For Unto us a Savior is Born This Day in Bethlehem
December 24, 2016
Before Christianity became a business, it was a frightening thing to be associated with the man Jesus.
Babies
were killed because it was foretold He would be king of Israel. A
jealous king put out an order to find and kill all the newborns.
The man who baptized Jesus was beheaded
And this was just the beginning.
Later Jesus’s followers had to meet in secret and painted a fish sign on their doorways to mark their secret meeting places.
Some of Jesus’s disciples were hung upside down on a cross as martyrs of the faith.
The issue was blasphemy. Jesus believed He was the Son of God.
Regarding
this young infant Jesus, how would we know today He was the predicted
Messiah, the Son of God? What evidence is there for us to come to that
conclusion today?
Fulfilled prophecies were the measure of truth
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The answer
is that Jesus’s birth fulfilled many prophecies. Fulfilled prophecy
was the scientific method of the day. It wasn’t a double-blind
placebo-controlled study.
One
prophet said he would be born of a virgin. OK, maybe his mother Mary
was one of those religious wackos who covered for an otherwise
unexplained pregnancy by hiding behind the scriptures and saying hers
was a virgin birth.
But then
again, Jesus could not have influenced certain prophecies, such as where
he would be born, or what his family lineage would be.
Jesus knew who he was
He knew he came from the family line of Abraham and David. That had been foretold.
It is very
interesting to ask this question to someone: “Who are you?” A common
answer might be “I’m a doctor or lawyer or Indian chief.” No, that is
what you do for a living. Who are you?
No one can
answer that question other than to describe their family lineage: “I am
my father’s son or daughter.” That is the only way that question can
be answered. You can go to college, get many degrees, but not know how
to answer the question “who are you?” Ultimately, following your family
heritage back to the Garden of Eden, it can be said: “I am a child of
God.”
Jesus
answered that question and said: “Before Abraham was born, I am.” (John
8: 56-59) He knew where he came from, what his lineage was. Jesus
says: “I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself,
but he sent me.” (John 8: 42) Blasphemy!
I thought he was born in Bethlehem
But He was
also to come out of Egypt. How could that be? Jesus as an infant
couldn’t have possibly manipulated the king in those days to issue a
kill order of newborn infants that led his parents to flee into Egypt.
He avidly
knew the scriptures and would have known there were prophecies that his
birth fulfilled. It says Jesus was never schooled. “How knoweth this man
of letters, having never learned?” (John 7: 15)
One would
presume as he grew up he learned wise men from the east had come to
bring his family gold and frankincense and myrrh, valuable medicinal
spices at the time.
Jesus was taught and read the Holy Scriptures and knew his birth fulfilled the many prophecies that foretold of his coming.
Jesus
debated with priests in the temple at a young age. He attempted to
explain to his parents what he had been doing after his parents had
accidentally left him behind in Jerusalem on a trip there. When they
found him, he replied: “I was doing my father’s work.”
Self deluded?
So Jesus obviously grew up believing he was in fact the long predicted Son of God.
So for the sake of discussion, let’s think for a moment he may have been self-deluded.
He asked others “Who do you say that I am?”
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Some
thought he was Elijah. Some thought he was John the Baptist. Better he
ask them who they thought he was than ignite a firestorm over his being
the perfect snapshot of God. He would later say: “I and the Father are
one.” (John 10:30) Blasphemy!
The sermon on the mount
Jesus
delivered a speech in Galilee, recorded by scribes, the audio taping
service of the day. I marvel at this speech. The voice it takes is
that of the voice of God Himself. There is no other speech ever
delivered that compares with his Sermon on the Mount. But did his words
convince others in his lakeside audience he was actually God in the
flesh? Not everyone was convinced, obviously.
His mother
seemed to know he was the Son of God or at least had unusual
qualities. He was not just another child in the birth order. At the
wedding in Canaan, where he performed his first miracle of turning water
into wine, it was his mother who upon finding there was not enough
wine, turned to Jesus and asked him to do something about this socially
embarrassing moment, not his brothers and sisters.
Let’s be
real skeptical. Maybe the amphora jars that were filled with water upon
his instruction had wine solids in their bottom from prior fillings.
Maybe Jesus’s wine was diluted grape drink. The attendees at the
wedding suspected such. But actually, it is described as fine wine.
The best wine was served first in those days.
But this
miracle just categorizes Jesus as a parlor magician of sorts. Good for
entertainment. But just where is this King of the Jews who will
vanquish all of Israel’s enemies?
Jesus as long awaited conqueror
Surprisingly,
Jesus doesn’t get involved in the battle of the strong overtaking the
weak that explains most of human history. Conquerors like Attila the
Hun, Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan, to name a few, are in history
books, not pacifists. Jesus would conquer the military mentality of
his day by being the Prince of Peace. Turn swords into plow shares he
said. Really? That wasn’t going to fly.
The Jews
were oppressed and their country occupied by the Romans. And Jesus, if
truly the long predicted messiah, was to do nothing about this? That
would be difficult for an Israelite to fathom at the time since the Jews
had been praying for their God to vanquish their enemies for a long
time.
What did Jesus’s family think of him?
In the
book of John we read where the people in the synagogue asked: “Is this
not the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And his
brothers James, Joses, Simon and Judas?” They were asking, isn’t he
just another human like us?
In the
Book of Matthew it says when Jesus was preaching and getting himself in
trouble as he talked in parables: “His mother and brothers stood
outside, seeking to speak with him.” (Matthew 12:46) His family knew
trouble was brewing. It says in the Book of John: “For neither did his
brothers believe in him.” (John 7:5) Even his disciples came to him “to
lay hold on him: for they said, he is beside himself.” (Mark 3: 21)
It also
says “there was much murmuring among the people concerning him: for some
said, he is a good man: others said, Nay; but he deceiveth the people.”
(John 7: 12)
Miracles by chance?
But allow me to continue; to go somewhere no others dare. Maybe Jesus’s miracles can be explained away by mere chance.
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Maybe when
he raised his arm in the middle of a storm on a boat in the Sea of
Galilee, a squall, defined as a sudden increase in wind and rain of
short duration, just happened to suddenly die out as if on command.
Maybe the
crippled man who was lowered through a thatch roof into a meeting place
where Jesus was speaking actually was in the grip of scurvy and it
wasn’t that he couldn’t get up and walk but that he didn’t want to get
up and walk. Scurvy, a severe lack of vitamin C, induces joint pain and
lassitude (lethargy or aversion to activity). Wasn’t it Jesus who
said: “Your faith will make you well?” There was no magic involved. In
fact, maybe Jesus read the mind of this man and knew he was milking his
handicap to get sympathy or charity.
Searching for the magic
I think
too often Jesus’s followers are searching for Quija board magic. I met a
pastor who said his church specializes in miracles. Really? I mean,
could he order a miracle up out of heaven? God must be a cosmic bellboy
then, to beckon at the snap of one’s fingers.
The fish are on the other side
Jesus
stood on the shoreline in Galilee and instructed his disciples to drop
their nets on the other side of the boat, having seen them in their
futile attempt to catch fish on the opposite side. It was because of
his viewpoint above the light reflections off of the sea that his eyes
could see into the depths of the water. There were plenty of fish on
the other side of the boat. The lesson was that God’s viewpoint is not
man’s viewpoint. I don’t think the Bible portrays this event as Jesus
having x-ray vision. But there are those individuals who somehow
believe that.
Now don’t
be alarmed that I’m going to explain away all of the miracles. I am
saying too often preachers read more into the story than the Bible text
clearly indicates.
Jairus’ daughter: a rising from the dead? Jesus said no.
Another
example is when Jesus was preaching and was interrupted by Jairus, a
leader of the synagogue at Capernaum. Upon hearing Jairus’ plea to come
and save his daughter stricken dead with some illness, Jesus’s
disciples attempted to warn Jairus away. “Not to bother the teacher,”
they said. Jesus responds: “She is not dead, she is asleep.”
Now a few
preachers have attempted to tell me in the Greek language, the language
this story was originally written in, that the word “asleep” actually
means “dead” in Greek. But that would make Jesus say something
unintelligible. “She is not dead, she is dead.”
No, Jesus had foreknowledge. Recognize, if Jesus is wrong here, his whole ministry is over with.
He arrives at the home of Jairus’ to find a wake in process and women wailing at the death of the child. He chases them away.
He enters the home with his disciples and finds a stone cold 13-year old girl.
Now when
Jesus said she wasn’t dead, could that mean she is in a coma? Maybe she
was diabetic? But the most likely answer was, at her age, she had her
first menstrual cycle and lost blood and passed out due to anemia.
Children
living in that era were often anemic due to intestinal parasites robbing
them of all the iron in their diet. Children were also fed last after
the adults. That was the custom in those days. Iron-rich meat would
have been scarce as it would require bow hunting and there were no
refrigerators to store meat.
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I don’t
presume to know with any absolute certainty this wasn’t a raising from
the dead. But it was Jesus Himself who said she was not dead. If she
was dead, Jesus had her sit up and her parents were astonished. It would
have been a raising from the dead in their eyes.
But more
likely, being anemic, her body was cold, leaving the impression she was
dead. Iron is attached to red hemoglobin in red blood cells that
carries heat to the body’s extremities. A shortage of red blood cells
results in cold hands and fingers. This could have fooled her parents
into thinking she was dead.
Hold on, hold on, don’t revolt at what I am saying at this point. There is a greater miracle to be explained here.
For all you Bible experts, what was the last thing Jesus said to Jairus? Do you recall?
Jesus said, in the earliest translation we have available, the King James Bible, “Give her some meat.”
Wait! How would Jesus know this girl needed meat to obtain iron? Doctors didn’t know iron salts could cure anemia till the 17th century. If Jesus knew this he would be the Creator, wouldn’t he?
Pastor you’re pulling my leg
Some
modern fake healers have been exposed. They are an embarrassment to the
faith. One such healer prayed over a man who visually had one leg
longer than the other, a physical defect that was corrected right before
everyone’s eyes. That same faith healer repeats this same miracle on
the same subject in a second church service on the same day. The trick
has been exposed online by many skeptics. Was Jesus ever caught
performing one of these stage tricks?
It says in
the book of Mark there was a man with a withered hand and Jesus said to
the man: “Stretch forth thine hand.” And he stretched it out: and his
hand was restored whole as the other.” (Mark 3: 1-6) It says after
that healing “there were those who counseled how they might destroy him
(paraphrased).”
Just another stage trick?
Now Jesus
knew the priests were setting traps for him to be accused of blasphemy.
For this reason, he instructed the lepers to go away on the road some
distance where they were healed. Otherwise, they may have been killed
for believing a sorcerer and a blasphemer.
If Jesus
was doing these stage tricks to boost his ego and gain fame or money,
why would he have instructed the lepers to tell no one of this? He knew
they would be killed. Healing from a distance is quite a stage trick.
Let me
continue in my skeptical mode. Maybe these lepers were faking they were
lepers in the first place and were never healed.
“I can see! I can see!”
Actually
there were many fake healers in those days as there are today. When
Jesus healed a blind man, skeptics sought out his parents to determine
if he was truly born blind or was just planted in Jesus’s audience as
the fake healers often did, to suddenly acclaim he could see again.
Jesus had
taken some spittle and clay and applied it to the blind man’s eyes, says
the Bible text. Jesus asked what the man could see.
The man replied he saw men who looked like tall trees.
That is a perfect description of vertical astigmatism.
Think of a fun-house mirror that stretches an image tall.
The scriptures say Jesus took more spittle and clay and re-applied it to the eyes.
The man said he could see perfectly.
Let me get back to Christians wanting magic.
Wasn’t
Jesus applying the first contact lens to the surface of the eyes?
Wasn’t he, as the Creator, altering the curvature of the cornea like
laser (Lasik) surgery does today?
If so, how
would Jesus know how to re-set the focus point of the eyes with micron
precision? How would Jesus know the optics of the human eye? Eye
doctors couldn’t view the back of the human eye until the ophthalmoscope
was developed by Hermann von Helmholtz in Germany in the 1800s. Wasn’t
this evidence he was the Creator? This alternate version of the story
is more likely to bring skeptics to their knees. The Great Physician
was at work.
Then believe in my miracles
Now it was Jesus who said, if you don’t believe in me (as being the Son of God), then believe in my miracles.
The fact
there is a medical explanation for the raising of Jairus’ daughter and
the restoration of vision of a man born blind should not take away from
these miracles. God invented biology. The human body is a self-healing
organism. Jesus even said, others would do greater things than He.
[John 14: 12-14]
Furthermore,
when these Biblical accounts of Jesus’s healings were written there was
no way to know they were physiologically valid. Only looking back in
time do we realize these healings are validated by advanced knowledge of
anatomy and physiology in our modern day. If fables, there would be no
corroborative evidence.
Did Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead?
So what
about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead? Allow me once again to go
where others dare not. Even in our modern era there are people who were
buried alive, a physician not being available to check for a heartbeat
and write a certificate of death. From time to time in more primitive
lands there are news reports of those who have been found alive within 3
days of burial. Diabetic comas, head wounds, other conditions can
induce near death.
But
recognize, here again, Jesus goes to open Lazarus’ tomb at the request
of Lazarus’s sister. If Lazarus is found dead, Jesus’s ministry is
over. Jesus is unearthing Lazarus’ tomb. Lazarus’s sister warns: “the
body stinketh.”
Again,
it’s possible Lazarus was encased in a tomb alive but not likely. It
was four days after his death and his sister was lamenting that Jesus
had taken so long to come. If a stage trick, why would he linger? How
many of these miracles could be plain luck?
The big event
Let’s get
to the big event, Jesus’s death and resurrection. Jesus’s crucifixion
was foretold in Psalms 22:16-18, approximately 1,000 years before his
birth and long before this method of execution was even practiced.
Dogs surround me, |
A pack of villains encircles me; |
They piece my hands and feet. |
All my bones are on display; |
People stare and gloat over me. |
They divide my clothes among them |
and cast lots for my garment. –Psalms 26:18 |
. |
But there were more than fulfilled prophecies that surrounded this event. There were meteorological and celestial signs.
The sky darkened
During the
crucifixion the sky darkened for 3 hours, said to be a solar eclipse
where the sun is blocked by the moon. This would have been an
impossibility as Jesus’s death on the cross occurred during Passover or
when there was a full moon which was on the opposite side of the earth
from the sun. When the moon comes between the sun and earth is when
eclipses occur. Whatever meteorological phenomenon caused this, it
would be an irregular and inexplicable event.
Surprisingly
there is an independent secular record of a darkening of the sky across
the earth by the astronomer Dionysius who was an eyewitness to it. The
apostle Paul preached in Athens of this darkening of the sky for 3
hours during the crucifixion and Dionysius was in attendance and could
confirm its occurrence as he had witnessed it while in Egypt at the time
(Letters of Dionysius). It was an astronomical impossibility as
eclipses last only up to 7 minutes. But the sky did darken as
historical records affirmed. This meteorological event convinced
Dionyius to become a believer.
This
midday dark sky was a fulfillment of a prophecy made 750 years earlier
in the Book of Amos (“I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the
earth in broad daylight.”) The darkness lasted 3 hours according to
the record in the Book of Matthew 27:45 (“From noon until three in the
afternoon darkness came over all the land.”)
Whatever was going on meteorologically, this wasn’t a trick staged by Jesus or his followers.
Was he dead?
Those who
were crucified died of asphyxiation as they couldn’t hold themselves up
to breathe as their body settled below their arms. There was no way to
expand the lungs. Yet the Roman guard still thrust a sword through
Jesus’s side to ensure his death.
The Roman
guards did not break Jesus’s legs, which was the practice to ensure
death. Only the two thieves that were crucified with him on that day
had their leg bones broken. Skeptics say Jesus could have survived his
crucifixion. This is despite a clear description he had no blood
circulation. His blood had congealed and the serum had separated from
the red cells when the Roman Centurion thrust a sword in his side.
A watchful
crowd of Jesus’s followers likely caused the Roman Centurion to hold
back from breaking his legs to the groan of his watchful followers,
which included his distraught mother.
If Jesus
was not dead, Joseph of Arimathea, a wealthy man, offers his family tomb
and aromatic herbs to mask the smell of his dead body, and those
followers who wrapped his body would certainly have known if he showed
signs of life.
But maybe
they were part of a plot. Maybe his body was covertly exchanged for
another’s. But then how did the drunken Roman guards allow the stone to
be rolled away since it was already known his resurrection had been
foretold. There was a seal placed on the stone. The guards faced death
if his body went missing.
But maybe
they had the wrong guy. Maybe back when Jesus was apprehended on the
Mount of Olives in the darkness of night when the throngs of his
followers were asleep, with only torches for light, they arrested the
wrong man. Then after his death, the real live Jesus replaced the dead
body Jesus?
But that
is why Judas was paid the 30 pieces of silver, to point Jesus out to the
Roman soldiers. Furthermore, Jesus’s mother and brothers were at the
site of his crucifixion.
But maybe
the body of Jesus was switched later when his followers wrapped his
body. Maybe there was a body double. But then the resurrected Jesus
meets Thomas. The same man who was on the cross was the same
resurrected Jesus who had the healed wounds from the nails that were
pounded into his hands. Doubting Thomas saw that with his own eyes.
The empty tomb
Later,
Jesus’s frightened followers sent women to his tomb knowing they weren’t
likely to be killed by the Roman guards. They found the stone rolled
away and the garments he wore folded in the tomb. These women attempted
to tell this to the apostles. But “their words seemed to them as idle
tales, and they believed them not.” (Luke 24:11)
His followers bump into him on the road
Later,
Jesus’s followers were walking on a road, dismayed at his death and not
knowing what lay ahead. Jesus, likely wearing a hooded garb, was not
readily recognized on the pathway. Jesus was attempting to find out
what was on the
mind and soul of His followers. It was only later that it became
apparent to his followers on the road that this fellow traveler was
Jesus Himself.
There are
some online pranks where people in a morgue play dead and then sit up to
startle onlookers. The risen Jesus apparently didn’t want to startle
his followers on the road that day.
Back to his birth day
Let me get back to Jesus’s birth. The Bible says:
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
The wise men followed a star
Yes,
wise men followed a star to find the infant Jesus, probably a few
months after his birth. A modern explanation of that star, actually a
morning rising of Jupiter in the horizon just before the sun arose, is
now understood. Only the wise men being astrologers knew how to look
for it. The scriptures say it was a star in the east. Herod the King,
eager to find the location of the baby who would take his thrown, could
not see it. This astronomical explanation, known as a heliacal rising,
is well founded. [Daily Mail Dec 24, 2014] Magic? Well, it was magical.
Let me get back to the Christmas question. Was the tiny baby Jesus God in the flesh?
Sans magic tricks, you decide.
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