My Belief's

The unique birth of Jesus

 

On this page I would like to describe the REAL CHRISTMAS story, not the COMMERCIALIZED story with Santa Claus, Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, Christmas light and trees.

None of that has anything to do with the actual birth of Jesus Christ.

 

To begin, no one knows the date, the year, month or day of the birth of Jesus, but the Bible and history points to a definite period of time when certain men of Rome were alive and ruling over Israel. If anything, December 25th is probably NOT the day of birth of Jesus,  for many reasons.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love the Christian part of Christmas, the music, the family time, the gifts, the Church activities but the true meaning of birth of Jesus has been lost in the commercialism and sad pursuit of money. The United States' society is doing its best to eliminate Jesus Christ from Christmas, which is really a play on words for Christ's Mass, a Roman Catholic service.

 

The real story of birth of Jesus is actually a story that takes about two years of history to accomplish.

I will only give brief pictures of what the Bible says happened about 2000+ years ago.

 

The story begins with an angel appearing and speaking to an old priet by name of  Zechariah that his wife, Elizabeth who had never had a child, would "bring forth a son and his name would be John". This John would become that John the Baptist, who Jesus said was Elijah who would come before him.

 

Six months later, the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, a young maid, a virgin but espoused to be married to Joseph. The angel told her that the Holy Spirit would come upon her and she would conceive and bear a son and his name was to be Jesus. 

 

In Jewish society of that day, for an unmarried woman or girl to become pregnant was considered a serious crime, perhaps costing her her life. Joseph could only believe that she had commited adultery and certainly could not marry her.

 

Yet, Gabriel appeared to him and told him to marry Mary but not have sexual relations until after Jesus was born. Joseph did as instructed. Joseph and Mary did have many children later.

 

Zechariah and Elizabeth did have a son who they named John and no more is heard of him until about 30 years later.

 

Joseph and Mary did  lived in Nazareth, about 60 miles north of Jerusalem. Before Mary delivered her son, a Roman census was decreed to be taken and all Jewish males were to go to the city or town of their birth. Joseph was from Bethlehem so Joseph and a very pregnant Mary traveled to Bethlehem which was 10 miles west and a bit south of Jerusalem. This Roman census can help date the time of birth of Jesus to a very specific time in history. The census was decreed by Caesar Augustus when Quirinius was governor of Syria and Herod the Great was ruling in Jerusalem. History has shown that there was a census taken about 8 BC , another about 2 BC and Roman history has shown that there were other  census taken around that time. It has been shown that the Roman calendar was quite faulty also.

 

Continuing with the Biblical account we read that Joseph and Mary upon arriving in Bethlehem delivered their son, Jesus, in a manger. At this same time angels appeared to shepherds informing them of the birth of their Savior(Messiah) and the shepherds visited the baby and spread the news abroad. Eight days after the baby's birth Joseph and Mary took the baby to the temple to be circumsized. Thirty-three days later Mary had to go to temple to be purified according to Jewish law. So the Bible clearly shows that Joseph and Mary were in area of Jerusalem a minimum of 40 days before returning to Narareth.

 

Now the story gets interesting concerning the Magi(wise men)  from the East and the baby Jesus. The dating of this event varies widely, not that it did not happen.

 

The NT book of Matthew records that "Magi" from the east came to King Herod in Jerusalem looking for the "new born" king.  Of course this was not good news to Herod. Herod learned that a king would be born in Bethlehem so he sent the Magi to find this new king and report back.

 

The Magi immediately headed out but were led by the star to the "house where the young child was". Upon finding the "child" they gave gifts of gold, incense and myrrh. Then they were warned  in a drean not to return to King Herod so they returned home another way. Joseph also was warned in a dream to leave Israel and go to Egypt.

 

When King Herod realized the Magi were not going to tell him where this new king was he was so angry that he had all the boy babies in Bethlehem area under age of two killed.

 

Joseph, Mary and Jesus remained in Egypt until King Herod died. An angel told Joseph to return to Narazeth. Jesus grew up in Nazareth and nothing more is recorded of his life until Jesus reached the age of twelve.

 

The familiar, commercialized story of Christmas has a number of incorrect parts that people have come to accept as true.

 

For example, we sing "We three Kings of orient are...". But, they were not kings but wisemen probably scientist of that day. Also no number is given but because 3 gifts are mentioned it's assumed 3 wisemen. Some traditions even have names for them. None of this is based upon the Bible.

 

All pictures seem to indicate the 3 kings coming to Bethlehem to the baby. But they were led by a star to a house where a "young child" was. Could have been more then a year after birth. Not even sure if went to Bethlehem or to Nazareth or some other place. Bethlehem was only 10 miles from King Herod's palace and Herod could easily have sent soldiers with the wisemen.

 

When the Magi visited the young child and his mother there is no mention of Joseph being present. Joseph was still alive but seemingly not present when Magi visited.

 

I believe all this really did happen over 2000 years ago. There numerous ways to view the Magi visit, such as they came to Bethlehem during the 40 days of purification of Mary, they were led to Nazareth by star up to more then a year after birth. No one knows for certain.

 

None of these unknowns change that it really did happen just as foretold hundreds of years before.