I HEARD IT ON THE GRAPEVINE! 1/22/11

WHEN I WAS a girl we had a grape vine growing in the alleyway behind our house. I don’t believe it was ours and not sure who it did belong to. What I remember is that it had green grapes on it and they were sour. Most berry patches of any kind whether they are black, red or even grapes, the vine they grow on are twisted, snarled and matted as they grow intertwine with one another.

THE PAST two months I have been leading a Ladies Bible Study on what I called; Christmas Hall of Fame. Of course we began where the story begins and finished long after December 25th with Herod and his plan to kill the baby boys, two years and younger. A couple of things jumped out at me and I want to share it with you.

WHEN GOD announced the birth of His son to the shepherds, they were amazed! They went, they saw and witnessed what they had been told. When they left, they told everyone about what they had seen, heard, witnessed and were never the same again. When Mary and Joseph took Jesus into the temple when He was about 40 days old, they were greeted by Simeon, a devout Jew and also Anna, a Prophetess, who lived in the temple. God revealed to both of them that this child was His son. Both Simeon and Anna begin to tell everyone they met, that the Messiah had been born and they saw him. They became witnesses along with the Shepherds and they were never the same!

LATER ON the wise men appear in Jerusalem looking for the baby who was born king of the Jews. When Herod hears of this, he calls the wise men before him and with his cunning, diabolical ways, asks that they go and find the child and let him know so that he could worship him also. Of course, God intervenes and the wise men go and see the child and then go home a different way and they too become witnesses of what they saw, heard and worshiped. They were never the same again! The Shepherds, Simeon, Anna and wise men were the beginning of God’s grapevine.

REMEMBER studying about Samuel F. B. Morse who invented the new- fangled system of communication using wires that looked to all the world like vines strung between poles? The telegraph lines transmitted many wild rumors during the Civil War. This caused people to understand that when you received a message through the “grapevine,” it was likely; gossip. Most battlefield dispatches were true, but some were unfounded. This caused many messages that were transmitted person-to-person to be called a “grapevine telegraph” who’s news was suspect.

GOD ESTABLISHED a grapevine telegraph when His son was born. He told the Shepherds, Simeon, Anna and the wise men! After they heard, saw and witnessed God’s message, that was foretold in Isaiah, they became a grapevine of truth. When we become followers of God’s word we too should tell all we meet, what we have heard, felt and witnessed, as God’s truth!

“AND JESUS came and said to them; All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you and lo, I am with you always, to the end of the age!” Matthew 28:19-20

I HEARD a preacher once say; “Go therefore, means; as you go!” As the Shepherds went they told everyone they met about the Christ Child being born in a manger. Simeon, the devout Jew and Anna, the Prophetess, told everyone from that day forward that the Messiah had come! The wise men and their caravan shared the news that the star they followed laid over the house of the Son of God and He was the new king of the Jews.

AS YOU GO; what are you saying? As you go; who are you sharing the “good news” with? As you go; who are you taking with you? “I am the vine, you are the branches, He who abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit!” John 15:4 By Jane Ann Crenshaw 1/22/11