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 both
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 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 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
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