As much as I love them, Christmas songs and Nativity decorations
have it all wrong when it comes to the story of Jesus' birth. They have
Him being born in December, under a bright star that lead the wise men
right to manger. In actuality, He was most likely not born in December
but during the warmer months of the year. There were shepherds in the
fields tending their flocks on the night that Jesus was born. Shepherds
most likely brought their flocks into corals during the coldest winter
months. Another reason to believe that the birth of Jesus was not in the
winter is because of the census that Caesar Augustus is recording as
having taken in Luke 2: 1. Since the census required mass migration of
large numbers of the population, it seems much more likely that it would
have been taken during the warmer months to make it somewhat easier for
the those who had to travel great distances.
Another
misconception put forth in our songs and decorations has to do with the
star that appeared at Jesus' birth and with the wise men that came to
worship Him. Contrary to the way Nativity Decorations would present it,
the wise men were not present at the manger after Jesus was born. There
were shepherds present soon after the birth of Christ, but there were no
wise men. The wise men came later; perhaps, even up to two years later
(based upon the decree that Caesar Augustus issued to slaughter all of
the male children two years old and under). Also, the Scriptures do not
state that the star shown down on the stable the night that Jesus was
born; it records that the star was for the purpose of leading the wise
men to Jesus. The wise men began their journey when the star first
appeared to them, at Jesus' birth and traveled until they found Him.
The
Bible states that they were from the East; that was most likely Persia
or Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq). This means that, at the very least,
they had to travel 500 miles to get to Jesus (and some of us won't even
travel 2 miles to church!). It has been estimated that, at the very
minimum, it would have taken them about 25 days to reach Jesus; it could
have taken them much longer to make the trip, depending upon their
circumstances. The wise men "saw His star" (a star that not all saw,
apparently, nor could all understand) and traveled to Jesus' house to
pay Him honor and bring Him gifts. Matthew 2: 11 states that the wise
men came "into the house and saw the Child with Mary His mother".
Also,
contrary to belief, scripture does not record that there were three
wise men but three gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh. The gold was to
acknowledge Jesus as King, the frankincense was used by Priests and
signified His position as such and the myrrh was used in burial
preparations and thus was to acknowledge His death on our behalf. It
could be that each man brought Jesus some of each. We only know from
Scripture that there were more than one man (it says men)--that could
mean two or ten or even twenty!
In the end, what matters is that
we love and honor God and His Word. In our enthusiasm to celebrate the
birth of Jesus, let us remember that we much accept the truth of the
scriptures as absolute and not set forth as truth something that the
scriptures are silent on. There are many assumptions that we have to
make in order to "fill in" the story of Jesus' birth; let's just be
careful that we not get too confused.
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