The Christmas story!

We were at a bible study group the other day and instead of our usual routine, we, as leader, offered to do the story from the book of Luke in the Christian Bible about the birth of Christ. Everyone in attendance asked us not to do so because they had heard it so many times already during this season of light.

We do not know if there is a war on Christmas but we did see a great number of shoppers at the local mall where we hold our Bible study and we all agreed that we would not hold a session on the day after Christmas because of all of the hubbub that might be going on that day. We enjoyed seeing the photo of Fox News wishing everyone a happy holiday in defiance of the Fox commentator who is promoting the idea that there is a war of Christmas going on. If so, it is not as bad as it was back in the fifties and the sixties when it was all the rage to say or print “Merry Xmas� on so many holiday items as they left Christ out of it entirely. We don’t see that so much any more.

In point of some arguable facts, Christ was probably not born in December anyway because the first to see him were the shepherds who came down from the hills from tending their sheep and they would not have been there in the December month. Christmas was copied, for its date, from an old pagan holiday as the surging Christian faith sought to give a broader mix of people something familiar to be able for them to further incorporate the new faith into their lives. It is interesting to note that the Jewish faith has resurrected the once obscure Jewish celebration called Hanukkah over the years in order for Jewish children to be able to join in the holiday festivities that so many Christian kids got to enjoy in December.

As the story goes, the angel Gabriel came to Mary and told her that she had been favored by God to bear the Christ child and that the father was to be God himself. Rumors and legends have stated that Mary might not have been the first person that was approached to ask to do this task but she was the first one to accept the duty and the great privilege put before her. As the angel stood there before this girl who might not have been but fourteen or fifteen years old, he must have thought what might happen if she turned him down. But Mary was willing even though there might have been profound personal repercussions to what she was about to embark upon. She and her betrothed Joseph were not yet married even though she had probably already moved, as was the custom, into Josephs parents house to learn how to be a good wife and mother to his future children before their coming marriage. When Joseph, himself probably but a very young man, first heard of Mary’s plight, he determined to quietly put an end to their marriage plans and disassociate himself from this very young and pregnant girl. But God came to him in a dream and told him what was about to transpire and reassured him that everything would be alright and so Joseph stayed with Mary and saw the whole thing through.

In Jewish customs and in law, if an unmarried woman became pregnant, she could be publicly stoned but it was more often that she was exiled to have her illegitimate child elsewhere and even the child often bore the lifetime shame brought on by the fact that it was conceived out of wedlock. This virgin birth was to follow Jesus for the rest of his life and even when he returned to his home village to try to preach and teach it was remembered there and they tried to do what they had not done to Mary when they attempted to throw Jesus off of a cliff. As the scriptures tell us, he simply walked through the midst of them and went on his way because his time had not yet come. When he had tried to teach, they had sarcastically called him “Joseph’s boy�!

After Mary became pregnant she left her home city and went to be with her cousin Elizabeth who was experiencing her own miraculous pregnancy as she was about to birth a child who would become known as John The Baptist, the final prophet who would foretell the coming of the Christ himself and would baptize him before being imprisoned and beheaded after the start of Jesus ministry. The trip that Mary took was about seventy miles over rough, hilly terrain and she stayed there for about three months before returning home to birth her own child. There was a great sense of wonder and duty about both Elizabeth and Mary and when they first saw one another, Elizabeth’s child “leapt in the womb� at the presence of the also womb bound Christ.

As the time approached for the birthing, the Roman leader announced that all the world should be counted and so Mary and Joseph had to return to Joseph’s home city in order to register. It was there that Mary’s time came and we all remember how there was no room in the inn and that the only thing available to them was a stable area where some of the animals of the village were housed. We do not know if there was anyone like a midwife to aid in Mary’s birthing process or if the only person she might have had to help her was the inexperienced Joseph. We also do not know just how hard a birth it might have been. If we follow the tradition that being a Christian is not always an easy road, it may have been a very difficult birth indeed.

As we previously mentioned, the first to be notified of the birth were shepherd’s tending their flocks by night in the hills surrounding the town. An angel appeared unto them and they were very afraid, as you might expect, by what had happened to them so suddenly as the light appeared. Shepherds were on the lower end of the economic and social scale and were not well regarded in Jewish society. They lived with their sheep and often smelled like them as well and it was just not a very well thought of occupation. But they willingly left their flocks unguarded to go into town that night to be the first after Mary and Joseph to see and to worship the newborn Christ child. We are reasonably certain that the unprotected sheep did not go untended in their absence because it was likely that God and the angels watched over them while they were away.

The spirit and the practice of gift giving at Christmas probably comes from the wise men who came from the east on a long journey following a star to see Jesus and his family. They first stopped by to see the local ruler Herod who, having already heard rumors that a threat in the form of another future ruler might have been born in his area, asked them to return on their way back to tell him of the child’s whereabouts so that he to could go and worship him. The wise men were informed in a dream that Herod simply wanted to kill the child so after they delivered their gifts of frankincense and myrrh and other fine things, they went back to their home country by another route and Herod never saw them again. Herod then issued a decree that all male children under the age of two should be killed so Mary and Joseph and Jesus fled to Egypt to escape the threat until after Herod had left the throne. Joseph was informed in a dream when it was safe to depart Egypt and the three of them returned but settled in Nazareth due to the apprehension about the new ruler who had replaced Herod.

And that, with some things omitted, is the simple story of Christmas and the birth of the Christ child who so changed the world and continues to greatly affect it down to this day.

Have a joyous day and remember the reason for the season, as some choose to say.

Regards,

Joe

To say that "God exists" is the greatest understatement ever made across space and time.