Christmas: What’s Wrong With This Picture?

How many of you like those, what's wrong with this picture cartoons in the newspapers? Okay, yeah, just about everybody. Well, that's good. I really enjoyed doing those. And here's one with all kinds of things going on. So during the sermon time today, we'll go through that picture and point out it... no, not really. No, it's just something that I enjoyed doing. I see a number of you did as well. And it was fun to go through and pour over and figure out the mistakes. And I think those actually helped in developing critical thinking skills and as well as noticing when things just didn't quite add up. And tomorrow, as we all know, about a billion people in the world will celebrate the world's most popular holiday, December 25th, popularly known as Christmas Day.

And if you're like me, you're probably sick of all the ads, the TV commercials, the radio commercials, the jingles, the decorations, and everything that goes along with this holiday.

And it's something that's very hard for us to escape this time of year. And every time we come to this time of year, I am reminded of what's wrong with those pictures, cartoons, because there is so much about the Christmas holiday that just does not line up with the Bible.

So for today's sermon, I would like to play off that idea and go through Christmas. What's wrong with this picture? How does it square with the Bible? How does it not square with the Bible?

And I'll say up front, I'm not going to go into the origins of Christmas, of Christmas trees, of Santa Claus, and you'll logs and all of that. That's easily a sermon or two in itself. And we publish that kind of material every year and beyond today magazine. We have it in our booklets. There's plenty of that material you can go through, so I won't rehash all of that today. What I would like to do instead is to go through the biblical account of Jesus Christ's birth and how that true account squares or doesn't square with the common views that many people think or assume about Christmas. They think they see a lot of things in the Bible that really aren't there. And the truth is something that is very different, as we will see.

So again, what is wrong with the traditional Christmas picture, as we see depicted in a common scene here of the baby Jesus in a barn with farm animals all around, and shepherds playing flutes, and wise men bringing gifts?

And here's really what's wrong with this picture. Here's a guy over here with a fruit basket. Maybe that's the origin of giving fruit cakes for Christmas. I don't know where that came from. It's another what's wrong with this picture I've never seen before. So I don't know who that guy is and what he's supposedly doing in there. But it is good for us to be reminded of these things. Some of it you've probably heard before. But it is good for us to be reminded so that when our beliefs come up this time of year about Christmas, this is good to be able to explain to people exactly what the Bible really does say.

So let's begin with the common account, first in Luke and then we'll go to Matthew, their accounts of the birth of Jesus Christ and see what they really tell us and how that compares with the traditional ideas about Christmas. So beginning in Luke 2 we'll read verses 1 through 8. And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. And this was registration for tax purposes or a census you might call it to get everybody registered so they knew who they could tax.

This census first took place while Corinius was governing Syria. He was a military officer and a friend of Caesar Augustus and was ruling over Syria, which encompassed the area of the Holy Land as a Roman province. So all went to be registered everyone to his own city.

And so what we begin seeing in these few sentences here is that God uses external circumstances to carry out his plan and his purpose. We've talked before how God used the circumstances of the Roman Empire, and I have a photo representing four aspects of that, to make the conditions right for the birth of the Messiah and the beginning of the Church and the spreading of the Gospel in the Roman world. And those were the pox romana, the piece of Rome, which established an order and a relative level of peace throughout the Roman Empire, so that the Gospel could spread.

The Roman road system, kind of like our international, our interstate highway system that allowed people to travel freely and safely throughout the Roman Empire. The use of the Greek language for writing, which was common throughout the Roman Empire, and that's why we have the New Testament books and letters preserved for us in Greek, and then also the Roman mail system that allowed Paul, for instance, to write letters to different individuals and church congregations across the Roman Empire. So those four factors were very important in allowing the conditions to be right for the birth of the Messiah and the establishment of the early church.

So these things had to be in place for what we read about in the Gospels, for the time to begin, for these things to take place. And now we see something even more specific, where Caesar Augustus decrees that there be a census throughout the Empire. And this would bring about the circumstances for Joseph and Mary, who are living up in Nazareth, about 70 miles north of Jerusalem, to end up bringing about the prophesied birth of the Messiah, the Son of God, and Bethlehem to the south of Jerusalem.

So continuing with the story, in verse 4, Joseph also went up from Galilee, went up in elevation. Galilee is lower than Jerusalem, so he went up from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth into Judea to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David.

King David, his ancestry goes back to Bethlehem. So Joseph and Mary, being descendants of David, had to return to their city of origin, their ancestral city of origin, to be registered, verse 5, with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child, pregnant, in other words. So it was that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. Now, this is all quite straightforward, but I want to focus in on this phrase that's really easy to overlook and millions of people do.

So it was that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. Now, the common view of Christmas is that Joseph comes into Bethlehem at the last minute, 1158, 1159, before midnight, and they're looking for the local Motel 6 in Bethlehem, and everything is shut down. Everything is full. There's no room for them in the inn. But is that really the case? Is Joseph that irresponsible a husband and father-to-be that he hasn't made any arrangements for him and his wife to stay there in Bethlehem? That's the common view. And it depicts, if you think about it, it depicts Joseph in not a very flattering light. But actually, when we understand this wording here, while they were there, that indicates they're not just showing up at the last minute as the common picture is. They are there for some time. And while they were there, on this extended visit, the Bible doesn't tell us how long it is. Luke doesn't say, but it's obviously some time. It's not a matter that they show up suddenly, and there's just no place for them to stay. So they have to go out and find a barn for the Messiah, the Son of God, to be born in. That's not the picture. So when does this happen? The Bible, again, doesn't say. The Bible does give us specific days for the Feast of God. Passover, Days of Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, Trumpets, Atonement, Feast of Tabernacles, and the Eighth Day. But it nowhere tells us the exact date of Jesus Christ's birth. It's very specific about which days he wants his people to assemble, the days of worship that he has given. But he nowhere gives us a date of Jesus Christ's birth.

That alone should be a clue. It is not something that we should be celebrating there.

However, we can come pretty close by the clues that are given in the Bible to understanding within a week or two as to when Jesus would have been born. That is through the mention of the Course of Abijah. Abijah, as it's spelled, Abijah would have been pronounced. If you remember the story, Zechariah, who is to be the father of John the Baptizer, is serving in the Course of Abijah in the temple. The priesthood at that time was divided up. There were so many priests they couldn't all serve at the same time in the temple. There are about 20-25,000 priests, and they divided them up into 24 what are called courses. So basically, a thousand priests would serve a week at a time at the temple, and they would rotate through the Course of the Year, twice over the Course of the Year. So 24 would serve, and then the cycle would start over with all 24 serving again. Then three times in the year, all of the priests would serve. That would be at Passover in the Days of Unleavened Bread, and at Pentecost, and at the Feast of Tabernacles, and the Eighth Day. So it so happens that the Eighth Course in that year served during the rough equivalent of our June and December month. So Zechariah is told that he will have a son, and this would have happened either in June or December. But we can narrow it down from other circumstances to know that it was actually in June, as we'll come to later on. So John is likely conceived in late June, right after Zechariah finishes his course at the temple, because after all, he and his wife are quite elderly. It's not like they're going to wait around for a long time after that. So then John would have been born nine months later, in late March. He didn't count it up. Late June to late March, nine months later. Elsewhere, we read that Gabriel appeared to Mary, the angel Gabriel, appears to Mary when Elizabeth, Zechariah's wife, the mother of John, was six months pregnant.

And Gabriel told Mary that she would conceive. So we have John being born six months before Jesus would be. So six months from late March, when John is born, brings us to late September or early October, which of course is right at the time of the fall Holy Days. Draw more details on that. Be glad to supply it. But you can also look it up on our website under just search for the Course of Abaya. And you'll find all of this spelled out there. It's spelled out in the companion Bible. If any of you have that. So of course, the feast days, Trumpets, Atonement, Feast of Tabernacles, the eighth day, fall in the late September-October time frame every year.

And Luke's account isn't specific enough to nail it down to the exact day.

But what we do see from this evidence, this narrows it down to within a couple of week period there. And also, we see that Bethlehem is packed with people. Bethlehem is about six miles south of Jerusalem. Jerusalem gets inundated with a million or more additional people than normal coming there for the three feast periods of the year. So this explains why Jerusalem is just overflowing and that crowd of people extends as far out to Bethlehem as well. People are looking for places to stay there. That is why Bethlehem is so crowded at that time of year. So put these clues together in the Bible. And it's pretty obvious that the birth of Jesus, our Savior, took place at the time of the fall holy days when everyone is traveling to the feast in Jerusalem as their commandant. And I think you can make a very good argument for Jesus being born either on the Feast of Trumpets, because it's our understanding. We know that Jesus returns at the last trumpet, the final trumpet. We know that from 1 Corinthians and 1 Thessalonians.

We know that he returns at the last trumpet, the seventh trumpet. So just knowing the way God does things, it makes perfect sense that he could also have been born into the world on the Feast of Trumpets as well. He comes into the world the first time on the Feast of Trumpets, in other words. And he comes to the world, returns again also on the Feast of Trumpets there. Can't prove that, but just the way God does things in his timing and using the Holy Days for significant events. It makes perfect sense. You can also make a very good argument for Jesus being born on the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles. And this is a good argument from a couple of standpoints. One is after a male baby is born, what happens eight days later? He's circumcised. So what do we have with the Feast of Tabernacles? First day, and then eight days later, we have a Holy Day.

So it's possible that Jesus was born on the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles and then circumcised on the eighth day. And circumcision at that time did take precedence over the even observing the Sabbath. There's another interesting clue regarding this, and this is found in John 1, verse 14. And of course, John 1 begins, in the beginning, was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And then down to verse 14, John says, and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. This is saying that Jesus was God, and he became flesh and dwelt among us. One of the names of Christ is Emmanuel, God with us. But this phrase here, dwelt among us, let's take a closer look at that. It literally means lived in a tent or tabernacle among us. This word dwelt means to live in a tent or a tabernacle. So actually what John is telling us is that the Word was made flesh and literally tabernacled among us. That, I think, is also pretty strong evidence that possibly Jesus was born on the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles, from the way that John uses this unusual word. We would normally think he lived among us, or he existed among us, but John uses a word that says to live in a tent or a tabernacle, which is quite interesting. So this again may indicate Jesus was born on the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles, or at least during the Feast of Tabernacles. So a lot of information there when you really get down to the Bible. Of course, this is very far removed from the end of December, December 25th.

We'll cover this a little bit more when we get into the shepherds tending the sheep outside.

Continuing in verse 7 of Luke chapter 2, And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

And it's from this phrase here, no room for them in the inn, that people get the idea that, yeah, Joseph is just showing up at the last minute, then there's no place for them to stay. But before we get into that, I'd like to just draw our attention to one other word that is used here. And she brought forth her firstborn son, the Catholic Church, which is where we get the Christmas holiday because he adopted it from the Roman Saturnalia and the birth of Mithras and the sun god and all of that. They also believe that Mary was a perpetual virgin, that she gave birth to Jesus and never had sexual relations with Joseph, never had any other other children. But that is actually disproven by Matthew 13 verses 55 and 56, which states that Mary went on to have at least four other sons. And it goes on to name the four sons in this passage, where it says, Behold, is not your mother Mary here and your brothers, and it goes to name the four of them. And his sisters also. So sisters is plural. So Mary had at least seven children that we know of, that we know the names of the five boys, and then there are at least two daughters as well. It may have been more than two. It's not sated. So Luke here says again that they wrapped him in swaddling clothes, which is strips of cloth there, and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn. And it's from this laying him in a manger that people get the traditional idea that you see in the Christmas Cretias, that he's born in a barn surrounded by all of these animals. And here we've got the traditional scene with the three wise men bearing their gifts and the shepherd and the angel up here and Joseph and Mary and the baby Jesus. So again, what's wrong with this picture? Well, virtually everything is wrong with this picture.

So what is the truth? Where exactly was Jesus born?

Luke says there was no room for them in the inn. And the inn here is the Greek word kataluma, k-a-t-a-l-u-m-a, which means guest room. Guest room, that's the meaning of the word.

There is a perfectly good Greek word for an inn, a place where people would stay and rent a room for the night. We find that in the parable of the Good Samaritan. Let's take a look at that. Luke 10 verse 34, where Jesus is giving the parable of the Good Samaritan. He says, So he went to him, the man who had been beaten and left for dead by robbers, bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine, and he set him on his own animal, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And the word used for inn there is pandochion, p-a-n-d-o-c-h-e-i-o-n, pandochion. That is the Greek word for an inn, where somebody stays overnight, as we see Jesus himself using that room. So what we're really being told there is that she brought forth her firstborn son, wrapped him in swan and clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was not room for them in the inn, but because there was no space for them in the guest room. That's what is literally being told to us here. And actually, a number of translators recognize this, but the old tradition of Christmas and the barn and all of this is so heavily entrenched in people's minds that I know people who have talked to Bible translators and they recognize this is a bad translation, but the tradition is so strong they keep translating it in Bible versions the wrong way. So what is really going on here? I have here an illustration, a cutaway drawing viewed from above of what a typical first century house for a Jewish family would have been like in a more rural area like Bethlehem. It wasn't this way in the big cities where they're much more like apartments, but in outlying areas where people had animals as they did in Bethlehem. This would have been a typical house structure. And quite different from our houses today. Today we have separate bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens, garages, all of this. Then basically everything was done in one room. In one big room, what we would call a living room because that's where they live. That's where they did everything. It would be your kitchen. Here's a hearth over here. It would be your bedrooms and we see the the bed mats stacked up in a corner here. When night came, you would lay your mats out. They would be filled with straw or something like that. And that would be your mattress. You'd pull your blanket over you and you slept on the floor all the time. You'd have your cooking utensils there and your storerooms in a in a cabinet chest of, well not chest of drawers because they didn't have drawers, but a box where you would keep things stored. That sort of thing. Your food would be stored in there. And over here we see this wall divider and that would have been a storage room slash guest room. The kataluma.

That's what the kataluma was. It was a room where guests would stay. And hospitality was very, very important in the culture of that day. It was very, very common to have in any house where they had the means, they would have a guest room there. And then we know this archaeologically as well. If there were no guests here, it would double as a storage room, which is what we would call it today. So this is what is actually being talked about there.

So what is the real story here that's going on? Well, as we see Joseph and Mary go to Bethlehem, their ancestral homeland, to be registered for the census there for tax purposes.

Now, if it's their ancestral homeland, what does that tell us? It tells us they have relatives there.

Both Joseph and Mary are from that area. So they're going to have relatives there, aunts, uncles, possibly even parents, cousins, other people. And with the hospitality of that day, they would have been very warmly invited to stay in some of their relatives' houses, especially with Mary being pregnant, expecting a child at that time. So what happens is they go down there. It's near the time of the Feast of Tabernacles, and Jerusalem is packed and crowded. That crowd is overflowing all the way outside of the city. You may remember when Jesus and his disciples go to the Passover Festival at Jerusalem, where do they stay? They camp out on the Mount of Olives.

They camp outside the city walls out there because everything is so crowded there. So that's what's going on, and that's why things are crowded as far south as Bethlehem as well.

So with a baby coming, there is no room for them, not in the inn, but in this guest chamber here.

Why is there no room? Well, maybe the guest room in this house is only big enough for one person, not for a man and his pregnant wife, and a baby on the way. Maybe there's already, maybe it is a larger room, and there's already another family of three or four or five or six people crammed into that guest room.

There, we don't know. Luke doesn't tell us that. He just says there was no room in the guest room for them. So what happens? Where is Jesus born then? Something else interesting about houses of this period. Other than your house and your family, what is your most valuable possession in the first century? Anybody? Anybody want to tell me? Your animals. Your animals are very good.

Your animals, because, yeah, it would be fairly typical for a rural family like this to have a couple of sheep and goats. From sheep, you get your wool, which you sure, and that creates a source for your yard. Wool for clothing, to weave into clothing. You would get you milk, not from cows. Very few people had cows. They would have oxen for plowing their fields, but cows just were not a thing at that time of year. They didn't get their milk from cows. They got their milk from goats. It was goat milk.

You might have a few chickens for egg and for eating there. So your animals, being your most valuable possession, you did not leave them out at night, not unguarded or unattending at least.

So what people in a house like this, they had kind of a... a lot of houses were built over a shallow cave.

And the area around Bethlehem, in particular in Jerusalem, is filled with small caves. And we're not talking about massive caves that go hundreds of yards or anything like that. Just think of a shallow cave maybe half the size of the stage up here. And the terrain all around there is limestone, which is very easily eroded from water action. If you've lived around limestone, you know that. So they would typically build a house over a shallow cave, and that cave would be where you would keep your animals at night. So your house would have an opening there, as we see here. Here it's depicted as kind of a... we might call it a sub-basement there, but you would keep your animals on that lower level of the house, and the family would live above it. So that would keep your animals safe from varmints of four-legged ones like wolves, hyenas, things like that in that area, or two-legged varmints who might steal your goat or your sheep from you while you slept. So they would bring the animals in at night. And this is actually referred to several... it sounds odd to us, but it's actually referred to at least twice in the Bible. I just mentioned in passing in 1st Samuel 28, 24, where it says, now the woman had a fatted calf in the house.

Well, is that like her pet dog or cow? No, it's not. It's a fatted calf. It's an animal that's intended to be eaten. It's being fattened up to be eaten, and she's keeping it in her house.

And you may remember the sad story of Jephthah, one of the Judges of Israel who, Judges 11, verses 30 and 31, Jephthah made a vow to the Lord and said, If you will indeed deliver the people of Ammon into my hands, then it shall be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the people of Ammon shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering.

Notice he says, whatever, not whoever. He's not expecting his daughter to come out, if you remember the rest of the story. He's expecting an animal to come out of the house, and he's going to offer that animal as an offering to God. So here's another example of an animal being kept in the house, as was commonly done in that day. So that's what we're seeing with this house. We have the guest room up here that's full. So the guest room being full, Joseph and Mary move down to where the lower part of the house where the animals are kept. And that is where Jesus is born. And they lay him in a manger, a feed trough, or a watering trough. And if you're keeping your animals indoors at night, what are you going to do? Well, you're going to put some hay in there for the animals to eat on, and probably going to have one of the mangers lined with plaster so it's waterproof so you can have water there for the animals again, too. So they won't need to be let out or have water brought to them in the middle of the night. And here's an actual photograph of this very thing that I'm talking about. This is still done to this day in that part of the world. Here we see this underground chamber underneath the house, and we see a stone manger there. And if you look closely enough, you can actually see some hay stubble and straw in there. So actually that makes perfect sense with what we read in the Bible.

Jesus would have been born, would have been wrapped up in a blanket, essentially, and laid on a bed of straw there, which would make a very natural cradle there for the infant to rest in there. So again, here's how does that line up with the traditional picture of Christmas? We can see there's just an awful lot wrong with this picture. No cows in that area. It's not a barn. It's not out open to the elements, particularly in December. They're in their promised land. There aren't the shepherds bringing their sheep into the barn as well with them. Just everything about the story, the traditional story, is wrong. The time of the year, who's there, where it is, the location, the circumstances, the surroundings. Everything is wrong with that story there.

So again, Jesus isn't born in a barn because the local Motel 6 is full up for the night there. Joseph is not an irresponsible father. They're simply staying there with relatives, which would have been very typical in that day, particularly around the timing of the Feast of Tabernacles. So that is the real story of Jesus Christ's birth, and it's quite different from the mythological story that is so common today. So now we come to the to the rest of the story, or the continuation of the story, that is with the shepherds. I won't go into a lot of detail about that. I'll just comment here just this one verse to conclude this part of it. Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields keeping watch over their flock by night. This again is a very strong clue that this did not take place in December.

Read you some quotes from a few Bible commentaries and history books.

Adam Clark's commentary, his note on this verse says, As these shepherds had not yet brought home their flocks, it is a presumptive argument that October had not yet commenced or begun, and that, consequently, our Lord was not born on the 25th of December when no flocks were out in the fields, nor could he have been born later than September as the flocks were still in the fields by night.

On this very ground, the nativity, or birth of Jesus, in December should be given up.

It's just very straightforward about it. It didn't happen. Shepherds aren't out in the night in December to name their flocks in that part of the Holy Land.

Another one from the Interpreter's one-volume commentary, talking about this same section, These humble pastoral folk are out in the field at night with their flock, a feature of the story which would argue against the birth of Christ, occurring on December 25th, since the weather would not have permitted it. Also, celebrations, the complete book of American holidays, they say that Luke's account suggests that Jesus may have been born in summer or early fall. Since December is cold and rainy in Judea, it is likely the shepherds would have sought shelter for their flocks at night. Shelter meaning indoor shelter at night. I personally have never been in Jerusalem in December, but I have been there in November, staying over after the feast into November. It was actually one of the most cold and miserable experiences of my life because right after the Feast of Tabernacles, the rainy season commences, going up to the spring Holy Day. So you've got about six months of rain and cold weather there, and then it's dry the rest of the year. It was cold and rainy. Daris McNeil and I stayed over there several days, and it was just miserable, miserably cold during that time. It actually, just about the time we left, actually snowed in Jerusalem not long after that, and also over in Amman, Jordan, which is a desert area, actually snowed over there. So from personal experience, I can tell you that it's not a place you want to be outdoors at night taking care of your animals. And there's another factor that plays in here and would disprove a birth of Jesus in December, and that is the Roman census.

And from the book Holy Days and Holidays by Cunningham Gieke, he says the Roman census could hardly have been at that season, referring to December 25th. However, for such a time would surely not have been chosen by the authorities for a public enrollment, which necessitated the populations traveling from all parts of their natal or two, their natal or districts, their birthplace, their ancestral birthplace. Storms and rain making journeys both unsafe and unpleasant in winter, except in especially favorable years. So I've talked a lot about the Roman Empire and Roman thinking and so on. And the Romans were all into efficiency in everything they did.

For the Romans to order a census in December would have been utterly counterproductive to order at a time when the roads are muddy and icy and slick and it's cold at night. Many people would have camped out along as they're traveling the roads there, so it would have been counterproductive. You would just have had a lot of people who would never show up. People then coming down with pneumonia and diseases like that from being out traveling under those conditions. So it just makes no sense whatsoever from a Roman standpoint for them to order a census at that time of year. However, since the Romans are into efficiency, it makes perfect sense that they would have ordered the census at the time of the Feast of Tabernacles when so many people are coming to Jerusalem anyway and they can register at that time. So again, when you understand that historical background, the timing of it makes perfect sense. So continuing on here.

So what we see here is that when the Son of God is born in the flesh, who does God choose to tell about this event? Here we have the King of Kings being born, but God doesn't reveal this to the rich and powerful of the nation. He doesn't tell Herod about it. He doesn't tell the the priest, but rather he tells shepherds who are out tending to their sheep at night. Shepherds at that time were not very highly regarded or respected.

The reason for that is, what does a shepherd do? How does sheep eat? They wander all over the countryside searching for grass to eat. So in the minds of a number of rabbis at that time, shepherding was an unclean profession because your sheep as they wander around are stealing other people's grass that they eat. And you can't exactly give it back to the landowner after the sheep have eaten it. So therefore the sheep are thieves and shepherds are eating at abetting the stever of people's property. That's the way they viewed it. So consequently, shepherding is a very distasteful profession. Not every rabbi felt that way, but that was a pretty common view.

So again, God chooses a fairly lower class of people to reveal the birth of his son to at that time. So continuing with the story then, what happens after this? Well, we won't go there, but Joseph and Mary have Jesus circumcised on the eighth day. And then at day 40, when the time of purification after Mary's birth, they take Jesus to the temple to be registered there. And then if you remember the story, Simeon and Anna both declare Jesus to be the Messiah, the Son of God, two witnesses there. Now let's pick it up in Matthew's account.

Running short on time, so I'll try to go through this pretty quickly. Matthew says it gives a different set of details. Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the King, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem. So we've talked about the other elements of the story except the wise men and the killing of the babies. So this is what Matthew includes that Luke does not. And the wise men come, saying, Where is he who has been born, king of the Jews? For we have seen a star in the east, and have come to worship him.

When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. Why? Why are they troubled? A couple of things going on here. One, Herod by this time is about age 70.

He has already, by this point, murdered at least one of his wives, at least two of his sons, a high priest, various other individuals whom he thought were plotting to kill him and take the throne in his place.

And essentially, this isn't all Jerusalem with him. Well, if Herod is troubled, then all of Jerusalem is troubled because if Herod is paranoid, which he is, nobody in the city is safe.

Because Herod, in his paranoia, murders people who are perceived to be his enemies, whether they are real or imagined. But there's something else that is going on historically at this time. The Magi, or the Wise Men, as it's translated here, were normally Wise Men of science, of medicine, there were knowledge of this, of astronomy, astrology. They were advisors to kings in many cases. From the east indicates that they are likely, because we go east from Jerusalem, what do you have? You have about five, six hundred miles of desert, till you get to where? To Babylon. So these Wise Men from the east are probably not men who are coming out of the desert. They are probably individuals coming from Babylon. What's significant about Babylon? Well, that's where the Jews were exiled when Nebuchadnezzar captured Jerusalem 600 years earlier. He takes them to Babylon. And there is a thriving Jewish population in Babylon at this time as well. From the east could also be anywhere in that general area where the Israelites had been taken before the Jewish people were taken there as well. What empires over there at this time? There's a massive empire there, as we see indicated on the map, called the Parthian Empire. Here's Jerusalem over here, hugging the coast where Israel is. And there's this massive empire existing, the Parthian Empire, over here. Rome and Parthia have been fighting for several generations at this time. As a matter of fact, about a generation before this, in the 30s BC, the Roman general Ecrassus, who you may have heard about from history, and 20,000 Roman legionaries were slaughtered, defeated by the Parthians. These are the two competing superpowers of the day.

Jerusalem, in the Holy Land, is kind of right on the frontier of this territory.

For Herod to hear that there's a group of wise men from the east coming in, well, what's from the east? The Parthian Empire. The mortal enemies of Rome. Herod himself has fought with the Romans against the Parthians in previous years. So this makes him all the more paranoid. Here's a depiction of Romans and Parthians fighting. They fought for several generations there for superiority in that area. And how are the wise men traveling? Well, they are traveling in a caravan. It's not three guys on three camels. The wise men. No, you traveled in that day in a caravan of minimum a couple of dozen people, maybe up to several hundred.

Particularly, if you're carrying precious things like gold, like the wise men are, you're not going to be out there with two of your buddies on camels. Just three of you because you're going to get robbed and probably killed and everything you own stolen. So people would commonly travel in large caravans across the desert, across that area. So what Herod sees is this large group of people, several dozen to several hundred, perhaps, from the east, from the enemies of Rome, coming to Jerusalem and saying there's a new king born. We want to worship him. Where is he? Herod hears new king and red flags go up all over the place. Because he's the king.

There's a new king. What does that mean? That means his days are numbered.

So we choose to deal with it by brute force and violence. Continuing the story in Matthew, verse 4, "...and when he, Herod, had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. And they said to him, and Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet," and then quoting Micah 5 in verse 2, "...but you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are not the least among the rulers of Judah, for out of you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel." Then Herod, what he had secretly called the wise men, determined from them what time the star appeared. So he knows where the Messiah has to be born, the new king, and now he wants to know when the king was born from the wise men.

So he sent them to Bethlehem and said, "...go and search carefully for the young child, and when you have found him, bring him back to me, that I may come and worship him also." So he finds out when the star appeared. Now they've been traveling a minimum of six months or so to get there, just because of the distance that it takes to travel from Babylon to Jerusalem. And notice something else that is a myth about the traditional Christmas story. What does he say about Jesus? Does he say, go and search carefully for the baby?

No, because a lot of time is past. Jesus is no longer a baby. Now Jesus is a young child.

He's a young boy, perhaps up to two years old by this point, because that's determining from when the star appeared. The wise men gathered everything together to come to Jerusalem.

So now Jesus is a young child. So this whole thing of the wise men showing up in Bethlehem at the barn in the stable and giving the gifts to Jesus is just a total fiction. Jesus is up to two years old when the wise men show up. Continuing verse 9, And when they heard the king, they departed, and behold the star which they had seen in the east went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child again was.

Now this is interesting. We have a star that is called a star that they see from Babylon, and it comes and stands over a specific spot in Bethlehem. Anyhow, have you seen a star act that way to move and stand still over Bethlehem? And think also about this. Where's Herod? Herod is six miles north of Bethlehem. Why doesn't he see the star? He can't! Apparently it's a star only visible to the wise men. And apparently it's not a star at all because it just looks like a star. Apparently it's an angel. We know that angels are represented or symbolized by stars in the Bible. Apparently it is an angel that is only visible to the wise men to guide them on their journey.

Verse 10, and when they saw the star over this one house in Bethlehem, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy. And when they had come into the barn, no, into the house. Now it's a house that Jesus is in. He's no longer in the room downstairs where the animals are kept. They saw the young child, again, Jesus is older, with Mary his mother and fell down and worshiped him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to him, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. I don't want to draw our attention to this. Of course, it's from this that people get the idea of giving gifts at Christmas time. But notice, of course, the wise men aren't giving gifts to Joseph and Mary, or to each other, or exchanging gifts. No, they present the gifts for Jesus. Three specific gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Why those three? And this is where the whole gift-giving garbage of Christmas obscures a very important truth of the Bible that God reveals to us right here through Matthew.

Why gold? Well, gold is a gift for royalty. Gold is what was common. It was the most precious metal there. So gold was for royalty. And who is Jesus? Jesus is the future king of kings and lord of lords. He is royalty. So he is given gold as a gift signifying that he is to be the future king and king of kings and ruler of the world. Frankincense was an incense that was intimately connected with the priesthood and the temple sacrifices. I won't turn there, but you can write down Exodus 30 verses 34 through 37. And they actually made a special type of incense from frankincense. And the formula was only to be used by the priests and no one else.

Well, what's the significance of that? Well, Jesus was destined to be what?

In addition to king, he was destined to be our high priest.

Our high priest as well. And the final one is also indicative of the future of this baby boy who was born as well. And that was myrrh. Myrrh was a perfume. What happens after Jesus is crucified? Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea wrapped Jesus' body with myrrh, mixed in with the burial shroud to cover up the smell of death. And you can read about that in John 19 verses 39 through 40.

So what we see here is the gifts the wise men bring. I don't think they've consciously thought it through. It's just the way God operates doing things through people who don't really understand necessarily what they're doing. But the gifts they bring signify Jesus Christ's role as king of kings, as high priest, and as the one who would be offered as a sacrifice for the sins of all mankind by giving his life. So again, a very, very far cry from this picture that the traditional Christmas picture and myths totally cover up and obscure for us. So the symbolism of these three gifts is incredibly profound. And yet in the traditional Christmas story, it's totally obscure, totally massed, totally covered up. Nobody ever talks about that in their crass commercialism of Christmas.

Another myth, how many wise men were they? People assume that there are three gifts, as depicted in this scene, because there are three gifts. But the Bible nowhere says it at all. Again, they are traveling by caravan. There may have been a couple of dozen wise men and armed guards, you might say, accompanying them on this caravan. It may have been up to several hundred.

We just don't know. But we can be quite confident there are not just three there.

Continuing on with the story, we'll wrap this up quickly here and leave out some of this. But verse 12, then, being divinely warmed in a dream that they should not return to Herod, the wise men departed for their own country another way. They don't go back to Jerusalem. They take a different route to return back to the east.

Then Herod, when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry, and he sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the wise men, then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, A voice was heard and Rama, Lamentation, weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.

This is quoting from a prophecy in Jeremiah 31 and verse 15.

So a couple of things. Herod killed the baby boys two years and under, which indicates it's been about two years since the wise men saw the star. So Jesus is probably one and a half to two years old when the wise men arrive. He's not the baby in the manger anymore. What's the significance of this prophecy? What's up with the reference to Rachel weeping for her children? Rachel lived and died almost 2,000 years earlier than this. What's that have to do with the story?

Well, Rachel died and was buried where? She was buried at Bethlehem.

Buried at Bethlehem. And you can actually go and visit her tomb there today.

It's much more different. This is actually an illustration of it from the 1800s, what it looks like at that time. Now it's much less picturesque. It's actually surrounded by armed guards now because it's in a Palestinian area and Israelis who go there to pay homage to Rachel have to be protected from murderous Arabs in that area. Very sad. Very sad story there. But this reference is to Rachel weeping because Rachel was viewed as one of the matriarchs of the country along with Sarah, the wife of Abraham and Rebecca. So in Jeremiah's prophecy that we just read about, she is viewed as prophetically weeping for the slain children of Bethlehem murdered by Herod, who is an Edomite there. So it's a very poetic and touching prophecy as to what would happen at Bethlehem. So Herod had these children, probably 15 to 20 maybe boys of that age. Bethlehem is not a large town, maybe three, four, five hundred people. So he had them murdered to eliminate any contenders to his throne. But of course the important fact to remember is who is really behind this and that is Satan the devil who tries to murder Jesus at birth in his younger years but years later would succeed in having him crucified. So we'll go ahead and wrap it up there. I had another 10 minutes or so of material that I'll go ahead and skip that for lack of time. And we'll wrap it up so Randy will lead us in another hymn and that will conclude services for today.