When birth announcements arrive in the mail, husbands across America get in trouble for not paying attention:
“How tall is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“What does he weigh?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know much, do you?”
“I know they put him in a Dallas Cowboys jersey for the picture.”
Some birth announcements take a more poetic turn. Blues songs often include references to prophetic words spoken over the singer at his birth:
Gypsy woman told my mother,
‘Fore I was born,
You got a boy-child coming,
Gonna be a son of a gun.
Gonna make pretty womens’
Jump and shout,
And then the world gonna know
What this all about”
(from “Hoochie Coochie Man” by Muddy Waters).
George Thorogood adapted the device for his song, “Bad to the Bone”:
“On the day I was born,
The nurses all gathered ‘round.
And they gazed in wide wonder
At the joy they had found.
The head nurse spoke up.
Said ‘leave this one alone.’
She could tell right away,
I was bad to the bone.”
These songs are silly, of course. No one said anything like that when these songwriters were born. They were born tiny, innocent babies, and the ladies cooed over them like any other babies.
But the Bible records powerful words spoken over several newborns. Angels brought messages from God to the parents of a number of children, including Isaac, Samson, John the Baptist, and others. But you will never find a statement to rival the words spoken over Jesus—particularly the history-changing words spoken by Isaiah 400 years before His birth:
“For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given. And the government of the world will rest upon His shoulders. He will be called ‘Wonderful Counselor,’ ‘Mighty God,’ the ‘Everlasting Father,’ the ‘Prince of Peace.’ And His kingdom will never end … from now on and forever.” Isaiah 9:6-7.
This was not fictional nurses in some imaginary delivery room. This was Isaiah the prophet, speaking four centuries before Christ. The God who put the stars into orbit is telling His people what is to come. I can just see myself opening that birth announcement:
“Oh honey. Looks like Mary and Joseph had their baby.”
“How many pounds?”
“I don’t know.”
“How many inches?”
“I don’t know. But I know this—they’re saying He is the going to be the KING OF THE WORLD and will sit on a throne that will never end.”
“Well, can you at least tell me what color eyes He has? Who does he look like?”
“Doesn’t say. But apparently his shoulders are broad enough to support the weight of the whole world.”
“For the Lord Himself will give you a sign: a virgin will conceive and bear a son and you will call his name Immanuel” Isaiah 7:14.
Now that’s what I call a BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT!
–And you know what else? God has plans for you just as He had plans for Jesus. If you can imagine the excitement of first-time parents staring at their tiny baby, you can understand the way your future excites the One Who made you.
God is up to something … and He is excited about your part in it!
ΑΩ
Household Words: 