Christmas Songs (1)

The Greatest Good News

Newscasters are also getting into the headlines nowadays. Sometime back in late November I noticed one day the headline on MSN.COM went something like this: TV presenter Paula Malai Ali (ESPN Star Sports) is 6 months pregnant. The attractive newscaster is going to have a baby boy, due on her own birthday and that of her twin sister! How cool! So apart from delivering news she is also making news, good news. Surely it brought joy to her many admirers and friends. Once some two thousand years ago a young lady in Israel was also to bring joy to many by bearing and giving birth to a son, only it’s of a very different proportion. I mean the joy, not the size of her baby. The effect was going to touch every soul who has ever lived on planet earth. But she had one problem though: she was a virgin. So before she could deliver the news of her pregnancy to those around her someone needed to break the news to her.  A great newscaster was charged with the task. His name? Angel Gabriel.

I don’t mean to say being a newscaster is his main job function, but at least two times in quick succession the angel Gabriel was asked to break the news of impending parenthood to mere mortals, once to the priest Zacharias (Luke 1:5-17) and another time to the virgin Mary (Luke 1:26-38). Zacharias was a priest, well advanced in years but his wife had not so much as given him an egg. He had all but given up hope of ever becoming a father. Mary, a lovely young lady who loved God, was a virgin, meaning she had never slept with a man before. She was engaged to a young carpenter, but he had not come to take her home yet. To these two blessed souls, Zacharias and Mary, Gabriel was sent. I have always been very curious what Gabriel thought of his exchanges with these privileged mortals. It must have been quite an interesting experience for him. One day when I see him face to face I hope to interview him about this, maybe over a glass of Bloody Mary, but for now let’s stretch our gray matter a bit.

Gabriel was only too eager to be the messenger. Imagine what an honor it is to be the one to announce to the human race the arrival of God himself on earth as a human being. That, my friend, is the full import of the project. Even the mighty angel had a hard time figuring out how it could be that God would become human flesh, and be borne by Mary as a baby. The universe is not big enough to contain Him, and now He was going to be a foetus inside the womb of a woman. The Creator of all would now become a created being. The most powerful of all would now become a helpless babe. It was going to happen once, and once only, in time or eternity. It’s the greatest news of all time.

The angel had waited a long time for this. The last time he went on a similar assignment he declared to Daniel, a prophet of Israel, that deliverance would soon come to Israel in exile. This time he was going to announce that salvation would soon come to all people, not a temporal but an eternal salvation. Ever since the fall, mankind had yearned for this day of salvation. They had tried everything but never succeeded. Now a Savior was to be borne to them who could never fail. You see, the human race was trying to reach God by their own ways but surely they couldn’t, else God won’t be God. Now God come reaching for them, sure He could. Gabriel was excited about this, very excited. But the LORD God had warned him that there would be some apprehension on the part of the human collaborators. They would take come convincing.

Well, convince them I will, Gabriel thought, I’m going to deliver to them the greatest good news.


Scripture Reference Link: BibleGateway.com