His birth is our birth.
A call to worship.
Themes
The vicarious birth of Christ • Genealogy • Ancestry • Mary’s womb • Human flesh • Rebirth • Born by the Spirit • Firstborn among many brothers • New creation in Christ
Jesus was the son of David, the son of Abraham, the son of Adam, and, along with these, the son of many loathsome, disgraceful, scoundrels.
Scripture reading
Matthew 1:1 Luke 3:38 John 1:12–13
This call to worship1 is from the gospel writers.
The genealogy in Matthew starts: The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. And the genealogy in Luke ends: … the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God. John writes: To all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
Enjoy this call to worship devotionally; change the plural pronouns (we, us) to personal ones (I, me).
Prayer
Marvelous, unordinary, and surprising Father in heaven, everything about the human birth of Your Son was a scandal. We confess: we do what we can to suppress this reality. We idealize and sentimentalize and romanticize His birth. But the truth about His birth makes us blush. We’d prefer to think of His virgin birth as simply a proof of His deity. He was the son of David, the son of Abraham, the son of Adam, and along with these, the son of many loathsome, disgraceful scoundrels. His ancestors, Father, were more than common sinners. They were a despicable lot, and your Spirit-inspired historians, Luke and Matthew, didn’t make any attempt to hide from it. Across the ancestry that you alone chose for him, were unspeakable acts that led to his birth — incest, prostitution, adultery. From these ancestors, your beloved Son — God the Son — took His flesh. And so it was that He became deeply woven within our own defiled fabric. He was born from a flesh outstandingly sinful — and contaminated by the most disgraceful sins — so that the indescribable plan of Your mercy would become obvious. From Your own omnipotent freedom, Father, You made the call that apart from normal human reproductive action, He would nonetheless assume flesh — and the human nature that comes from it — and it would be a contaminated and horribly polluted flesh. Unlike the first creation, this was not a creation out of nothing. It was a creation from the virgin womb of Mary. Your Spirit took existing old creation and all its despicable lineage and fashioned, not only from it, but within it, a new creation. For nine months Your Son made from our flesh His own flesh — a filthy concretion of fluid and blood. And He did so amidst all the uncleanness and mire of the generative elements within Mary’s womb. And there, Father, He incorporated Himself unreservedly into our existence. True God from true God, in eternal union with You, He made what is ours His own and joined Himself to it. And so it was that He penetrated our very nature, so that He could perform a redemptive and re-creative work from within it. And in shocking surprise to the whole universe, He opened a way into new humanity from within old humanity, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And now, Father, according to Your unimaginable, inconceivable, marvelous plan, our own regeneration — our own rebirth — results from our sharing in the birth of Christ — born from above by the Spirit — a new creation in Christ, our incarnate substitute. In the name of Jesus Christ, whose birth is our birth, whose life is our life, whose death is our death, and whose resurrection is our resurrection, Amen.
Inspiring resources
A call to worship creates wonderment, amazement, curiosity, yearning, captivation, provocation, hopefulness, thankfulness, affection, rapture, delight. As these mix together, the response is worship.
If this call to worship leaves you wondering or curious or provoked or hopeful, consider diving into this awesome book which inspired me to write this call to worship.
This call to worship was given to the small assembly of Christians that gathered in Pathway Church, Beaverdam, Michigan, on Christmas Sunday, December 26, 2021