My last blog post was written to share cool things buried in the Christmas story that most of us are unaware of. They are there so we might know who baby Jesus really was and know that only God could have written the story. Because there are so many nuggets, I promised this follow up post. A friend’s funny email about the wisemen prompted the last post. We will work our way back to pick up one more wise nugget from those wise guys.
God’s human scribes penned the Bible in an intentional way that sometimes seems to produce irresolvable contradictions which only Creator God could untangle. Jesus’ heritage serves as such an example. As prophesied in Micah 5:2, Jesus was born in Bethlehem but Matthew 2:23, referring to historically documented extra biblical writings, notes Jesus would be called a Nazarene. Jesus was because he grew up in the desolate small town of Nazareth. Yet a third contradictory passage notes that Jesus will be called out of Egypt (Hosea 11:10-11).
Reenter the Wisemen for the rest of that story—and the rabbit trail we forsook in the last post!. Figuring they would be wise, they stopped by King Herod’s on the way, thinking ‘ol Harry may save them some time and tell them where this baby King was because their camels and donkeys were giving them road rash from chasing that star so long. But they were wise enough to pick up on the fact that Harry was a paranoid sicko. Sure enough, Herod ordered every male baby killed in Bethlehem to make sure one of them would not grow up to challenge his kingship—but not before the wisemen had jumped back on the star trail and warned Mary & Joseph that Herod was going postal and they better scoot. They did—off to Egypt. Some scholars think they used that gold gift to finance the trip but that’s hard to prove. But what is not hard to prove is that Herod’s reign of terror ended, and Joseph and Mary were called out of Egypt when it was safe to return. They hid out in remote Nazareth.
God set up what seemed to be three contradictions in prophecy: Jesus’ home town address: Was it Bethlehem, Nazareth, or Egypt. God made all come to pass.
Let’s go back and mine the Bethlehem nuggets. Jeremiah 23: 5-6 and other passages tell us that Jesus would be a descendant of Old Testament King David. David was described as a man after God’s own heart (1 Samuel 13:14). Yet if we look at this Dude’s bio, it’s a bit spotted. On the hero side he killed the giant Goliath that was bullying David’s country but then went on to impregnate the wife of one of his soldiers and had hubby sent to the front lines to be killed and cover up the affair. Pulled some other bone head tricks too but he would go to God afterwards and admit to his sins and take the consequence. He loved to worship God in a mighty way—even if it made him look silly! He was a great and fair leader for his people. God uses the life story of David to portray a caricature of the kind of King Jesus would be—but without the screwups! David’s story also underlines the point that God loves even screwups like me. . . .
Bethlehem was David’s “hood” known as the City of David. It was the hood for many of his ancestors and then relatives after David passed—making it the logical place for baby King Jesus to come on the scene as a descendant of David. In biblical language Bethlehem means “house of bread” Later in his ministries Jesus would refer to himself as the “bread of life” (John 6:35) Those that have heard a communion service from 1 Corinthians 11:23-24 hear Jesus, at the last supper, announce to his disciples as he breaks bread for them to eat the bread as his broken body. Jesus was portraying what would soon happen with his physical body at his crucifixion. His body would be the spiritual sacrifice to cover our sin. Tie this scene back to where the shepherds found Jesus–in a manger—not a baby bed but a feeding place for hungry creatures. 2000 years plus we continue to commune with Jesus as spiritual bread–if we so choose.
Jesus’ Davidic linage has long been a topic of lively discussion. Some Jewish people reject Jesus as the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament because they say Joseph or some other earth dwelling man was his father. They do not accept the claims found in Matthew 1: 18-21 that Mary was impregnated by the Holy Spirit of the triune godhead in a way that allowed Jesus to leave his forever existence in heaven and be delivered to earth to live as a human while also being God with us (Isiah 41:10).
God had some fun here too—just like he did when he gave the star worshiper’s a star to follow so they could find the “truth” they searched for. God, once again, makes things look—at first blush—that there are irreconcilable differences in the genealogies and then turns that notion on its head to reveal deep truth. God had Matthew (Matthew 1:1-17) and Luke (Luke 3:23-38) both write genealogies. Both include Jesus as a Davidic ancestor but list different names. Scholarship still debates the nuances, but most agree that Matthew’s version represents Mary’s genealogy and Luke his earthly stepdad, Joseph.
Mary’s genealogy has reference to four women which carries its own message from God. All four were Gentiles—people who were not of Jewish heritage or faith signifying that we don’t have to be born into God’s family. That’s the whole point of the book of Ruth in the Bible—Jesus as our Kinsman Redeemer. Ruth’s story represents the typology of redemption available through Jesus. We can be brought into God’s family by marrying into God’s family.
The remaining three were all guilty of sexual sin under biblical standards. Rahab was a prostitute. (Joshua 6:17) Tamar tricked Juda; her father-in-law, into making her pregnant so her family line would be carried on (Genesis 38). Uriah’s wife was Bathsheba who had an affair with King David. They later gave birth to King Solomon. These facts underline that God accepts us into his eternal family even when God knows we have messed up big time. We simply need to feast on the bread of life by asking for mercy, repent and agree that we need the Christmas born gift of salvation because we cannot earn salvation on our own.
So that’s the rest of the rest of the story—which turns out to circle back to the first rest of the story! God’s circular and repeated message gets told in hundreds of ways using hundreds of literary tools and techniques in the Bible. The triune godhead, through Jesus, satisfied the needs of their nature to cover over our mistakes that we might be redeemed from their law and nature that decrees sin leads to death. Redemption was wrapped up in the Christmas gift of Jesus but to experience the gift we must accept it! That gift has changed my life!!! Merry Christmas!!