MERRY
CHRISTMAS
I promised yesterday to write a Christmas greeting on my
blog on Christmas Day.
What
I have today to say about Christmas has probably already been said before, well
at least some of it, but if that is the case then I will say it
again. Christmas, to me, holds mixed
feelings in my mind. I am not one who likes going all out on
buying presents just because it is Christmas, but want to remember what
Christmas is suppose to be all about. Now we know that Jesus Christ
was probably not born on the 25th of December, but we do know
that He was born, and probably born in the winter months, and I do not know
exactly know how the 25th of December came about as the day we
celebrate Christmas. I suppose a little digging on the internet
would answer that question, but I probably will not do that. Like I
say the important thing is that Jesus Christ was born into the world and the
first prophecy of Him coming into the world goes all the way back to the book of
Genesis, and right after Adam and Eve sinned we read “And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise
you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel."” God is
speaking of Satan in this passage and also He is saying that there will be war
between Satan and the offspring of the woman. “I’m declaring war
between you and the Woman, between your offspring and hers. He’ll wound your
head, you’ll wound his heel." (Message)” We see in the NASB that God
speaks of the “seed of the woman,” and this is the only time we see this in the
Word of God. The seed comes through the man, but there were three
differences in the Scriptures when this did not happen that
way. First God created Adam out of the earth, and then God created
woman out of Adam’s rib, and then we read that Mary became pregnant through the
Holy Spirit and this is where we get the seed of the woman as involved in the
birth of Jesus Christ.
Now
as we read through the Old Testament we see how the Lord narrows down the line
in which the Messiah would come from. In the book of Matthew we see
the bloodline of Jesus through Joseph, and in Luke’s gospel we see the
bloodline of Jesus through Mary. Both Joseph and Mary were descendants
of David, but Mary came through the line of Nathan while Joseph came through
Solomon. Luke’s line of Jesus goes all the way back to God, while
Matthew’s line only goes back to Abraham. One of the kings of Judah,
Jeconiah had a curse against him and so his line could not be in the line of
the Messiah to be King. As I said Mary came through the line of
Nathan, Luke 3:31 “the son of Melea, the son of Menna, the son of
Mattatha, the son of Nathan, the son of
David,.” Joseph also came from the line of David and
even though Jeconiah was in his line this did not permit Jesus from being the
Messiah for He was not born of Joseph but of the Holy Spirit and Mary.
Now as far as the place where Jesus was born and who
was there when He was born, it is not like the nativity scenes we see in
people’s yards or in their houses. I read a historic novel a few
years ago and the author incorporated into the birth of Jesus a place called
Midgal Eder and this place is mentioned in the book of Micah 4:8 where we read
“8 "As for you, tower of the flock, Hill of the daughter of Zion, To you
it will come-Even the former dominion will come, The kingdom of the daughter of
Jerusalem.” The words “tower of the flock” in the Hebrew is Midgal
Eder, and this place was near Bethlehem on the way to Jerusalem and is where
the lambs were born who would go to the temple and used for
sacrifices. There was a cave there and many believe that Jesus was
born in that cave where these sacrificial lambs were born. When you
think about this it all makes perfect sense. Now as far as who was
there we know that Joseph, Mary, Jesus and later on the shepherds came, but as
far as the wise men they did not come and see Jesus until he was near two years
old. They probably came from what was once Babylon and they probably
got their information from Daniel who prophesied in his book of the time when
the Messiah would die and so they would know when it would be near time for Him
to be born and looked for Him following a star. They first came to
see Herod and asked him where the Messiah would be born and then went to find
Him, giving gifts to Him and were then told in a dream not to go back to tell
Herod. Herod then had all male boys from the age of two years old
and younger killed as was prophesied by Jeremiah.
Okay
so the story of Jesus’ birth is probably much different than what we use to
celebrate it in our world today as I tried to bring out, but the point of all
of this is that God was in control of all the things which would bring His Son
into the world to fulfill what His plans were for Him to accomplish, and He
accomplished all of them, and we can praise the Lord on this Christmas Day that
He did accomplish all of them. Jesus told His mother while in the
temple that He came to do His Father’s will and at the end of His life, while
hanging on a cross He said “It is finished.” What was finished was
His becoming sin for us so that we could receive His righteousness and have it
credited to our account so that when the Father looks at those who have
received this free gift of salvation He will see Jesus Christ and not our
sinfulness.
The
all time very best gift a person can receive on Christmas Day or any other day
is to receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, to confess that they are a
sinner in need of a Savior and find out that Jesus paid it all, and receive Him
as Savior and Lord.
Merry
Christmas to all!
12/25/2020 10:41 AM As I was having a little
trouble sleeping last night I was thinking about this SD that I was going to
put onto my blog and also my FB story. What I was thinking about was
as one reads the story in the Bible about the birth of Jesus, perhaps they
think that because of the reason that Joseph and Mary came to Bethlehem that
all of the inns were filled and so they had to find a farmer who had a barn and
that is where Jesus was born. I truly believe that the place where
Jesus was born was certainly in the plan of God; for God was in control of all
that His Son would be doing while on planet earth. Why would not the
Messiah who is later called “our Passover” and also we read the following in
two places in the gospel of John “Joh 1:29 The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said,
"Behold, the Lamb of God who
takes away the sin of the world! Joh 1:36 and he looked at Jesus as
He walked, and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God!" It
was no accident of Jesus being born in Bethlehem as the OT says he would be
born there and so why would not the “Lamb of God” who is our “Passover” be born
in the cave where the Passover Lambs were born? 12/25/2020 10:49 AM
I, Jacob Howard, wrote Dr. Charlie Dyer, who is
the speaker on the Land
and the Book Radio, a question about
Midgal-Eder, mentioned in Micah 4:8. This was Dr. Dyer’s response.
Jacob,
Thank you for your e-mail, and thanks as well
for your kind words! Denny and I both appreciate the privilege God has given us
to serve Him in this way. You have encouraged us both!
As far as Midgal Eder is concerned, there
is no universal identification of the site. But I do believe it was a real
site. The best thing I’ve read on the subject is from Alfred Edersheim’s The
Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. (You can find his complete work online at
Google Books.) I’ll include his quotation here, and then I’ll follow it with a
few observations. (I’ll also highlight the key point he makes in the quote.)
But as we pass from the sacred gloom of the
cave [i.e., he was just talking about the birth of Jesus in a cave] out into
the night, its sky all aglow with starry brightness, its loneliness is peopled,
and its silence made vocal from heaven. There is nothing now to conceal, but
much to reveal, though the manner of it would seem strangely incongruous to
Jewish thinking. And yet Jewish tradition may here prove both illustrative and
helpful. That the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem, was a settled conviction.
Equally so was the belief, that He was to be revealed from Midgal Eder,
“the tower of the flock.” This Midgal Eder was not the watchtower for
the ordinary flocks which pastured on the barren sheep ground beyond
Bethlehem, but lay close to the town, on the road to Jerusalem. A passage in
the Mishnah leads to the conclusion, that the flocks, which pastured there,
were destined for Temple-sacrifices, and, accordingly, that the shepherds, who
watched over them, were not ordinary shepherds. The latter were under the ban
of Rabbinism, on account of their necessary isolation from religious
ordinances, and their manner of life, which rendered strict legal observance
unlikely, if not absolutely impossible. The same Mishnaic passage also leads us
to infer, that these flocks lay out all the year round, since they are spoken
of as in the fields thirty days before the Passover—that is, in the month of
February, when in Palestine the average rainfall is nearly greatest. Thus,
Jewish tradition in some dim manner apprehended the first revelation of the
Messiah from that Migdal Eder, where shepherds watched the Temple-flocks
all the year round. Of the deep symbolic significance of such a coincidence, it
is needless to speak.
—Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus
the Messiah, pp. 186-87
If Edersheim is correct (and I believe he
is), the location for Midgal Eder would be north of Bethlehem and
near the old road from Bethlehem to Jerusalem. (That road is the old “Hebron
road” one drives on between Jerusalem and Bethlehem today!) I believe this puts
the location somewhere between the Jewish kibbutz of Ramat Rachel
and Bethlehem, probably just to the west of Har Homa. There used to be an
actual sheepfold in this area where I would take our groups but, sadly, it has
been covered over by the modern road that now goes to Har Homa.
A key point here. Edersheim indicates that
Migdal Eder was an actual spot, but he is not saying it was a town or
village. Rather, the name means “watchtower of the flock” which seems to identify
it as a specific pasture area for sheep. And the sheep that grazed here were
those specifically destined for Temple sacrifice. In that sense the shepherds
keeping watch over the temple sacrifices were the ones to whom God announced
the birth of the ultimate “sacrificial lamb.”
I’m attaching a screen shot from Google Earth
that might be of help in identifying the location for Midgal Eder. Note
that Ramat Rachel is at the top of the picture and Bethlehem is at the
bottom. The road running along the left side of the picture is the old Hebron
Road, and Homat Shemu’el/Har Homa is just to the right of center
in the picture. Based on Edersheim’s description, I would place
Migdal Eder almost in the center of the picture…north of Bethlehem,
just to the west of Har Homa, and east of the road from Bethlehem to
Jerusalem. Since the word means “tower of the flock” it is likely a high spot
in this area where sheep would graze. The hills right around (or right at)
Har Homa are probably the best possible location.
I hope this is helpful!
Charlie
