Christmas Eve Special 2006

Okay. I'm going to bring it back here now. I've got you. I've got you. I've got you. I'd like to take a picture with you, Professor. So, Now, where are we? I am the Lord, I am the Lord, I am the Lord, I am the Lord, I am the Lord, I am the Lord, I am the Lord, I am the Lord, I love you. I love you. Well... Okay. Good. do do you Welcome. Merry Christmas to everybody. Glad to have you here. Vern and I were talking in Roger a few weeks ago about what would we talk about tonight. And we came up with this.

Christ has come to this planet. He's a totally new and different kind of a man. So that's what we want to talk about a little bit tonight, that the Lord Jesus is not a mere human being that was born in the midst of this humanity. He came from outside humanity and incorporated himself with humankind. And he did that through what is known as the virgin birth. He came really from another world. First Corinthians 1547 says the first man is out from the earth. That's our friend Adam. And the second man is out from heaven. Christ came from heaven. John 1 14.

And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. When he came into this world, he brought with him something that was not here before. Truth was here in the form of the law and but not the entire character of God's essence. Christ came and brought grace, not only grace to us, but grace, a system in which we would live.

All of us have received grace when we were saved. But this grace that comes with Christ is termed grace upon grace, or it's more and more all the time. It's inexhaustible. You cannot use it up. The more that you use, the more that you have. And He's full of grace. and that fullness each one of us has received. John 1 16 says, for of his fullness we all received grace for grace. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Why is this man so different and what is about him that makes him so different? Well, one, he's the very essence of God. His life has its own characteristics unlike any other human being. His life is of its own form. It has its own meanings. It has its own standards and its own objects. This life has its own mentality. It has its own reasons, its own ways, and it has a mind of its own. There's not another like him. He will take his own course. All others, all other mentalities are indeed of altogether another kind.

And there's no correspondence between Him and the natural life that is here. He's holy, He's righteous, He's without mixture, He's pure, and He's light. In Him there's no darkness at all. There's no suspicion or suggestion of darkness in Him. There's no cloudiness. There's no lack of transparency.

He is, in fact, truth. Hebrews 1 2 says. Who, being the radiance of God's glory and the very essence of his substance and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had made purification of sins, he sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high. Colossians 1 15 describes him. He's the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. Verse 19 says, it was the good pleasure of the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell.

1 John 1.5, and this is the message which we have heard from Him, and announce unto you that God is light, and in Him there's no darkness at all. So why is he here? Why did he show up?

Well, the one basic reason we all know is John 3.16, that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever would believe in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Colossians 2.2 says that their hearts may be comforted, they being knit together in love and unto all the riches of the full assurance of understanding, that they may know the mystery of God even Christ, in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden. So this babe in the manger is full of grace and truth. He's the mystery of God. And in him, all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden.

Colossians 125, wherefore, I was made a minister according to the dispensation of God, which was given me for you. to fulfill the Word of God, even the mystery which hath been hid from the ages and generations, but now hath been manifested to his saints, to whom God was pleased to make known what is the riches of the glory of the mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory."

So this babe that we celebrate his birthday today, is a totally new kind of man, never been that kind of man on this earth before. He's going to be the head of a whole new race of human beings of which every one of you is a member. Good evening. Let's take a minute to pray.

Lord, as we gather here, we are in awe at the amazing thing that you have done in our Lord Jesus Christ. And as we look now to celebrating the eve of our Lord's birth, Lord, we just are in wonder over the thing that you have done. You have sent, in incredibly humble circumstances, the Savior of every single person on the planet who believes. And Lord, we just thank you for that. What a marvelous gift. It's a gift of such depth and such grace. that it will take eternity to understand it. We thank you for that and for the privilege of meeting tonight. In Jesus' name, Amen. Think about this.

What Mike has presented to us is we have the new kind of man. This new kind of man, Jesus Christ, who would be the one who would redeem the human race, would come in humble circumstances. We asked a question in church a Sunday or two ago. If you were to be told, okay, we're going to send the savior of the world here to planet Earth.

What sort of circumstances, because remember, this is the one, you got one chance. This guy's got to make it. If this guy doesn't make it, we're all toast. So this guy's got to make it. This is the one chance. It's got to come off right. No hitches. What would you design? How would you have that new kind of man come? What kind of parents, what sort of a city or a town, what sort of an environment would you design if you had that one chance and it had to work, no fail? Would you come up with what the Lord did? I would say no. Let's take a look at it.

A thousand years before Christ was born, David was told by the prophet Nathan that a descendant of his would reign on the throne and that he would rule over the house and the throne and the kingdom of David. Three hundred years later approximately, Isaiah said, I'll give a sign, the Lord quoting the Lord, I'll give a sign, a virgin shall bear a child. A few chapters later, He said, unto us a child is born, a son is given, 700 years before Christ comes. Here in this little town of Nazareth is where the story is about to begin. Nazareth, a town of perhaps 80 people. Big town, right? 80 people. I went to high school, about 150 people, and let me tell you, everybody knows everybody else's business. 80 people, it's even worse.

Now, this is Nazareth Village. It's a place over in Israel where the town of Nazareth has been recreated and people live in the period of the New Testament. And so people can go there and visit. You can see people carrying out the crafts and the things that they did in daily life right there in front of you.

And so we have a carpenter shop. There was likely one carpenter in Nazareth that would be about the size of that town, about what you could accommodate. A carpenter in those days was also a logger because Nazareth had no lumber yard. You tell the carpenter what you want and he goes and picks the tree and cuts it and pulls it back into town and cuts the limbs off. So he was also a logger. So we say a carpenter, he's a logger and a carpenter.

Here you see a kind of a home scene there in this little Nazareth village. Someone working at making fabrics of different kinds. This would be a typical scene in a little tiny village where everyone knew everyone else's name and everyone else's business far more than any of us would be comfortable with. Here in this little town of Nazareth, almost a rural slum, it was a very poor town. In this little town of Nazareth, And by the way, this is the synagogue, and that's likely the synagogue where Jesus and the family and the others met there, okay? The inside of the synagogue where they would meet on the Sabbath. This would be a typical scene in the town. Small animals, small people, okay? A carpenter may have a shop. Sometimes the carpenters didn't have a shop. They just worked in the house. A little rough, you know, but that's what you did.

It was in that environment that in some circumstance, the angel Gabriel appears to Mary. By cultural background, it would be estimated that Mary might be in her early teens, middle teens at best. And so here at that age, the angel Gabriel shows up to talk to her. Roger, could we have you come up and read for us? Well, this account is in Luke 1, 26 to 38. Now, in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city called Nazareth to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph. of the descendant of David, and the virgin's name was Mary.

And coming in, he said, greetings, favored one. The Lord is with you. But she was very perplexed at this statement and kept pondering what kind of salutations this was. The angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.

And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. And he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. And his kingdom will have no end.

And Mary said to the angel, how can this be, since I am a virgin? And the angel answered and said to her, the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. And for that reason, the holy child shall be called the Son of God. And behold, even your relative Elizabeth has also conceived a son in her old age. And she who was called barren is now under six months, for nothing will be impossible with God. And Mary said, behold, the bond slave of the Lord, may it be done to me according to your word. And the angel departed.

Just as they're preparing, think about what Roger read for us. We learned in our Isaiah study on Sunday mornings that the Jews taught two messiahs. One messiah was Messiah ben David, the one who would reign and be the ruler and be glorious. The other was Messiah ben Joseph. Think of this. Mary just got told about Messiah ben David, the one who would reign. Basically, that's all she was told. We'll find out the rest of the story shortly. you you Oh, oh, oh, oh So Mary was told, you're going to have a son. And this son will be one who will fulfill the prophecy to David. He will be of David's line. He will sit on David's throne. He will rule over David's kingdom. Sounds really good, doesn't it? Well, as glorious as that was, there's a problem.

More than one. Joseph and Mary are in a very small town. Everyone knows everybody else's business. And Joseph and Mary were not married yet. They were engaged. And in the Jewish culture of the day, engagement was taken very seriously. In order to break an engagement, one actually had to get a divorce. But it was not lawful for them to have any relations. It would be considered an adulterous relationship. to have any relations until that final marriage ceremony had taken place. But guess what? Mary was to be pregnant with Jesus before that had taken place. The timing was not so good. In a little tiny town where everybody knew everybody's business, guess what the talk of the town was? It was a difficult place.

Joseph was thinking, I got to cut this off. I don't want to disgrace her any more than I have to. So there was an option for Joseph to put her away, that is to divorce her quietly. A don't ask, don't tell divorce. Figured I'll just deal with it that way. And so that was his plan. However, the Lord came and told him one night in a dream, No, you're supposed to go ahead and marry Mary.

You are supposed to be the supposed father of this child, this one who will be born too soon by the calendar count. You're supposed to be the father of this one, only rather than the message that Mary was given, this will be Messiah ben David. This will be the glorious one who will reign. Joseph was told, this will be the one who will save people from their sins. This will be the one who will pay the price.

Isn't it amazing that Joseph and Mary were told, it is of the Lord that you are going to have this shameful birth. It's by the Lord's design and doing. Isn't it amazing to think of Mary who says, I'm your handmaiden, Lord, whatever you want. If that's your design, that's fine. In Joseph, it says in the scripture that Joseph was a righteous man, and yet he would have to be faced up with this embarrassing, oh that's an understatement, shaming situation.

Knowing that this child would be the one to save the world. This child would be the one who would pay the price for the sins of all mankind. Imagine Joseph and Mary getting together and trying to figure this out. When they have been taught, according to the rabbis, that Messiah ben David, the one who would reign and rule, was one person. And Messiah ben Joseph, the one who would suffer and die, is another one. And they get together and figured out it's the same baby. Can you imagine how this story is going to sell in Nazareth? How marketable is this? Figure this out. No, this is of the Holy Spirit. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I've heard that story. This is going to be the one who reigns. Uh-huh. Yeah. And the one who will save the people from their sins. Uh-uh. I'm not buying that. Can you imagine? What would that be like?

So here in Nazareth, above a broad valley that leads out to the Mediterranean, not too far away from Galilee, they would look forward to the marriage ceremony, but it would be shadowed with this pregnancy. Various pictures and Christmas cards all show Mary on a donkey. You notice that?

The Bible, however, doesn't say that she rode on a donkey. And in fact, it was unlikely. I'll have the picture a few different times with Mary on the donkey, only because that's all that's available. The reality is a donkey for a carpenter in a small town of Nazareth would be hard to afford. The reality is that Joseph and Mary probably both walked to Bethlehem and everywhere else they went. So Gary, can I have you come up and read for us?

Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. And Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man, and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly. But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and ye shall call his name Jesus, and he will save his people from their sins. Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophets. Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which translated means God with us. And Joseph awoke from his sleep, and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. and took Mary as his wife, but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a son, and he called his name Jesus." So here would be Joseph and Mary traveling along. Under order of this Roman census, Caesar says, you will go to the town of your family and register.

Turns out that we have just hundreds and hundreds of these census declarations. This is one of them here that's a little bit eaten up. But hundreds and hundreds of them. So many that a number of them have never even been translated. They're just in stacks, even for the last century. A great number of them are out there.

They would have started from Nazareth, this little town. They would have proceeded In order to avoid Samaria, the place where it had sort of mixed race of Jews and Gentiles, they would have likely gone down along the Jordan Valley, or perhaps a little bit to the east of there even, followed along the Jordan River, and once they got to Jericho, which is by the way well below sea level, once they got to Jericho, they would have taken the road from Jericho to Jerusalem. See that roadway that's in that steep ravine? That's the roadway between Jericho and Jerusalem. They would have climbed up to Jerusalem, a fair hike. This is the old roadway that goes over the top of the Mount of Olives.

It would have been the one that Jesus would likely have come over when He came over on His triumphal entry, that same route. Joseph and Mary would have come over there and seen Jerusalem. By the way, that's the gate that's sealed up up in the upper left-hand corner that Jesus would have come through on his triumphal entry. They would have headed towards Bethlehem.

This is a picture from the 1890s, colorized because it doesn't have all the buildup that's there today. But they would have come from Jerusalem down to Bethlehem, about five miles to the south. and seen this town of about 2,000 people, and at that point come into a place that David was familiar with, but we'll get into that in a little bit. you you ♪ ♪ I'm the the One of the kind of scenarios that a lot of people have in their mind, kind of from the way it's been told in Christmas cards and things of that sort, is that Joseph and Mary got into town and they kind of got there late.

And so there was no room left in the inn. Let's back our way through that. OK. This would be a kind of a drawing of what Bethlehem might look in a typical house in the foreground. Bethlehem being kind of a hilly area, a lot of the houses would try to take advantage of the terrain, not fight it, but take advantage of it, and often have the animals' quarters, commonly had some small animals' quarters, connected to the house and actually in the same basic room, similar to what you see here. They would have a residence living area at a higher level and an overnight stable for the animals. Sometimes that overnight stable might be a natural cave, sometimes it would be something carved out or some combination of the two. And so you would have this one room house set up with just a split level basically to accommodate the animals. It would be, according to the Jewish traditions and laws, it would be against the Jewish traditions for a man, married or unmarried, to sleep in the same room with another married woman. Even if Joseph and Mary were sleeping down in the lower area with the animals, that would simply not be permitted because then the man's wife would be in the upper area.

So they put a dividing wall and the Pharisees said that wall makes it good enough. Now you can stay in that separate area for the animals, with the animals. This is the kataluma, the separate room that is translated in our Bibles, inn. It's not Motel 6. This little Animals quarters would be a place divided off, the law would allow it. And it was basically, that's the word. There was no room at the inn. Now why would there be no room at the Cataluma? Here's Bethlehem, about 300 houses.

A great many of the people there would be relatives of Joseph. Joseph would actually know them, why? Because the Davidic clan had responsibility for cutting firewood annually. So he would travel down, get together with the clan and cut firewood. He got together with them every year, at least once. He knew these people, they knew him.

Hey Joseph, how are you doing? What's this pregnant lady with you? We haven't heard about your wedding. This is a problem. This is a problem. So here's Joseph, he's going around trying to find some place to stay. Can I stay with you? And they're saying, wait a minute, you're going to birth this child of your adultery in my place?

Oh man, I'll never live that down. No, you find some other place. I know who you are and you're a relative and all that, but this is not going to apply. We're not going to let this happen. You go find some other place. So you can imagine, Joseph, No, no room here. No, you're not having that baby here. No, no, no, we can't handle that. We'll never live that down. You can't do that here. Can you imagine that? Place after place.

Finally they find a place where the person will let him put a dividing wall and have a baby in the animal's quarters. It was against the Jewish traditions for Joseph to be in the room while Mary was having the baby. She either birthed it herself and that was not unheard of, or perhaps had some other help, but getting help would have been tough. Why? Same problem. This baby is not from a good situation. Same problem. Isn't that amazing?

We are commonly taught there is this inn, sort of a caravan sort of place, but the only problem is The caravan's inns, which is a different word than this, Keteluma, okay? The caravan inn, that's the word that Luke uses, Pendokian. He uses it in the Good Samaritan. Okay, that's the inn that he stayed in. Those were about 16 to 18 miles apart. Jerusalem had one, and so the next place would be that yellow circle. Bethlehem's way too close to Jerusalem for that kind of an inn to be located, okay? Too close.

Besides of which, those kinds of inns, not the word that Luke used here for where Jesus was born, those kinds of inns would have had about the ambience of a biker bar. That would be not the sort of place you would want to birth a child. Can I have a baby in your biker bar? Probably not. Not going to happen.

So here you have finally someone willing I'm not quite sure why. Someone willing to have this questionable birth, this questionable baby, from these questionable parents, stay with them in the animal's quarters, the extra room that was allowed by putting in the dividing wall. Now, so here is the overnight stable. Jesus is born in the Cataluma. and they put him in a manger. Now, a lot of our manger scenes, Christmas cards, have this little wooden manger. Almost certainly not. A wooden manger would have been expensive and it didn't last very long. Almost certainly what they'd have is a stone manger that looks like this.

In that you could put water or you could put food and of course you could put down a little bit of hay or something and put the baby in there. Jesus, like the other babies, would have been washed with olive oil and salt, and then wrapped tightly with little bands about an inch wide. Because the belief was, if you wrap the baby up tightly, I don't know why, if you wrap the baby up really, really tight, then its bones will be straight. I don't know why they figured that. So to wrap him in swaddling clothes would have meant you wash him in the olive oil and vinegar and then wrap him tightly with these bands.

And so they laid him in this probably a stone manger on some hay there where Mary may well have birthed the baby all by herself. Joseph then would be allowed to come in and join in this time. trough, this manger, would have been either submerged into the floor or possibly carved out of the wall. Those would be the two scenarios in this manger.

And while there would be certain historical points I could pick about this, the general idea is not too far off. Not so bad. you Mary, did you know that your baby boy would someday walk on water? Mary, did you know that your baby boy would save our sons and daughters? Did you know that your baby boy has come to make you new? This child that you've delivered will soon deliver you. Mary, did you know that your baby boy would give sight to a blind man? Mary, did you know that your baby boy would calm a storm with his hand. Did you know that your baby boy has walked where angels trot?

When you've kissed your little baby, then you've kissed the face of God. Mary did you know? Mary did you know? The blind will see, the deaf will hear, the dead will live again. The lame will leap, the dumb will speak, the praises of the Lamb. Mary, did you know that your baby boy is Lord of all creation? Mary, did you know that your baby boy will one day rule the nations? Did you know that your baby boy was heaven's perfect lamb? The sleeping child you're holding is a great I Am I need to correct something. My wife informs me that the second time I didn't say olive oil and salt, but olive oil and vinegar. Jesus was not a salad, okay? Olive oil and salt, okay? Olive oil and salt.

Next, we come to something that took place certainly within a close time to this birth. And this would have been the announcement to the shepherds. Now, as we look at these shepherds, you hear accounts of this shepherd's fold where Jesus, for example, and John says, I am the door. And this would have been a shepherd's fold and the door would have been an opening there.

The wall may have been a little bit higher, something of that sort, but you get the general idea. Here's another shepherd's fold kind of out in the field. Fences would not be made out of wood and wire like we might do, but instead be made of piles of rocks that would stay there for generations. Here is a picture of a shepherd with Bethlehem in the background. And another.

Shepherding had long been practiced in this area. And one of the possibilities is that these sheep, at least some of them, would actually be sheep used in the temple ceremonies, lambs raised for sacrifice. But even though there was the possibility of that holy purpose, the shepherds were not considered holy. Well, let me give you an example. Here is a shepherd's home.

What does it look like? Kind of like a cave. So think about this. What are the Pharisees going to think of somebody who lives like this? Are they properly clean? Do they do everything according to the law? Do they wash their hands in quite the right procedure? Likely not. There's one other big problem.

Because the shepherds frequently would be going on different properties and sometimes having their sheep on other people's property, they were watching over their sheep constantly stealing as the Pharisees looked at it. So these shepherds were dirty. They couldn't possibly comply with all the law. They had to stay with the sheep all the time and couldn't do the things that they were supposed to do to be ceremonially clean. Plus, they were over these sheep that were stealing somebody else's grass. Completely unclean.

As a matter of fact, what the Pharisees would say is that these shepherds were in a category that they would just simply call hopeless. You're hopeless. You can never comply with the law. Your lifestyle, living in a place like this, you're never going to get there. I'm afraid you're just hopeless, shepherds. You may be raising these sheep for us to sacrifice, thank you, but it's just hopeless for you, sorry. There's no chance.

Here's shepherds watching the flocks at night with Bethlehem. They're the distance, even in recent times. And so there, in that kind of an environment, these hopeless shepherds, the ones who would be considered disgusting to everyone in Bethlehem, and certainly all those in Jerusalem, where the temple was, because this was only five miles to the south. These hopeless ones, these ceremonial unclean ones, these ones who would be outright rejected. Ew, disgusting shepherds. These were the ones that the Lord came to, sent the angels to, and said, unto you a child is born.

Let's stand, if you will. We're going to sing Angels We Have Heard on High. If you would prefer, The hymnal has on 153 the music. And all in their joyous strains Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh In excelsis Deo Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh O come, O come, to Bethlehem, Let us adore Him, Let us adore Him, O come, O come, to Bethlehem.

I'll be the last to try to be free. Wish I could have a shot. No, no, no. O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming? And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there Come to me, Lord, and let me see Christ the Lord, the King of glory Come to me, Lord, and let me be Christ the Lord, the King of glory Come to me, Lord, and let me be Christ the Lord, the King of glory Come to me, Lord, and let me be Christ the Lord, the King of glory Come to me, Lord, and let me be in Jesus name. Go ahead and be seated.

Imagine this scene, if you will, Joseph has already gone around the town of Bethlehem, about 300 houses, maybe a little more. Most of the people there know him, have known him for quite some time. He sees them at least annually. They're of his family and of his clan. Here's Joseph. He's gone around, to use our modern expression, beating the bushes trying to find a place to have this baby. Finally finds one. The people who have been asked, Can we have the baby here? Are not at all excited about being asked.

Okay. Now imagine this scenario. Not that one. Okay. Imagine this scenario. Here we have the angels coming to the shepherds. Now a bunch of shepherds are coming into Bethlehem. It's nighttime. Okay. and everybody is really glad to see them, right? No. Now you have somebody coming along and they have, here's this disgusting group of shepherds, and they're coming along at night time asking where this baby is born. Oh no, not here. We already told them no, he's not here. Where is he? I have no idea, but he's definitely not here.

Until out of 300 houses, don't know how many doors they knocked on first, They found the place. They came to the house, where here is Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus, the new kind of man. A very embarrassing, shameful situation, greeted eagerly by these shepherds, who are very embarrassing and shameful, and it embarrassed everybody else that they'd Asked, where's this baby been born? I don't know. Go away. You stink. You smell like, guess what? Sheep.

Here's this amazing scenario. Here is, remember we talked earlier about if you were to design the one chance to save the whole world, how would you make that come about? Would you figure I'm going to get a nice stable family and have a well-received, nice, calm circumstances? No. That's not the way the Lord does it.

He has them, though perfectly moral, He has them in shame. Going from Nazareth, where there's about 80 people and everybody knows them, to Bethlehem, a couple thousand people and everybody knows, Now, double the shame. Shepherds. Disgusting, hopeless shepherds. There's no way they can ever comply with the Mosaic Law. They're going around banging on doors at night trying to figure out where is this baby. Amazing circumstances. Something you and I would never have designed. Never have thought. At least have Joseph and Mary in their own hometown or something.

No. They go. Away from Nazareth, in one way, it's a relief. Oh, we'll get away from that place where everybody's talking about us, and as we're walking away, we can see them whispering. Into another place where everybody knows Joseph. And it's no better. Out of the frying pan, into the fire. Here they are.

They have Jerusalem just five miles to the north. There would be the temple. And there would be ceremonies to go through for the cleansing for Mary. They would be sticking around there for at least 40 days in the Bethlehem, Jerusalem area, just to comply with those laws and regulations according to Jewish law. There, there would be Simeon and Anna, old folks.

Folks that, interestingly enough, were born before the Romans took over that area anyway. Isn't that astounding? Before the Romans even took over, they had been waiting for the Messiah. And now finally, imagine holding the Messiah in your hands. Holding the Messiah in your hands. Here it is. They didn't care what was the shameful circumstances. They didn't want that. This is the Messiah. This is the one I've been waiting for. How amazing that must have been to them.

They would hang out in those courtyards that you see along the back there, waiting for this time. Then, we have the account of the Magi, and we'll talk about that in a minute. First, we'll have Gary, you want to come up and read for us? The scripture reading I'll be sharing is on the overhead to Matthew 2, 1-12.

Now, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem saying, Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star in the east and have come to worship him. When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all of Jerusalem with him. Gathering together all the chief priests and all the scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They said to him, in Bethlehem of Judea, for this is what has been written by the prophet, and you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means least among the leaders of Judah, for out of you shall come forth a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. Then Herod secretly called the Magi and determined from them the exact time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem and said, Go and search carefully for the child, and when you have found him, report to me, so that I too may come and worship him.

After hearing the king, they went their way, and the star, which they had seen in the east, went on before them until it came and stood over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. After coming into the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they fell to the ground and worshiped him. Then opening their treasures, they presented to him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

And having been warned by God in a dream not to return to Herod, the Magi left for their own country by another way. As we look at the rest of this scenario, one of the things that you'll notice is that the various postcards and movies and all that, they showed these magi called wise men.

They showed them traveling at night. They probably didn't. They probably, like normal folks, traveled in the daytime like you see these three camel jockeys here. So here are these wise men. We really don't know how many there were. Because of the three kinds of gifts that were given, it's frequently assumed that there were three of them, but we really don't know how many. There may have been dozens.

The other thing that comes out as we look at this account is that frequently people assume, well, it's because of their study of astrology that they're drawn to where Jesus is. In fact, however, if we go to a couple of different places in scripture, we have some indications that they've got a different source.

Numbers 24, 17 is where Balaam talks about a star and the star pointing out the location of the Messiah. Balaam was from this area that you see in the orange and yellow there. It was from a city in that area in the east, the same general area where the Magi came from. Also, some centuries after the time of Balaam, who else went into this area by the Lord's appointment?

Daniel. And Daniel also would bring Old Testament scriptures and the account of the star from Balaam. And Daniel, we know from the book of Daniel, also had contact with the various Chaldeans and wise men of that area. Plus, many of the Jews stayed in Babylon after the time of Daniel.

And so there'd be continuing voice for this star, which would mark the coming of the Messiah. One other thing. As you look at this account, notice that the star moves over the place of Bethlehem. Wait a minute. Ever see stars move over towns? Especially this one moves when they're in Jerusalem. It moves over the town just five miles south of them. This is very odd. Astronomers have tried to find conjunctions of the planets and they've tried to find various sorts of strange astronomical phenomenon to explain this. I would suggest to you that this was no ordinary star.

A star that moves over the place where the house is. Fortunately, it doesn't seem like these magi had to go beating on doors again and get everybody all upset looking for this shameful child. So they came to the house where the baby was. The star may have been more like a Shekinah glory cloud that led the Jews through the desert. Much more explicit than just some vague astrological indication. So here you have the Magi showing up giving their gifts. Here they would be traveling along to Bethlehem, showing up and giving gifts of gold. We don't know how much, but that's a valuable metal.

It's even possible that Joseph and Mary had never seen very much gold in their lives up until that day. And frankincense used in the temple in the temple ceremonies for incense and myrrh. Myrrh was frequently used in the burial process. They would have this wrappings and have myrrh in there that would actually glue and bind to the flesh when they would wrap a body. So here were three very valuable gifts. We don't know the amount. My sense is that it wasn't tiny. Very valuable gifts given to them, which may have come in real handy. Doug, could we have you read for us? Now we have a paragraph.

Now, when they had gone, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, Get up! Take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt. Remain there until I tell you. for Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him. So Joseph got up, took the child and his mother while it was still night, and left for Egypt. He remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, out of Egypt I called my son." Now, what the scripture says is simply that Joseph and Mary went into Egypt, that they left the town of Bethlehem there and went into Egypt. Egypt would have been out of the territory that Herod reigned in. Herod was known for being very vicious.

As a matter of fact, we have historical record that he left a command that when he died, he wanted to make sure there was lots of mourning I mean crying in Israel. So he left a command that they were to gather together a whole bunch of people and slaughter them so there would be lots of mourning when he died. What they did is they gathered the people together, but stopped the command to do the slaughtering. But that gives you an idea. This is a man who would slaughter babies if he thought it would do him some good. And that was the order.

However, Joseph and Mary escaped to Egypt. They went down this direction. We don't know exactly where they went, but here's a good guess. This is Alexandria, the second largest city in the Roman Empire. Why would they have gone there? It had a very large number of Jews located in that city. As a matter of fact, the ancient city has been mapped. There it is. And there's the Jewish quarter right over there.

Very likely would have gone there. They would have found other Jews, even some that they were related to, who would be a place for them to be. It would be a comforting culture, if you will, while they were there. They would stay there, and how would they support themselves? What did they have? Gold, frankincense, and my guess is not a tiny amount. The sale of those alone would hold them for a time.

March of 4 BC, Herod died. The order was given to gather up the people, and they did gather up the people, but they were not slaughtered. Nonetheless, Joseph and Mary heard, Herod's dead, we don't have to worry now, we can go back home. And so they headed back to Nazareth.

Imagine after having been gone what may have amounted to even two or three years. Gone for all that period of time. Now you're finally back. You have this baby. The baby's born. Where have you been? What's been going on? What's happened to you? Why have you been gone so long? How else can we talk about you? So here they are back in Nazareth. And isn't this an amazing story? Isn't this an amazing account?

They're so fragile. There were so many risks involved. The environment was anything but ideal. How astounding that the Lord would appoint these fragile, even shameful circumstances. All kinds of risk. This plan to redeem mankind that had to work from any human viewpoint could well have failed. It was far less than ideal.

It was in those circumstances about the circumstances as we've gathered here to ponder the birth of this new kind of man. Paul writes this, But when the fullness of time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, so that He might redeem those who are under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. Because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of the Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Therefore, you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, an heir through God, in the fullness of time." Isn't this amazing? Isn't this astounding? While the recessional is being played and we'll let you exit here, I suggest you do something with the candles before you leave here. But anyway, we'll let that finish it off. Thank you. you