Tag Archives: Luke 2

At the Table

March 13, 2026 Tom Vander Well 1 Comment

“This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
Luke 2:12 (NIV)

In a couple of weeks I will celebrate my 20th anniversary of this chapter-a-day blogging and podcasting journey. I’ve been mulling that over a lot over the past year. The truth is that this was in many ways an overflow of a daily practice I carved out for many years before that. Each morning I crawl out of bed, I grab a cup of coffee and I show up at the table. There, I spend some time with God, meditating, praying, and thinking about where I find myself on life’s road.

Along this journey, I’ve observed that many people hope for a connection with God at their weekly church service. The hope is that being in a building they believe is God’s House, somewhere amidst the music, the spectacle, the communal worship, and the spoken word they will experience something special.

As a follower of Jesus I am called to gather with fellow believers regularly, and God does inhabit and work in-and-through the praise and worship of His people. I have observed, however, that this lends itself to wanting or expecting something amazing, emotional, and spectacular. Sometimes churches even try to create those moments intentionally — crafting services designed to stir powerful emotions.

My own experience is that this misses the point.

It wasn’t a conscious choice on my part to move from the story of Esther to Luke’s version of Jesus’ story. Yet, in the first two chapters I’m finding connections I’ve never seen before. In yesterday’s chapter, it was the fact that God raises simple, faithful, unassuming people into key players within the Great Story. In today’s chapter, it’s reversals. The story of Esther is known for all of its reversals of fortune. Wouldn’t you know it, today’s chapter is full of them, as well.

The best and the brightest of religious minds and thinkers expected God’s Messiah to arrive in pomp. The Messiah, it was believed, would establish an earthly throne, wipe out the Roman Empires and subdue the nations, reign in earthly glory in Jerusalem where the entire earth would come to worship him.

But through the prophet Isaiah God had already said:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.”

Building on yesterday’s chapter, we find that the Messiah enters human history quietly through unassuming people of simple faith. In today’s chapter, Luke methodically present this reversal:

What People Expected	What God Actually Did
The Messiah would arrive in royal splendor	A baby is born quietly to a young couple of simple faith
The King would be announced to rulers and priests	Angels announce Him to shepherds in a field
The Messiah would enter the world through power	He enters through vulnerability, lying in a manger
The religious elite would recognize Him first	Two elderly saints quietly recognize Him in the Temple
God’s presence would remain centered in the Temple	Jesus begins forming relationships around everyday tables
The kingdom would overthrow Rome by force	The kingdom begins by transforming hearts

Jesus did show up at the Temple. In fact, He does so twice in today’s chapter. Once as a baby and then as a twelve-year-old. But God’s Son is already establishing that His ways are not the ways of religious institutions. His focus will never be the Temple, because He knows that the Temple will be rubble in 40 years. He even tells His disciples this. His focus is on the table…

The table he learns to craft with his earthly father’s training
The table he shares daily with family and community for thirty years
The table where he eats with His disciples
The table where he dines with tax collectors and sinners
The table where he has a midnight conversation with Nicodemus
The table where Pharisees host Him as a guest
The table where Lazarus throws a dinner party in His honor
The table where He celebrates one final Passover and blesses bread and wine

In the quiet this morning, Luke reminds me that a major paradigm shift has already begun. Jesus would go to the Temple for festivals, but His focus was never on the spectacle and bustle of the Temple. His focus was daily spent quietly at the table with others.

It’s no accident that Luke’s version of Jesus’ story begins with a baby laid in a feeding trough and ends with bread broken at a table. From the beginning, God was inviting us not to a spectacle, but to a meal.

My relationship with Jesus began in a church. Worship with my local gathering of Jesus’ followers is an essential part of the spiritual rhythm of my life. But it’s not the most transformative part. The most transformative part of my relationship with Jesus is here in the quiet of my office, every morning, at the table.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

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Chapter-a-Day

Grappling with the Unexpected

December 3, 2019 Tom Vander Well 3 Comments

She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.
Luke 2:7 (NIV)

A few years ago, our daughter called late in the afternoon and asked if she could stop by. The last thing on Earth we expected to hear that evening was that she was pregnant. She and Clayton had been divorced for three years and we had no idea that they had seen one another. As the story unfolded, it became clear that Milo’s conception was as improbable as it was unexpected. There are times that God makes it perfectly clear that a baby is meant to happen.

I recommend you click on the image below and read Taylor’s post:

Ironic, isn’t it? The juxtaposition of yesterday’s post and today’s post is not lost on me. What a fascinating journey.

As I read the very familiar story in today’s chapter, I couldn’t help but recognize the poor interpretation that many of us were given in the bathrobe Christmas pageants of our childhood. The familiar King James version of today’s chapter says that there was no room for Mary and Joseph in the Bethlehem Motel. The translation “guest room” is more accurate, and it gets to the bigger picture that is lost on most readers.

Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem for the census because that was his family’s hometown and ancestral home. In those days, families all lived together communally. If Joseph had to go to Bethlehem for the census, so did his parents, siblings, and cousins. Many scholars also believe that the genealogy of Jesus that Luke provides in tomorrow’s chapter is the lineage of Mary, in which case all of Mary’s family, siblings, and cousins would have been required to go to Bethlehem as well. It was a full-scale family reunion thanks to the Internal Revenue Service of the Roman Empire.

A big family reunion in the ol’ hometown. And, there was no guest room available for a very pregnant Mary and her betrothed.

At the beginning of John’s biography of Jesus, he states: “{Jesus] came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.” The prophet Isaiah wrote of the Messiah: “He was despised and rejected.” These things were true of Jesus from the very beginning before he was even born. An unwed teen mother telling stories about an angel saying she’s pregnant with God’s child didn’t receive a favorable response from the fam.

Wendy and I have been overjoyed the past two weeks to have our kids and grandson back in the states with us. Milo may have been an unexpected and improbable addition to our family, but there is no doubt in my mind that he was intended.

In the quiet this morning I find myself reminded that this life journey is filled with unexpected circumstances. I’ve observed along the way that our journeys rarely end up being what we thought they would be or what we planned for them to be. Nevertheless, it’s easy to feel disappointed, cheated, or somehow surprised by this reality. I’m not sure how or why I ever came to the notion of life’s predictability in the first place. The further I get in my journey the more I try to not fight the unexpected but to trust and flow with it instead.

Chapter-a-Day

Killing the Messenger

July 23, 2014 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.” Luke 2:34-35 (NIV)

My company does customer surveys and research for many different companies. Over the years I and my company have been in the position of reporting data that we knew would be unpopular with the client. In some cases, the truth of the data pointed to conclusions that opposed to the prevailing opinions of our clients leadership. In other cases, the data pointed to customer dissatisfaction that would put certain executives in a difficult position with their employer. It’s never fun delivering bad news. Killing the messenger is sometimes a frustrated clients first reaction.

I thought about Simeon’s words to Mary this morning. Mary was fresh off of angel visits and the shepherds’ amazing stories. She had to have been living in constant wonder and awe after all that she had seen, heard, and experienced in the previous year. Then Simeon pulls her aside to speak a quiet truth. There was another side to this amazing story that she, perhaps, had not yet considered. When you speak the truth you tend to become unpopular with certain people and you sometimes make powerful enemies. Simeon’s warning was prescient. Children will be slaughtered and a flight to Egypt will be made. The family will be pressured to get their lunatic son under control. She doesn’t yet know that the crown that awaits her baby boy is full of thorns. His kingdom and his truth will be misunderstood, maligned and rejected by the majority of people. Blood will be spilled.

I read an article yesterday about the fate of Jesus followers in Mosul, Iraq. The church of Mary (ironically) that has stood in that place since the middle ages was recently emptied by muslims and blockaded. Followers of Jesus have lived and worshipped in that city for centuries but now have been given the choice of conversion to Islam or death. In the Sudan a woman was recently sentenced to death by the government for choosing to believe in Jesus. With a little investigation you’ll find that these are not isolated incidents. Simeon’s words still ring true. Jesus remains a lightning rod and outside of the tolerant nations of the west the choice to follow Him can be a life or death decision.

This morning I’m thinking about a young girl filled with wonder at the glorious events she has experienced, and is only beginning to get a hint of the darkness that lies ahead for her and her Son. I am contemplating the reality that God sent a Messenger, and we killed Him. I’m mulling over one of Jesus’ own stories which has come to mind:

Jesus told another story to the people: “A man planted a vineyard. He handed it over to farmhands and went off on a trip. He was gone a long time. In time he sent a servant back to the farmhands to collect the profits, but they beat him up and sent him off empty-handed. He decided to try again and sent another servant. That one they beat black-and-blue, and sent him off empty-handed. He tried a third time. They worked that servant over from head to foot and dumped him in the street.

“Then the owner of the vineyard said, ‘I know what I’ll do: I’ll send my beloved son. They’re bound to respect my son.’

“But when the farmhands saw him coming, they quickly put their heads together. ‘This is our chance—this is the heir! Let’s kill him and have it all to ourselves.’ They killed him and threw him over the fence.

“What do you think the owner of the vineyard will do? Right. He’ll come and clean house. Then he’ll assign the care of the vineyard to others.”

Those who were listening said, “Oh, no! He’d never do that!”

But Jesus didn’t back down. “Why, then, do you think this was written:

That stone the masons threw out—
It’s now the cornerstone!?

“Anyone falling over that stone will break every bone in his body; if the stone falls on anyone, it will be a total smashup.”

The religion scholars and high priests wanted to lynch him on the spot, but they were intimidated by public opinion. They knew the story was about them.

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Luke 2

November 16, 2010 Tom Vander Well 1 Comment

So he went back to Nazareth with them, and lived obediently with them. His mother held these things dearly, deep within herself. And Jesus matured, growing up in both body and spirit, blessed by both God and people. Luke 2:51-52 (MSG)

My daughter, Madison, called yesterday. It was good to hear her voice. Now that she lives in a city hours away, I relish the sound of her voice. I’m thankful that technology makes it so easy to connect. Then, in the afternoon, I heard voices downstairs and discovered that Taylor had stopped by and was chatting with Wendy. Getting a hug from her made my day brighter.

As I read today’s chapter, I found it interesting that Luke reminds us twice that Jesus’ mother “held” the experiences of his childhood “deep within.” Having interviewed Mary after Jesus’ death, I wonder if those were her words, or if it was Luke’s observation as he listened and watched.

After 30 years of consistently reading God’s Message, I have a greater appreciation for Mary’s experience than ever before. I’ve read this passage countless times and have given little thought these words. Time and experience never cease to provide a more expansive perspective to each chapter I read, and now the words leap off the page at me.

With the girls grown and gone, I find my mind constantly accessing the hard drive of my memory to view in my mind’s eye the moments from their childhood which I hold dearly, deep within. Who they are today, and who they are becoming is rooted in the very first steps of their own journey. I hold the memory of those first steps dearly, deep within.