Real Christmas

OK, that blows up all we know about the Nativity. Most of what we think happened didn’t.

So what really happened? Let’s start hundreds of years before Jesus’ birth.

Prophets had foretold His birth, but did they really know who they were waiting for?

Isaiah, Micah, Jeremiah all had prophesies about Jesus. None knew it would be Jesus.

Jewish people were looking for a savior that would restore Israel to the Glory days of David.

Is. 7:14 “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”

Is. 9:6 “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

Micah 5:2 ““But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.””

Jeremiah 23:5 ““The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land.”

Jeremiah 23:6 “In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called: The Lord Our Righteous Savior.”

But where does the birth story really start? How about John 1:1-5 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

john 1:9 “The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.”

John 1:14 “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Came as a baby, born in a cave, barn, bottom floor of a house, to a young girl, and a young man who were already betrothed. He was born in a small town in a small country. He didn’t come in as a King, God turned the world, and the Pharisees and Sadducees, on their head. He came in nothing like they were expecting.

Matthew and Luke both record genealogies of Jesus, but they are different. Matthew’s goes through Joseph. An important link from Abraham to David to Joseph. Important for Jewish people to see the link between David and Joseph, and as as adopted son of Joseph, Jesus inherits all the rights a blood, first born son would.

Luke written for gentiles, shows Jesus link, to Adam, Abraham, and David, through Mary’s line. Some people you wouldn’t necessarily want in your family tree. Like Tamar, look up the story in Genesis. Rhahab, a non-jew. And both women, that in itself is bad.

Matthew 14X3, Hebrew has a device called gematria that used letters as numbers. Consonants had a number. David is 14, D=4, V=6, D=4, and David is the 14th in the genealogy. He was hammering it home to the Jewish people who Jesus was, He was the 3rd 14th.

“I have believed in God for a long time; It’s good to know He Believes in me!”

Matt Maher, Chosen Christmas