that people were running to. I want to be the next shepherd. And yet that is exactly the position and the Job and the description of that God uses over and over and over in the Bible, Old and New Testaments to describe his love for us in Ezekiel, chapter 34. This is a passage that we read as elders every year because it is so humbling. And if you've ever desired to be an elder, I would encourage you to read these verses first to say, maybe I don't want to do that so quickly. And so I wasn't gonna read these first 10 verses. But this morning I was like, I just gotta read it. Cause it sets it up in contrast of a human shepherd or pastor against how God is gonna shepherd his flock. So let me just read this quickly. The word of the Lord came to me. That is Ezekiel. God is saying, son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy and say to them, even to the shepherds, that's the religious leaders. Thus says the Lord God. Ah, shepherds of Israel, who have been feeding yourselves, should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with wool, and you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep. The weak you have not strengthened, the sick, you have not healed the injured, you have not bound up the strayed, you have not brought back the lost you have not sought. And with food and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and they became food for all the wild beasts. My sheep were scattered. They wandered over all the mountains and over every high hill. My sheep were scattered all over the face of the earth with none to search or seek for them. Therefore you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord. As I live, declares the Lord God. Surely because my sheep have become a prey and my sheep have become food for all the wild beasts, since there was no shepherd and and because my sheep shepherds have not searched for my sheep, but the shepherds have fed themselves and have not fed my sheep. Therefore you shepherds hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God. Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require my sheep at their hand and put to stop their feeding the sheep, their feeding sheep. No longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths that they may not be food for them. Obviously an incredibly strong indictment against the religious leaders of Israel at the time. But then God shows up and he loves using them as an analogy for his relationship with his people. He says this then, for thus says the Lord God. Behold, I. I myself will search for my sheep and seek them out as a shepherd seeks out his own flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered. So I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from the places where they have been scattered on the day of clouds and thick darkness. And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the other countries, and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country. And I will feed them with good pasture. And on the mountain heights of Israel shall their grazing land shall be their grazing land. And they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on the rich pasture they shall feed in the mountain of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lay down. Lay down, declares the Lord God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed. I will Bind up the injured and I will strengthen the weak and the fat, and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice. These are powerful verses to highlight God's view of shepherds and how they should tend and then therefore leadership within the church or within Israel and how it should. But ultimately how God is going to do this. This is a well known passage, Micah 5. 2. I'm actually going to read this. In the Matthew passage it says, but you, O Bethlehem Ephratah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, for you shall come forth one who is to be ruler of Israel, whose coming forth is from old, from ancient days. We, we stop there usually when we quote Micah, because that's what Matthew stops. But if we go to verses 4 and 5 and it says, and he that is this new one, this ruler from David, who's going to be born, this Messiah, he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth, and he shall be their peace. And then Jesus himself, In John chapter 10, verse 11, says, I am the good shepherd, the one that we all know about in Ezekiel 34, the one that God promised, the one in Micah 5:2 who was going to come and, and actually shepherd his flock and care for injustices that are happening to those who cannot help themselves. Jesus says, the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. This is no small insignificant gesture then, that in the birth announcement that God shows up out at night to shepherds tending their flocks, and then we see the glory of The Lord, verse 9, an angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were filled with great fear. We've looked at multiple passages of scripture that when people, when they see an angel or come to face to face with holiness, whether it's God or just even an aspect of God, they fall on their face as dead. And so here they are again. Can't fathom that. I've been out in the woods and been startled. I'm jumpy. Those of you who know me, I'm incredibly jumpy, whatever. And so I'm very jumpy. And I can only imagine if I was out in the woods or out in the field, even with a couple of my buddies, and all of a sudden some bright light started shining on me, it would be incredibly terrifying, incredibly terrifying. But this is, this is interesting because this isn't a natural Light. It says that this light came from the glory. Like, what does that light look like, right? Does it have a source? Is it. What is it? What does it even mean of just pure, unadulterated light shining out of nowhere? It's no wonder that they were incredibly terrified. And so we can see. And just as I was thinking about this light, what would it have felt like? I think there's two ways of maybe looking at a spotlight. One is that it draws attention to something you can think of, a play or something like that, where the. Where the. The lights are emphasizing. I want you to look at me. And I do think that's what God is doing. He's saying, I want you to look at the shepherds of Israel. I want you to look at them because the shepherd is here. And so I think there's some attention being brought there. But another thing that spotlights can tend to do is that they can expose. If we think of a helicopter, a police helicopter that might be shining in the night, that just lights it up. Like it's just broad daylight that people are trying to hide in the darkness. They're trying to use darkness as a cover. And all of a sudden these. Especially now with these LED lights, it just. You are in brighter than sunlight right now. You. You. The thing that you were trying to do in the darkness has been exposed. And so sometimes that attention is good, and other times it can expose. And so what kind of light is God shining? Maybe in your own life? Because I. I think a lot of times I was just talking with a. With a pastor friend of mine that he just said, things are going really well right now, and I'm just waiting for the other hammer to fall. I'm just waiting for God to just hurt me. I just don't know. I just feel like that's just bad theology. Bad things happen. Sin happens. Consequences of sin happens. Consequences of the fall. That's not who God is. And we see that right here in the angel's response that, yes, the light does bring attention. The light does expose. But that's not what God is doing. At least not in this situation with this glory. Because the angel says this. Fear not, for behold, I bring you shepherds of Israel, good news of great joy. That will be for all the people. What's interesting here is that the angels don't show up to Caesar Augustus. They don't show up to Herod the Great or to Pilate. They show up to these meaningless, very insignificant shepherds out in the field. And they say, for unto you is Born this day in the city of David, a savior. A savior who is Christ, the Lord, the Messiah. And this will be a sign for. You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. This is incredibly unique, this idea of the Christ being born in a manger. I mentioned this, that it probably was a feeding trough. But a manger would more describe a room that would have been attached, kind of like a barn or even a cave that would have been attached where the animals would have been kept inside. Bethlehem is incredibly small. I think sometimes it, for whatever reason, church history or just tradition has kind of made it seem bigger. But it was only as, and we know this based on archeology, only about 4 to 600 people that lived in Bethlehem. Incredibly small, little. We can't even really call it a town, unincorporated, whatever it's called, four to six hundred people. And I tried to do a little bit of math that they, on average, would have been about 20 babies a year that would have been born. And so you can imagine if a baby is born in a manger on that night, that they're proud, they didn't have to go looking very long. And I have a whole nother sermon on all of that, but I'm not gonna get into that right now. But God told the shepherds exactly which baby and how to find it. It's gonna be in a manger. And that this is the one. This is the one that matters. This is the one who is born in the city of David in Bethlehem. A savior. This. There's no. There's no. He's not trying to be cryptic here. The angel. This isn't just a messiah or an anointed one or a king. This is a savior. It's very specific. Keep going here. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of heavenly hosts praising God and saying, glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace among those with whom he is pleased. This is one of those verses that. It sounds so good, right? It sounds so nice. Peace on earth. I want that. And yet have we seen that the answer is no, right? This doesn't mean world peace yet. It doesn't mean no wars yet. It doesn't mean no conflict yet. It doesn't mean that there are no consequences of just being and living in a fallen, sinful world and condition, yet. It means that God entered, historically, and physically, personally, into enemy territory in his glory to make peace through himself, Jesus. God arrives in the flesh to make peace. And someday that will be fully realized. Verse 15. When the angels went away from them into heaven. The shepherds said to one another, let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us. And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told to them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherd returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen as it had been told to them. I would imagine if I was that shepherd, of seeing these angels and then hearing that message, then going, and then actually finding this baby in a manger, that I don't know if they would go back and get a good night's sleep or they'd get the best night's sleep maybe of their life, just how that would affect you. And that should then be transferred to us as well, that we now get to sleep. As we saw in Mark, that we sow the seed. We can't do anything about the growth. Whether it's my own personal growth or somebody else's growth. I just have to trust that God is at work. Let's look now at the King of the Jews. I'm gonna switch now over to Matthew, chapter two. And it says this. Now, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the King or Herod the Great, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem saying, where is he who has been born, the King of the Jews? As we looked at in Jesus that he arrives in history that Herod the Great serves or is King of the Jews, until about 4 B.C. so Jesus is born between 6 and 4 B.C. as we looked at a couple weeks ago. But what's interesting here is that these wise men, which we'll get to in just a second, they go to Herod, whose title is the King of the Jews. And they say, hey, hey, King of the Jews, we're trying to find the new King of the Jews. You'd say, well, that's interesting. That'd be an interesting thing to say, right? If someone walked in and said, hey, I'm looking for the pastor of Hope Lowertown. And I'm like, I'm right here. And they're like, no, no, no, no, there's a new pastor. You've been usurped. It's like, oh, that would be a little troublesome. Except the difference between Herod The Great and me is that Herod the Great was bloodthirsty for power. This is historical fact written by multiple people, Josephus and even Caesar Augustus, that Herod killed his first wife in 29 BC. I couldn't pronounce her name or I would have written it down. He kills two of his sons, Alexander and Aristobulus, in 7 BC. So just a year or two before this, he kills two of his own sons. Why? Because he said, well, if I die, they're gonna take power. And so they might actually kill me in order that they might get power. No, no, no. I'm gonna beat them to it. And he kills his own children so that he can remain in power. He doesn't stop there. He kills his oldest son, antiper, in 4 BC. So right now, or even after this, like, there might even been a connection where he's like, maybe. Maybe they were looking for my son, my eldest son. I need to kill him. And he does that. And then he goes into Bethlehem and kills probably 20 babies so that he can stay in power. We can read that later on in Matthew. I think it's verse 16. The wise men, good, wise move, go to King Herod and say, hey, we know you like killing people that threaten your king, your kingdom. Where's the new king? It's very interesting. It's an incredible contrast here to see Jesus, who gives up his power to save the powerless, versus Herod the great king of the Jews. It's interesting. Caesar Augustus actually wrote, it's better to be one of Herod's pigs than his sons, right? That's wild, because Jews didn't eat pigs. They didn't kill pigs. So you actually had a better chance of living if you were one of Herod's pigs than if you were his son. That's a wild indictment. Let's look at these magi, the wise men. They're not kings. They were not kings. We sing that we three kings of Orient are not kings, okay? They were wise men. They would have instructed the kings. They would have. They used astrology. They used signs and symbols and math to help influence that. When a king had a decision to be made, they'd say, bring the wise men in. Should we go attack these people? Or should we? Whatever, right? And they would give their wisdom and share their wisdom. But most, for sure, astrologers. There was a million quotes that I found this week, specifically on this. This was just one I picked from Craig Blomberg. The magi were most certainly gentile astrologers, likely from Babylon or Persia, whose profession would normally have put them outside respectable religious life. I think that is one of the most fascinating things of the wise men of the Magi, that they're not. They're not Jews. They're not even part of this story. And yet they come and they worship the king of the Jews. They're Gentiles. They're like you and me. And they're called to go worship the king. Let's look at the starlight says this. For we saw as the wise men, we saw his star when it rose, and we have come to worship him. And when Herod the king heard this, he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him and assembled all the chief priests and the scribes, the people, and he acquired them where Christ would be born. And they told him, in Bethlehem of Judea, for it is written by the prophet. And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, you are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, for you shall come a ruler who shall shepherd my people Israel. Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, go and search diligent for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word so that I too may come and worship him. After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star they had seen when it rose and went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. And when there were. And sorry, when they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. Okay, so what just. This is maybe just the way my brain works. Just what is the star? And has anybody actually studied this? Has anyone looked into this? The answer is yes. There's actually a astrophysicist and cosmolog. That word. Cosmologist. Cosmologist, Cosmologist Luke Barnes. And so this was from a podcast called Thinking Matters. And so I'm going to just kind of just paraphrase everything that he kind of said, and then I'm going to kind of quote him paraphrasing somebody else. Really bad scholarship. And the quote hardly makes any sense, but you'll know when you see it. So he says there's kind of three scientific things that this could. That could have been happening here. One, that this was kind of understood for a long time was the Jupiter Saturn conjunction. That would have happened during this time, about 7 B.C. so a little off of the timeline, but it would have happened and that it would have been there for several months as they would have kind of gone back and forth and overlapped. So, and what's compelling about this? And again, I don't. I didn't look this up. He said, so I'm taking his word that Jupiter represents king and kingship and kingdom, and then Saturn, for whatever reason, represented the nation of Israel. And so they said, see, a new king is in Israel. Bada bing, bada boom, there's our star. Let's go to Israel and find the new king of the Jews. That was a popular theory for a long time, and that could be the case. But again, it's a little early with the 7 B.C. another one is that it could be a supernova or a nova that's a death of a star, and then it explodes and it lingers for a long time. That would have been incredibly bright. It would have looked like a new star that would have been in the sky. That's possible. And what's kind of cool about this is they can date these things because in 1054, that there was a supernova that went off and historians recorded it, astrologers wrote down, a star exploded. And we can see it. It is right here next to these constellations. And so we can now still see the remnants of that. And so therefore they can date it. And so because of that dating system, they're able to look at other supernovas and date them. And so that's possible, but they haven't found one from 4 BC and from that time period. So but it's possible they just haven't found it yet. That maybe that's. That's what it was. And obviously it could have just been a miracle. God is known to do these kinds of things. And so it could have been any number of things. But for them, the wise men, to be able to see that from a distant land and then see it and then. So right now, currently, the most popular theory is that it is a comet. There are multiple historians that actually refer to comets as stars. And so if you were not an astrologist, you wouldn't know what that thing is. They just, just wouldn't have been a. We don't. I mean, I remember seeing Halley's comet when I was young, but we don't. We don't see him that often, right? Big bright comets in the sky that linger for a while. And so. And then this goes into. He brings up numbers 2417, that even kind of this prophetic thing about the Messiah. I see him, but not now. I behold him, but not near. A star shall come out of Jacob and a Scepter shall rise out of Israel. So they kind of look at this idea of maybe of star and a scepter of this staff, and you can imagine that comet, depending on its angle, that it would point it, right? It could have easily pointed for quite some time, months even, at Bethlehem, if it would have hovered over it. And in fact, they did. They have found just that comet and. And that they can track it and say it would have exactly come. I don't understand the science, but it would have went west to east to south. So I don't know if it went and did one of these. I don't know if it did a little loopy loop. I don't know. I don't understand it. But that's what they said. So let me, Let me quote Nick, Luke Barnes, who is paraphrasing. I'm going to paraphrase Luke Barnes, who's paraphrasing Colin N. Nickel, okay? In his book called the Great Christ Comet, there was a comet in 6 BC and he. That is Nick or Colin, sorry, also did an awful lot of astronomy tracing. And if it did this exact sort of orbit, it would not only do exactly the sort of, oh, sorry, east to west to south kind of thing, it would stand over Bethlehem at just the right time and it would even come towards us out of the constellation Virgo or the Virgin, which is kind of interesting. And so that's what's happening. So that's what a lot of people think. I don't know what happened. Nobody knows exactly what happened. It doesn't matter. What we do know is that these wise men study the stars, saw something, and it moved them enough to say, we gotta go check it out. They're not idiots. They know that stars don't hover over places, right? So there must have been something significant about this that was obviously pointing at something that made them say, well, we're gonna go travel over there. And they show up bearing gifts, right? So God has revealed himself to Gentiles saying something's happening because they come ready to give gifts to a king of the Jews. Okay? So they're already aware of what's going on and how. I don't know. But God is working even in Gentiles. And so let's look at the significance as we wrap this up. If we look at Matthew, chapter 2, verse 11, it says, and going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. And then opening their treasures, they offered him gifts of gold and frankincense. And myrrh. So as we look at. We don't know how many wise men there were. We, you know, traditionally say three, because there were three gifts. There could have been 38, there could have been one or two. I guess it was plural wise men. So it could have been two, could have been 200. We don't know. They would have had a posse with them. They would have had people that traveled with them and servants and things alike. And they had these gifts. Gold, obviously a symbol of royalty. Frank, of incense. What's also. That was also frankincense, also a gift that would have maybe signified royalty and power. But then the myrrh. The myrrh is very interesting, and it's incredibly significant that God clearly, clearly had to do something and reveal something to these wise men, or they are really wise, being able to figure these things out. But they give this myrrh to a baby, to a child. Myrrh was used almost explicitly for embalming, right? For death and burial. Why in the world would you give a child? It'd be like getting a taxidermy kit for Christmas, maybe. I don't know. Like, why. Why would you give embalming fluid to a child? It doesn't make any sense. Why would you do this? And yet this myrrh is given to little Jesus, and he probably wasn't a baby. He would have been a little child. But all the Christmas pictures, they look cuter when it's a baby instead of a toddler. It's very significant, we read in Mark 15:23, that we're going to see myrrh here, given to him, given to Jesus by the wise men. The next time we're going to see myrrh show up is on the cross. I don't think that's a mistake. In Mark 15:23, we see that the myrrh is mixed with wine at the crucifixion, at his death in John 19:39, Nicodemus, from John chapter 3. As we see this Pharisee, who Jesus shares who he is, Nicodemus brings myrrh to his family for the burial of Jesus. That myrrh everywhere in the Scriptures is attributed to death and burial. And here we have it at his birth, which is incredibly significant. Here's the point. God bends the will. As we look at God arriving in history and reality and in glory, God bends the will of Caesar and Herod the Great. He bends the laws of nature and of the entire cosmos to display his glory in a manger in a little unknown town. Josephus doesn't even mention it in a baby's body as he is a human through Gentiles, these wise men. And I think maybe my challenge for me this morning and for you is that if that's all true, if we look at the birth and the narrative around it, as we looked at Jesus arriving in history and all the different aspects of history that say this did happen and it happened in this way, or at least people believed it to happen in this way. If that's true, then maybe there are other aspects of God that we might be struggling with, we might be having a hard time believing a truth about God that I read this thing and I just don't believe it. I don't see it. But if this is true, maybe there are other aspects of God that I might not even be able to comprehend or wrap my mind around. And yet I can trust him. One thing, let me end with this. I talk about this a lot, but my professor, John Dixon, he talks about this idea that treat scripture like a good friend, that you know, your good friend. I love my good friend. And when somebody talks ill about them, that I don't need to worry about defending them right away. And their accusation of my good friend doesn't change my opinion of my good friend because I know my good friend. And so when we get to things like this, well, the star. I don't know, scientifically we can't. I don't know this virgin birth thing. No, no, this is my good friend. And they've actually shown themselves to be true and trustworthy over and over and over in my life. And so this thing that I'm struggling with, maybe even my own accusations against it, I can believe that they're not true because I know my friend. So gospel application that I have for us this morning is that Jesus gives up his glory and he enters a real history and physically born in reality to die for our sins and his glory and our joy. In that sentence, that probably doesn't make any sense, but you get what I'm saying. He enters history, he enters reality for his glory and our joy. And we get to look at the season and we get to say, this is what this is about. Jesus enters into our space. And so we get to again this morning take these elements that represent his body and his blood that are broken for us, that are shed for us. And we get to do that, we get to see that, we get to taste it and actually physically, viscerally taste and see that he is good, he's finished. He. He was Real. He was part of us. He is part of us. That he came to give us peace. And it might not be the peace that we want, but it is the peace that he ultimately will bring. We need to have faith and trust. And let me pray. And the worship team's gonna come. They're gonna sing two more songs. Feel free to grab those elements as you see fit. And you just need to be a follower of Jesus. If you love Jesus, if you see Jesus as your king and would love to love for you to take these elements with us as we celebrate the birth and even the symbol of his death in the myrrh and his resurrection as we do that in communion. Let me pray, and then we'll. We'll be dismissed. Father, thank you for time this morning. Thank you. We get to pray to you. You are just not this unapproachable, untouchable God who remains in heaven. But you took on flesh, not thinking equality with God, something to be grasped. But your son humbled himself, taking on the form of a human being so that you might receive honor and glory and power. And you did so in such humble ways that you could have shown up like an evil dictator and just crushed us under your heel. But you don't do that. You show us love and mercy and compassion. Would that be true in our lives as well? As we look to you now, nearing kind of the end of our Advent season. God, we love you. And as we take these elements that represent Christ, he doesn't stay in the manger, but he ultimately goes to the cross and is brutally killed for our sins and transgressions and pays the price that we should have paid but couldn't so that he could ultimately restore all things to you for your honor and your glory, because you arrived in glory 2000 years ago. We love you, and it's the name of Jesus. We pray. Amen.