Breathless wonderment

I find it amazing to think that there is nothing God can't control to fulfill His purpose.

You are probably thinking, "Yes.... This is news to you?"

Well,... no I understand He can do anything but it still blows me away.

It was His will that His son would be born in Bethlehem in a stable and the way He made that happen is nothing less than breathtaking.

Mary and Joseph were from Nazareth and so its likely that without intervention that's where Jesus would've been born. But Bethlehem, which means "house of bread" is where God wanted Him to be born and He wanted Him to be born in a stable.

For that to happen (and to generalize scandalously) certain conditions needed to exist. There needed to be a foreign dictator in charge of Israel that wanted a census of his empire and no room at the Inn.

Lets talk about one of the greatest empires the world has ever seen. No, I'm not talking about McDonalds but Imperial Rome.

Did God direct Hannibal Hamilcar to take his Carthaginian army over the alps into Rome? Because the ensuing war with Rome which eventually ended in defeat for Carthage gave Rome the confidence to look outward and conquer the majority of the known world.

After that Rome grew in power and gobbled up territory but she was a republic and had many controls in place to keep her safe from dictatorships. Until one man named Julius Caesar took control and placed himself at the helm.

Julius Caesar was, of course, famously betrayed by Mark Antony, Cassius and his friend Brutus. But Caesar left a will in which he declared Octavian to be his heir and Octavian became Emperor of Rome. Octavian is better known by his preferred title Augustus or "Revered one". Caesar Augustus established a civil service which then took a census of the entire Roman world.

And then this meant Mary and Joseph had to travel to their ancestral town of Bethlehem.

Pretty cool I think.

Oh yeah and the Holy Spirit also caused the virgin Mary to conceive. That may have been one of the reasons she and Joseph were denied a room anywhere in Bethlehem. Its unlikely that anyone would try too hard to find a room for a pregnant unmarried woman at that time. But that was all part of God's plan. He wanted His Son to be born in a lowly stable. Maybe because to the One who was involved in the creation of the universe there would be no difference between a stable and what you and I perceive as the greatest house on earth.

Neither could claim to be worthy of His presence.

But if I was Mary I might still wonder if there could've been a plan that didn't involve travelling 140km when I was nine months pregnant.

Jamais vu

Most people know of "deja vu" but have you ever heard of "jamais vu". Jamais vu describes the feeling you get when something that should be familiar becomes unfamiliar. Try writing the word "button" 25 times and see what happens.

Something similar happens when I read a passage of scripture over and over. Maybe the more you see something your assumptions and the associated inferences fade and the actual thing starts to stand out more starkly?

I've been reading Luke 5:33-39 over and over lately and I can't seem to grasp its meaning.
Then they said to Him, “Why do the disciples of John fast often and make prayers, and likewise those of the Pharisees, but Yours eat and drink?”

And He said to them, “Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them; then they will fast in those days.”

Then He spoke a parable to them: “No one puts a piece from a new garment on an old one; otherwise the new makes a tear, and also the piece that was taken out of the new does not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled, and the wineskins will be ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins, and both are preserved. And no one, having drunk old wine, immediately desires new; for he says, ‘The old is better.’”
 
I've never noticed that last statement before "the old is better" and It's only included in Luke's account.
 
I always believed this parable meant we must be changed before God's Spirit will be poured into us but now I'm not so sure that's what He's saying.
 
I started reading the context of that back to verse 27 and then the other two accounts of the same story in Matthew 9 and Mark 2. In the Matthew account Jesus quotes Hosea 6:6
 
For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
 
Here are the facts of the three accounts:

1. Jesus called a tax collector Matthew to follow Him
2. Matthew held a feast with Jesus, His disciples, tax collectors and sinners
3. The Pharisees questioned Jesus on why He would eat with tax collectors and sinners
4. Jesus said, "But go and learn what this means: 'I desire Mercy and not sacrifice.' For I did not come to call the righteous but the sinners"
5. John's disciples questioned Jesus on why His disciples didn't fast
6. Jesus replied with 3 analogies: the bridegroom, the cloth and the wine in wineskins

I feel like the Hosea scripture is the key to unlocking the mystery.

God desires mercy for sinners more than the sacrifice of fasting that the Pharasees and John's disciples were offering. But a question still remains for me... What did He mean when He said "But new wine must be put into new wineskins, and both are preserved. And no one, having drunk old wine, immediately desires new; for he says, ‘The old is better." - Luke 5:38-39?

"The old is better"... This is the part I never noticed before and has got me scratching my head.

P.S. if you're wondering why there is a picture of coffee beans on this post its to demonstrate that if you looked at it carefully you would've noticed a creepy face lurking in those seemingly random beans.