INTRO: Today we commemorate the ascension of Christ to heaven. God had sent the second Person of the triune God, known in the NT before He became man, as the Word, to be carried by a woman and brought into human existence. This took place through the divine instrumentality of the Holy Spirit, and the human instrumentality of the virgin Mary. She was betrothed to a man, by name of Joseph at the time. That she was expecting caused a great difficulty for Joseph, but an angel appeared to him in a dream and explained that Mary had not been unfaithful to him. God had chosen both the woman, and her husband well, for Mary was a very godly young woman and Joseph was a just man.
Jesus, being the Lamb of God, according to the OT picture, was born, as I understand it, at the place the Passover sacrificial lambs were born. He was born when they were born, and He died when they died. But between those two events, He lived for some 32 years. |
