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Finding Jesus at Christmas · Cultural Wars | America Out Loud News

• 0:36
  Welcome to Faith Is.
• 0:37
  I'm Pastor Rick Stevens, and here we are, the second Sunday of Advent, or maybe if you go to church on a day other than Sunday, the second weekend of Advent, but it's celebration time because we get to anticipate the arrival of Jesus.
• 0:55
  That's what Advent means, arrival, or some people say it means coming, referring to Jesus coming.
• 1:02
  But whatever you define it as, it's a season of anticipation, of growing eagerness, of realization of what happens and what happened, both present tense and past tense when Jesus comes.
• 1:22
  And so each Sunday, as we celebrate Advent at our church and maybe at yours, our church is Cape Coral, Florida.
• 1:30
  That's where I live.
• 1:31
  It's Diplomat Wesleyan Church.
• 1:33
  And at our church, we practice the anticipation, the eagerness, and we use an Advent wreath to help us with that.
• 1:41
  And so for the first Sunday of Advent, we lit the first candle.
• 1:46
  And the first Sunday was about hope.
• 1:49
  And we also talked about prophecy because it was the words of the prophets, the anticipation, the prediction of the coming of Messiah that gave people hope, because they realized they were in need of help.
• 2:04
  And so when the prophets talked about the coming of Messiah, it gave them hope.
• 2:08
  So that was the first week.
• 2:09
  Second week now, we come to the second candle of Advent, and that usually the way most people celebrate it represents peace.
• 2:18
  Now, if your church does it differently, that's fine.
• 2:22
  Lots of places do things differently.
• 2:30
  Comes the first time as a baby comes to a person, comes into their life, comes a second time.
• 2:37
  And we we want to anticipate that.
• 2:39
  And one of the things that the coming of Jesus brings is peace.
• 2:44
  Now, what do we mean by peace?
• 2:45
  Or maybe I should say, what does the Bible mean by peace?
• 2:49
  Usually we think of peace as the absence of conflict.
• 2:54
  Well, that's true.
• 2:56
  That can be peace, but the Bible has a much richer concept of peace.
• 3:02
  Yes, I think it would include the absence of conflict, but really what it gets at is the sense of overall well-being, that everything in life is properly ordered, and we can rest easy, as we might say, in the knowledge that our lives are as they should be.
• 3:25
  Our lives are conformed to the practices that God calls us to follow.
• 3:31
  We don't live in tension, we don't have uh conflicts with our neighbors.
• 3:38
  Uh how should I say that we're actively a part of?
• 3:42
  Now, sometimes you have conflicts with neighbors that they cause, and I don't necessarily mean neighbors in your neighborhood, but friends.
• 3:50
  Some people are just kind of abrasive that way, and I often think that's a defense mechanism that they're just trying to keep you at arm's length because they don't know what to do or how to trust someone, but that's a little different story.
• 4:03
  But but peace means that no matter what they do, you're okay, and you're not going to have your peace disturbed by them.
• 4:13
  Oh, sure, they might be a little irritating from time to time, but you learn to rest in the shalom of God, and then you don't have to let that other stuff bother you.
• 4:27
  You can put it where it belongs, you can entrust it to God.
• 4:32
  You can pray for those people that are how should I say, ruffling your feathers or disturbing your peace.
• 4:41
  But peace is the second week of Advent.
• 4:45
  And it's also important for us as we walk through this season to make sure we anticipate the coming of Jesus born in Bethlehem.
• 4:55
  Okay, we're gonna talk about that some more today.
• 4:57
  Yes, we can anticipate that, but we should not forget to anticipate his second coming.
• 5:03
  Now, when he came the first time, he decisively took care of our sin at the cross.
• 5:14
  He paid the covenant penalty, and I've talked about that on some other programs, but Jesus stepped into our world, stepped into humanity, went to the cross and paid the penalty that we incurred because we broke the covenant with God.
• 5:33
  We were not faithful, we sinned.
• 5:36
  Now, the second time Jesus comes, that's also important to celebrate and anticipate.
• 5:42
  Now, people get a little nervous about that because it also involves judgment.
• 5:46
  I get that.
• 5:47
  And I understand why people might find that to be a little bit of an anxious time, particularly those of us who are more sensitive than others.
• 5:55
  But we should also remember that judgment has to do with Jesus coming and decisively taking care of the problem of evil once and for all.
• 6:06
  And judgment is what that's about.
• 6:09
  Without judgment, we couldn't have salvation, because Jesus is going to take care of evil and deliver us from sin.
• 6:18
  There's a lot of ways we think about being delivered from sin, but we sometimes forget that at the second coming.
• 6:24
  That's a real deliverance from sin.
• 6:29
  So gather your hope and rest in peace as we journey through Advent, as we enjoy all of the things related to the season, but as we especially find our consolation, our hope, our comfort, our shalom, and the realization that Jesus came, and he's coming again.
• 6:54
  He is the one who is, who was, and is to come.
• 7:00
  And that brings us everything we need.
• 7:04
  All right, so now this week I want us to talk about some of the interesting aspects of Christmas.
• 7:12
  Now, I I guess I'm good at this, okay.
• 7:16
  So I just want you to know I I regularly disappoint people.
• 7:21
  I don't do that because I want to disappoint people.
• 7:24
  I do that because, well, I approach things differently sometimes, and I'm not afraid to look at uh how should I say issues that are out there or clarify things or whatever, but for some people that's unpleasant because it busts their bubble and they don't like it.
• 7:43
  All right, and I'm not trying to bust anyone's bubble.
• 7:46
  All right, is that fair?
• 7:48
  I'm I'm not at all trying to do that.
• 7:50
  What I am trying to do is bring clarity to what goes on.
• 7:53
  And so I want to talk about some specifics about Christmas that to me, while they change our kind of sentimental notions or nostalgic ideas, they enrich our understanding of what God was doing and is doing in our world today.
• 8:12
  So I want to begin by us about the seven feasts that the Jewish people have practiced.
• 8:20
  Now, before I get too far into this, I I should step back and make sure I give credit where credit is due.
• 8:26
  Anything I mess up during this time we have together, that's on me.
• 8:30
  All right.
• 8:31
  But anything that's really valuable that's good, I depended upon a man named James Garlow.
• 8:36
  He's a retired pastor.
• 8:38
  He takes many trips to Israel, is very up to date on a lot of the things because of his trips to Israel, both the geopolitical stuff, but also the biblical stuff.
• 8:49
  And so he put out these couple of sermons that give some information about this.
• 8:55
  So I I listened to his sermons, made some notes.
• 8:58
  I uh I don't think I'd messed up any of the real solid content that he had, but I certainly present it differently, and not because I don't like the way he presented it.
• 9:11
  It you know, when you're when you do what I do, you just can't preach somebody else's sermon.
• 9:17
  Well, I've never been able to.
• 9:19
  So it's always a little different, and and I try to make it helpful to you with no disrespect to any other pastor.
• 9:27
  It's just kind of that's what I have to do.
• 9:30
  So one of the things that James Garlow, Pastor Garlow reminded us about, is the feasts that the Bible talks about.
• 9:38
  God gave his people seven feasts to celebrate every year.
• 9:44
  There are four spring feasts and three in the fall.
• 9:49
  And I want to go through them, and one of the ways to think of these feasts is as a chronology of Jesus' life.
• 9:57
  And I found this very interesting and helpful.
• 10:00
  Now, there's a lot more to it than simply making these connections, but I thought it might be helpful for us to think about this as we go through.
• 10:08
  So the spring feasts are Passover, unleavened bread, first fruits, and Pentecost.
• 10:15
  Now I don't want to get into too many details about what each feast involves, but I do want to make a connection between the feast, and this is what Pastor Garlow did.
• 10:25
  He helped us think about the connections between the feasts and the life of Jesus.
• 10:30
  So I think you'll see that.
• 10:31
  I think you'll begin to understand it's really quite amazing what God has done to give us all of these connections and all of this evidence and all of this reinforcement that Jesus really is who we think he is.
• 10:49
  Well, he's probably more than that.
• 10:51
  We probably can't really grasp it all.
• 10:53
  But anyway, Passover.
• 10:55
  Passover, you remember that's the time that God gave Israel to celebrate his deliverance of those people from slavery in Egypt.
• 11:03
  They celebrated Passover on the night before they left, and Passover became an annual celebration.
• 11:08
  And it reminds us about the death of Jesus.
• 11:20
  Next comes unleavened bread, and that's a reminder of the burial of Jesus.
• 11:25
  You can make the connection because of the sin connection and the hiding of leaven, the getting leaven out.
• 11:32
  There's several things.
• 11:33
  But anyway, the burial of Jesus.
• 11:35
  First fruits talks about resurrection, because it's the first fruits.
• 11:39
  And the first fruit of Jesus' life was his resurrection.
• 11:44
  And then you remember 50 days later is Pentecost, the giving of the Holy Spirit.
• 11:48
  And Jesus said, unless I return to the Father, the Holy Spirit won't come.
• 11:53
  But because I'm going back to the Father, the Holy Spirit will come, and it's better for you if we do it that way.
• 11:59
  It's four spring feasts, four important occurrences, chronological occurrences in the life of Jesus.
• 12:07
  In the fall, there are three feasts.
• 12:09
  First is trumpets.
• 12:11
  Trumpets is parallel to the second coming.
• 12:14
  The announcement of Jesus, and you can read about this, the trumpets sounding and Jesus appearing.
• 12:20
  Now, the trumpets would be referring to as a shofar, not a modern trumpet like we have, but the shofar would sound and Christ returns.
• 12:30
  The day of atonement, it's another fall feast, and that's reminiscent parallel to judgment.
• 12:36
  We talked a little bit about judgment a moment ago.
• 12:38
  And then finally, tabernacles.
• 12:42
  That's a reminder that when it's all finished, God himself is going to dwell among his people.
• 12:54
  And that's the way the holy city, what we refer to as heaven is arranged, so that God is in the midst of his people.
• 13:01
  But then again, that's also the way the camp that God told them to set up at Sinai was arranged because it put the tabernacle, the visible presence of God among his people, right square in the middle.
• 13:17
  Now that was there so they would know that God was there, but God also repeatedly in the Bible talks about how he wants to be with his people.
• 13:28
  It's kind of amazing.
• 13:30
  Kind of hard to wrap our heads around.
• 13:33
  God himself wants to be with us, his people.
• 13:42
  Maybe I shouldn't say this, but some people have trouble going to church because of the people there.
• 13:47
  And for one reason or another, they let people get to them.
• 13:52
  Or they take offense too easily.
• 13:54
  It's more like it.
• 13:56
  But I want you to think about that.
• 13:58
  If God wants to be with his people, he wants to dwell with his faithful people.
• 14:05
  What's wrong with us that we don't want to be at church?
• 14:10
  What's wrong with us that we say, oh, that's just church.
• 14:13
  It won't hurt if I'm not there.
• 14:15
  That's just church.
• 14:16
  I can I can show up half the Sundays of the month.
• 14:20
  I can show up some of the time.
• 14:22
  I don't need to be there all the time.
• 14:24
  But isn't that interesting that God wants to be with his people?
• 14:28
  And we celebrate that during Advent when we talk about Emmanuel, meaning God with us.
• 14:35
  Do we want to be with God?
• 14:37
  That's the pastoral question at this point.
• 14:40
  Do we want to be with God?
• 14:44
  I think that's an important question for us to ask and answer.
• 14:48
  Okay, so now let's get into what we call the birth of Jesus, what we call Christmas, and let's take a look at what was going on there and some of the really fascinating things that we're learning about this.
• 15:03
  I'm not sure that we knew these things or made these connections when I was growing up and learning about this.
• 15:11
  Certainly I never heard it from anybody, and I'm not sure anybody really had come across these ideas or made these connections.
• 15:19
  But I want us to do that today, and I want us to think about some important things related to the birth of Jesus.
• 15:27
  And I think we'll start by reading from Luke chapter 2.
• 15:31
  I won't read the entire story of the birth of Jesus, but I want to read what is in here about the shepherds, which of course is most of it anyway.
• 15:41
  I'm going to read from the New King James version.
• 15:44
  A couple of reasons.
• 15:45
  One, because I can hardly read this passage without reverting to King James English.
• 15:50
  I learned it that way.
• 15:52
  That's just kind of the way it is.
• 15:53
  I may revert to that even reading the new King James.
• 15:57
  But the other reason that I wanted to read it, not only because of familiarity for you and for me, we all we've all heard the story in the King James.
• 16:04
  But to remind all of us that the New King James Version is really a very good translation of the Bible.
• 16:10
  And if you can't feel comfortable with these newer English translations, and I understand that, then embrace the new King James Version.
• 16:20
  It I don't know how to describe it.
• 16:22
  I guess it smooths out some of the King James English without losing, you know, the beauty that we associate with that, or the familiarity, maybe I should say.
• 16:32
  Anyway, Luke chapter 2, verse 8.
• 16:36
  Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night.
• 16:42
  And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid.
• 16:53
  Then the angel said to them, Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which will be to all people.
• 17:03
  For there is born to you this day in the city of David, a Savior who is Christ the Lord.
• 17:11
  And this will be the sign to you.
• 17:14
  You will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.
• 17:21
  And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, good will toward men.
• 17:33
  So it was when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds said to one another, let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us.
• 17:48
  And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the babe lying in a manger.
• 17:56
  Now, when they had seen him, they made widely known the saying which was told them concerning this child.
• 18:03
  And all those who heard it marveled at those things which were told them by the shepherds.
• 18:10
  But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.
• 18:16
  Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen as it was told them.
• 18:25
  What a marvelous story.
• 18:27
  What great visual imagery.
• 18:30
  What a great time of rejoicing those shepherds had.
• 18:34
  Can you imagine what it must have been like?
• 18:36
  I really don't think we can.
• 18:39
  We try and we should.
• 18:41
  But can you imagine the shepherds?
• 18:44
  Surprise, terror, and delight all wrapped up in that time together.
• 18:51
  So let's let's delve into what's going on here and what we can learn from this.
• 18:56
  Um one of the things that as we get started, we should not miss is that.
• 19:05
  Well, I'm sorry to break it to you, but Jesus was not born on December 25th.
• 19:12
  Now, I don't think that comes as too much of a shock to too many people.
• 19:16
  Most of us are aware that that date just kind of surfaced for historical reasons, and you and I, we are not going to change it, and we are not going to try to change it.
• 19:26
  December 25th it is, and that's fine.
• 19:29
  I don't think God is objecting to that.
• 19:31
  I think God knows when Jesus was born.
• 19:35
  There's no doubt about that.
• 19:36
  But I don't think he's objecting to our celebration on December 25th.
• 19:41
  That doesn't seem consistent with God.
• 19:45
  However, it might be helpful for us to think about when he was born.
• 19:50
  Now, we could go into a lot of detail, and we can trace this, and I'm not going to do it this time.
• 19:56
  I've done it before, but we can trace the time.
• 20:00
  Of the year of Jesus' birth through earlier events, like when Zachariah was serving in the temple and then went home and saw his wife Elizabeth.
• 20:14
  We know when that happened, what time of year it happened based upon the priestly schedule.
• 20:20
  He was a priest that served in the temple.
• 20:24
  We know that an extraordinary event happened when he was serving because it turned out to be his turn to go into the holy place.
• 20:34
  An angel met him there and told him about the birth of his son.
• 20:39
  We know that Mary traveled to visit Elizabeth.
• 20:43
  Quite a long journey, as one person said, uphill for about a hundred miles to see Elizabeth after the angel visited her and told her about the birth of Jesus.
• 20:55
  So there's really some fascinating things, and because we can trace when uh Zachariah was in the temple and then when John the Baptist was born, then we have a much better idea of what time of year Jesus was born.
• 21:10
  And we believe, based on all of that, that he was born in the fall, around about the time of the Feast of Tabernacles.
• 21:20
  Well, now that makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?
• 21:22
  Now this year, the Feast of Tabernacles was October 6th through 13.
• 21:29
  But the significant part of that is the Feast of Tabernacles.
• 21:33
  While it is a fall celebration and related to the harvest, the essential importance of it was that God was teaching the people that he wanted to dwell among them, to live among them.
• 21:46
  And that goes back to what I mentioned earlier when we're talking about the Feast of Tabernacles, that God wants to dwell with his people.
• 21:53
  So think about this.
• 21:55
  We talk about Emmanuel, God with us.
• 21:58
  We remind ourselves of that every year during Advent leading up to Christmas.
• 22:03
  And doesn't it make a lot of sense that Jesus would be born, that God would arrange events so that Jesus would be born during the Feast of Tabernacles when the people there were celebrating God being among us, and here comes Jesus to live among us.
• 22:23
  Or as one English translation says, he moved into the neighborhood.
• 22:28
  So probably Jesus was born mid-fall, end of September, sometime into October.
• 22:36
  We don't know exactly, but that's more likely.
• 22:39
  Now, that's the when, but what about the where?
• 22:43
  All right, well, we have clues from what we read, and and it would be easy.
• 22:47
  Most people would say Bethlehem, and they would be correct.
• 22:51
  That's what the Bible talks about.
• 22:53
  But there's a little bit more to it than simply Bethlehem.
• 22:58
  And we want to get into what that more to it is and why that's important, the significance of it, and the connection to Jesus' coming and Jesus' mission in coming.
• 23:12
  But let's begin here.
• 23:13
  Shepherds.
• 23:15
  What do we know about shepherds?
• 23:17
  Well, we know they took care of sheep.
• 23:19
  We know that that was a historic occupation.
• 23:23
  David, who later became King David, took care of sheep.
• 23:27
  So it's not unusual to the history of the Bible.
• 23:32
  Wouldn't have been unusual for the people of that day.
• 23:34
  It's a little more unusual for us because we don't have quite the connection, at least I don't.
• 23:40
  Some of us might have quite the connection to farming and to herding and taking care of cattle, sheep, other livestock.
• 23:48
  I get I get that we don't have that.
• 23:50
  But they did.
• 23:52
  So to say shepherds, they understood that, but what we might not realize, and we should is that shepherds were not highly respected in those days.
• 24:02
  In fact, you probably heard, and I thought this was interesting.
• 24:05
  Pastor Garlow made this comparison.
• 24:07
  I thought that's a good way to describe it.
• 24:09
  You may have heard there was a country song some time ago, and essentially what the song says is don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys.
• 24:17
  Maybe you remember that song.
• 24:20
  Well, I vaguely remember it, but the idea is that cowboying is not a profession to be encouraged or for a profession that sons should aspire to.
• 24:33
  Well, we can argue that, but we're not going to.
• 24:35
  That's beside the point.
• 24:36
  The point is this that just like the song says that about cowboys, that's the way people felt about shepherds in those days.
• 24:45
  It was not a highly respected profession.
• 24:48
  It was not something that people aspired to, although it was necessary, and important, especially in this case, because these were a different breed of shepherd.
• 25:03
  These were what you might call specialist shepherds.
• 25:08
  These shepherds were particularly well trained so that they could perform a vital function for the temple.
• 25:17
  Imagine, shepherds performing a vital function for the temple, and the temple is up the road five miles from Bethlehem.
• 25:24
  Well, we're going to get into what that vital function was when we come back in just a moment.
• 25:30
  In the meantime, I'm Pastor Rick.
• 25:32
  So glad you joined us.
• 25:33
  We'll be right back.
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• 31:15
  All right, welcome back.
• 31:16
  This is Pastor Rick Stevens, and I'm so glad you joined us for this edition of Faith Is because we're in the season of Advent, one of my favorite seasons, maybe many people's favorite season.
• 31:28
  We've been reminding ourselves about the importance of Advent, what we remember.
• 31:33
  And you know, I don't think we've talked about that this is faith is, and it's faith is because we understand that faith is absolute confidence in the trustworthiness of God.
• 31:46
  And all that we do here is to help us stretch toward that level of confidence, that ideal of faith.
• 31:55
  And so I hope that some of these details, while I I'm sure I disappoint some people because some of us had rather hang on to our nostalgia than not, and I'm sorry about that, but we've got to get real sometimes, and I hope getting real gives you better understanding a more solid foundation for your absolute confidence in the trustworthiness of God.
• 32:19
  Okay, so we started talking about fall feasts, we went into shepherds, and now we're getting a little deeper into that.
• 32:29
  We read the story of the shepherds from Luke, and I left off, we even left off talking about shepherds as being not a highly respected profession, but these were special shepherds that were gathered there outside Bethlehem.
• 32:44
  These were not normal shepherds, these were you might call them specialist shepherds.
• 32:49
  These were shepherds that took care of sheep, and those sheep were raised to be sacrificed.
• 32:56
  They were born to die.
• 32:58
  So they were particularly well aware of their vital role because they were raising and caring for sheep that would ultimately go up the road to the temple for sacrifice.
• 33:13
  So these were very well prepared, well-versed shepherds.
• 33:20
  Now, outside of Bethlehem, and when I visited Israel some time ago, we visited Shepherd's Field, and I kind of wondered what Shepherd's Field would be like.
• 33:31
  It's just a field, I guess.
• 33:33
  Well, that's true, it is, but I discovered something that made sense to me, and I don't know if it made sense to anybody else, but because I haven't heard other people talk about it.
• 33:43
  Uh but in the shepherd's field area, you can see rather small caves.
• 33:51
  Well, they're caves in that they are in the ground.
• 33:55
  You you can, and one in particular, I remember you you had to step down and into the area.
• 34:02
  It's not a cave like Mammoth Cave, if you're thinking that, don't think that.
• 34:06
  It's a little hard to describe because I've never seen anything like it any place else.
• 34:10
  Not that I'm all that good at describing stuff anyway, but anyway, you you kind of step into and down into this cave, and then back as you got into the cave, you would be sheltered from rain, from from the from the chill of the night, from whatever, but it was a good place.
• 34:25
  Uh, you're going to be out watching sheep.
• 34:27
  It was a good place to take refuge that night.
• 34:30
  So when I read in Luke that the shepherds were terrified, I'm thinking that's why they were terrified, because they were down in one of these caves, and when the angel appeared, they looked up, and there was no way where to run.
• 34:43
  They were terrified, they could not get away.
• 34:45
  They couldn't get out because they were kind of trapped in that cave.
• 34:48
  Well, that helps me understand why the shepherds are terrified, and and so I can think a little better of them because you wouldn't think they'd be terrified of an angel, although I think if you and I saw what they saw, we'd probably be a bit terrified as well.
• 35:04
  So, anyway, the real question we want to get to, and we want to ask and answer is how did the shepherds know where to find Jesus?
• 35:12
  You know, the angel gave them some specific instruction that and really gave them two distinct clues.
• 35:18
  How did they know where to find Jesus?
• 35:21
  Now, some people could say, well, Bethlehem is a small town.
• 35:24
  Yeah.
• 35:25
  In those days, ancient cities were small, very small compared to what we think of.
• 35:30
  But it's not that small.
• 35:32
  It's not like they knew everybody at every place in town.
• 35:36
  Plus, remember, there were people from all over in Bethlehem because they all had to go to their own city to be taxed.
• 35:45
  That was the decree.
• 35:46
  So there were a lot of people around, but how do they know just where to go to find Jesus?
• 35:51
  Now, in the text, there's no sense of hesitation, no sense of uncertainty.
• 35:57
  It was as if as soon as they heard the angel tell them that there will be a sign for them that they knew immediately and without question where to look.
• 36:08
  It's really kind of curious.
• 36:09
  When you look at it through that lens, that it kind of jumps out at you.
• 36:14
  It says, and this will be the sign to you.
• 36:18
  Verse 12, and this will be the sign to you.
• 36:22
  So it was specific to them.
• 36:26
  So maybe they did know immediately where to look.
• 36:29
  What helped these specialist shepherds find Jesus?
• 36:35
  But maybe more importantly, the pastoral question today is what will it take to help you find Jesus this Christmas?
• 36:45
  What will it take for you to finally realize Jesus is the Son of God?
• 36:53
  And we need to trust him.
• 36:56
  We need to change our lives and conform our lives to his teachings.
• 37:04
  We need to change our lives and believe the good news that here is a new king.
• 37:09
  And he is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and we need to follow him.
• 37:15
  When you follow the real king, you come out on top.
• 37:18
  You win in the end.
• 37:20
  Well, we saw that in the book of Revelation.
• 37:22
  So, all right, so what will it take to help you find Jesus this Christmas?
• 37:28
  I wish I knew.
• 37:29
  I wish I knew what I could say to you.
• 37:32
  That would that would you would know instantly.
• 37:35
  I'm gonna follow Jesus.
• 37:38
  But what I do know is that if the Spirit of God is talking to you, that's a what do we call that?
• 37:45
  That's a clue.
• 37:48
  And you need to hear what God says to you and heed what he's saying.
• 37:53
  So going back in the story, we've all heard that there was no room in the inn.
• 37:58
  All right, and so there have been lots of Christmas plays done and pageants performed, showing the innkeeper turning Mary and Joseph away.
• 38:07
  Well, uh, that that wouldn't have likely at all happened.
• 38:10
  We don't we don't think that's even close to what happened, how it got translated that way.
• 38:16
  I don't know.
• 38:17
  Is it gonna mess up my understanding of Christmas?
• 38:20
  No.
• 38:21
  But we know that there was no room for them, and they had to find a place.
• 38:26
  Now, a lot of people have talked about what kind of place it might have been.
• 38:29
  Maybe it was in the barn out back.
• 38:32
  Well, we I think we kind of say that because that's what we think of on our farms.
• 38:37
  I'm not so sure there was a barn out back.
• 38:40
  Uh and and some people have said, well, it wasn't a barn out back, it was more in the house because they had an area that that was set aside for the animals, so at night they would bring their animals in and give them shelter in a certain portion of the house where they would uh spend the night.
• 38:58
  And Mary and Joseph were invited in, but they had to share that area with the animals.
• 39:02
  Well, uh, we don't really think that's it at all.
• 39:07
  There's some significant clues, and I want us to re-imagine what it was like for where Jesus was born.
• 39:15
  Now the angel gave the shepherds two significant clues in verse 12.
• 39:21
  He said, You'll find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths.
• 39:24
  Some translations say clothes.
• 39:27
  Swaddling cloths, they were not a garment like a onesie that babies wear today.
• 39:32
  So, but they said you'd find a baby wrapped in swaddling claws, and you'd find the baby lying in a manger.
• 39:39
  And from those two clues, the shepherds took off as if they knew where they were going, and they likely did.
• 39:45
  Now, swaddling cloths were a specific type of material, and they used them for a specific purpose.
• 39:54
  Swaddling claws were the materials that shepherds remember these specialists shepherds.
• 40:00
  Shepherds would have known about because they would have wrapped the lambs destined for sacrifice in these swaddling cloths to protect them from harm, so that they were a perfect sacrifice when they were taken to the temple.
• 40:16
  So swaddling cloths were a specific type of material used for that specific purpose to protect lambs destined for sacrifice.
• 40:26
  It also mentioned lying in a manger.
• 40:30
  Well, we get the all romantic when we think about a manger with straw and baby laying there in a manger.
• 40:38
  But really, that Greek text is better translated to refer to a stall or even a birthing stall.
• 40:49
  So we have two very specific things a baby wrapped in swaddling claws, just like the sacrificial lambs, and a baby in a birthing stall.
• 41:02
  So where would the shepherds find that combination of swaddling claws and a birthing stall?
• 41:10
  Well, they knew exactly, likely without hesitation to go to Mygdal Eder, or sometimes it's Mygdal Eder.
• 41:18
  You'll see it both ways.
• 41:20
  Sometimes in the Bible, you'll see Eder, you might see Eder.
• 41:25
  It means watchtower of the flock.
• 41:28
  And it was a specific place there in the shepherd's field, about a mile up the road from Bethlehem.
• 41:35
  So it was about four miles from Jerusalem.
• 41:38
  But this was the place where shepherds used the facilities for the birthing of lambs destined for sacrifice and for caring for those flocks.
• 41:49
  It was a complex there called Mygdal Eder, and it was specifically referred to a tower that rose out of the ground.
• 41:59
  They built it there for them to watch the flocks.
• 42:03
  Now, a couple of things.
• 42:19
  Or you might think of it as the rabbinic Judaism commentary on the Old Testament.
• 42:26
  It's called the Mishnah.
• 42:28
  It was an oral tradition that went on, oral traditions meant it was recited over and over, and Mishnah means repetition.
• 42:37
  So this repeated oral tradition was finally written down and is called the Mishnah.
• 42:45
  The Targum is similar.
• 42:47
  It's an Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Bible.
• 42:52
  So the Bible that God's people had, the law and the prophets, they wrote that down in Aramaic during the time Israel was in captivity in Babylon during that 70 years.
• 43:06
  So we have the Mishnah, the oral law of the rabbinic commentary on the Old Testament, and we have the Targum, the Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Bible.
• 43:16
  Both the Mishnah and the Targum tradition teach us that Messiah would come to Mygdal Eder, or Mygdal Eder, again, whichever you discover and whichever you prefer.
• 43:32
  I probably will mix them up and say one or the other.
• 43:35
  You can catch me on that if you want.
• 43:37
  So those traditions, Mishnah and Targum, teach us that Messiah would come to Mygdal Eder.
• 43:46
  The missional the Mishnah also teaches us about the special sheep that I mentioned a moment ago that were prepared for sacrifice.
• 43:56
  Now, also it's interesting.
• 43:58
  A man named Jerome, you may have heard that name, maybe not, but around 300 AD, Jerome went to Bethlehem, and you can visit the place, the room where he spent his time translating the Bible into Latin.
• 44:13
  Now I remember going there and not being terribly impressed by all of that.
• 44:17
  It was just another old building.
• 44:19
  Well, that was kind of shallow of me, and I would take it very differently now that I've learned more.
• 44:26
  But Jerome was kind of a crusty fellow, kept to himself, he didn't get along with people very well, but he did a good translation of the Bible into Latin there at Bethlehem.
• 44:37
  And his translation identifies the location of the birth of Jesus as 100 paces from Bethlehem.
• 44:46
  Now, I'm not sure why he did that.
• 44:49
  I don't know what basis, but he had a basis because he did a serious translation.
• 44:54
  And 100 paces from Bethlehem is about a mile, which would have put Mygdal Eder exactly where it is, a mile up the road toward Jerusalem.
• 45:06
  So here we have this connection, this incredible connection of the place that Jesus would have been born.
• 45:15
  Now you might say, well, it says Bethlehem wasn't he born in town.
• 45:19
  Well, you've got to remember that these things referred to areas, and you probably probably remember Bethlehem Ephrata.
• 45:27
  Well, that's also important because that would have been a more specific region.
• 45:32
  So we don't think Mygdal Eder is at all out of the ordinary or out of the realm of possibility.
• 45:39
  The evidence is just more and more compelling that that was the place.
• 45:43
  We also know that Mygdal Eder was identified in the Old Testament.
• 45:50
  So if you read the story in Genesis chapter 35, you will discover that Rachel, wife of Jacob, died in childbirth, delivering Benjamin in that general area, not at Bethlehem, not at Mygdaliter, but it talks about how after Rachel died in childbirth and she was buried there, that Jacob moved on to Migdal Eder, or I think it says just beyond the tower of the flock, the Tower of Eder.
• 46:24
  Remember, Mygdaleter means watchtower of the flock, or as in the case of some English translations in Genesis, it says Tower of Eder.
• 46:33
  So we have lots of substantiation for this location.
• 46:39
  It's really quite fascinating.
• 46:41
  So when the shepherds heard the angels say this, can you imagine what fired off in their brains when they heard wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger or birthing stall?
• 46:57
  Better translation.
• 46:59
  And they would have left immediately and gone right to the place, which is what seems to have happened when you read the text.
• 47:06
  To have every detail, no.
• 47:08
  Do we have every reason to believe they went to Mygdaleter?
• 47:11
  Oh, absolutely.
• 47:12
  Compelling reasons, good reasons.
• 47:15
  Glad tidings, reasons.
• 47:18
  Now, don't miss the connections.
• 47:22
  Here is the place where lambs destined for sacrifice were carefully raised so that when they went to the temple in Jerusalem, they were acceptable for sacrifice.
• 47:36
  They were perfect lambs.
• 47:39
  And you remember in John, when John the Baptist talked about here comes Jesus, and he said, Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, Lamb of God.
• 47:52
  Can you imagine the Lamb of God being born at Mygdal?
• 47:58
  Peter, 1 Peter chapter 1, talks about a lamb without blemish or spot.
• 48:04
  Imagine the connections people would have made when they realized where Jesus was born.
• 48:11
  Or in 1 Corinthians, when talks about Christ, our Passover sacrificed for us, and we know that the lambs that were raised for sacrifice, including Passover, were right there at Mygdal Eder, and Jesus later died on a cross.
• 48:29
  Well, Passover lambs were being sacrificed just a short distance away.
• 48:34
  And of course, we remember from Revelation chapter 5.
• 48:38
  The cry went out to find someone who is worthy to take the scroll from the hand of God.
• 48:45
  And there was finally one identified that looked like a slaughtered lamb, the lamb of God.
• 48:54
  Now it's also a little bit even more intriguing because you remember I mentioned the cave idea that I saw at Shepherd's Field.
• 49:05
  Well, I recently saw a video that was taken on the site, because you can see the ruins, the remains of Mygdal Eder.
• 49:15
  It was a tower.
• 49:16
  The tower has been disassembled, and I understand it was disassembled carefully, every stone labeled and marked, but the stones have been put someplace, and I don't know where they are.
• 49:26
  I don't think it's public knowledge where they are.
• 49:29
  But in that same area, that same Mygdal Eder complex.
• 49:49
  A bigger cave area that is in all likelihood, the place where lambs were born.
• 49:58
  And there's every
• 50:00
  Reason to believe that that is the room.
• 50:03
  You walk down into that room, and that's the room where Jesus was born.
• 50:08
  Now, if you've gone to the church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, you would have gone downstairs to what we might call a basement area, and that's where they would have told you that's the historic or traditional site of Jesus' birth.
• 50:20
  Well, it's a nice room.
• 50:22
  It's impressive to look at, but it's probably not the place.
• 50:26
  But this other place that you can walk down.
• 50:30
  Not only that, but there was an archaeologist there when Pastor Garlow was visiting recently who has studied that area and who gave them further insight into that.
• 50:39
  And they have a picture of it as well.
• 50:42
  There is a bowl-shaped stone.
• 50:45
  I don't know how better to describe it, but a bowl-shaped stone that came from Migdaletter was probably, and this archaeologist said unequivocally, this is the stone where Jesus was placed, where he was lying in a manger.
• 51:06
  It's chilling to think about that.
• 51:08
  This archaeologist, and you know, if you know how these things work, you know that academics like archaeologists are not quick to be definitive.
• 51:17
  But he was a definitive.
• 51:19
  This is the stone.
• 51:20
  This is the place where Mary lay Jesus.
• 51:24
  It's just stunning.
• 51:26
  Now, there's a little more intriguing evidence that relates to all of this.
• 51:31
  We have an old map of ancient Israel that includes Bethlehem.
• 51:37
  The map is from 540 A.D.
• 51:40
  It's a mosaic.
• 51:45
  And it shows Jerusalem, and then it shows the location of Bethlehem.
• 51:51
  It's really quite interesting.
• 51:52
  I've seen pictures of this map.
• 51:54
  Haven't seen the actual map.
• 51:58
  There's Bethlehem, or and there's Jerusalem, about five miles apart.
• 52:03
  We know five miles.
• 52:05
  And between them, about a mile up the road on the way to Jerusalem, is a place that's identified as Migdal Eder.
• 52:15
  And there's a picture on this mosaic of a woman giving birth at Migdal Eder.
• 52:23
  You can't make this stuff up.
• 52:25
  This is just stunning to think what God is revealing to us in these days, that we know it was Migdaleter.
• 52:34
  We know there was a tower there because it was it was disassembled on purpose.
• 52:39
  We know that an archaeologist said this is the specific stone that was specifically formed for that birthing stall, and that's where Jesus was born.
• 52:53
  That's where his mother laid him down.
• 52:57
  Now I know, and you know that this is not elf on a shelf kind of stuff.
• 53:04
  I know and you know this is not the stuff of Christmas pageants at our churches.
• 53:11
  And we've had that before.
• 53:12
  We don't bring in live animals, but we have sometimes had children act out the Christmas story.
• 53:18
  It's just very common in churches.
• 53:20
  I've done a number of things over the years that I've been involved in.
• 53:24
  Some of them I wasn't involved in, and people just did.
• 53:26
  And we don't object to that.
• 53:29
  But now I've kind of well, I've kind of changed your view of all of that if you believe what the evidence points to.
• 53:38
  Now you can't ever see the story, the birth of Jesus the way you have before, because it's different.
• 53:46
  But I don't think that's a problem.
• 53:48
  I will still enjoy the portrayals I see of the Christmas story.
• 53:52
  Make no doubt about it.
• 53:54
  We all can do that.
• 53:56
  But isn't it stunning that Jesus who came to step into our world and to take our place in the covenant because we messed it up because of sin.
• 54:08
  And he came and he stepped in and he said, I will be the perfect sacrifice.
• 54:13
  Not only that, I will be born at the place, the watchtower of the flock, the very place where perfect sacrifices have been born for years and years.
• 54:25
  And I will be wrapped and swaddled to preserve the perfection, and I will grow in favor with God and man, and I will go to the cross and give my life so you don't have to.
• 54:42
  You see, you were born to live.
• 54:45
  All the way back in Genesis, God never intended for people to die.
• 54:49
  That's very clear.
• 54:50
  You were born to live.
• 54:51
  God wants you to live forever with him.
• 54:55
  God with us.
• 55:01
  But Jesus, Jesus was born to die so that we could live.
• 55:10
  Now I asked earlier, pardon me, I asked earlier what it would take for you to find Jesus without hesitation.
• 55:21
  Just as the shepherds went to find Jesus without hesitation, I asked the question, what will it take for you to find Jesus this Christmas?
• 55:31
  And I don't know the answer to that, but I'm convinced that if God is speaking to you now and there's a least little bit of doubt in your mind that you're his and he is yours, then he is prompting you, prodding you, pushing you, calling you and treating you to change your life and follow him.
• 55:55
  A lot of people want to believe the Christmas story and the truth of Jesus being born.
• 56:01
  But not many people want to give their lives to following him.
• 56:05
  If you're ready to give allegiance to Jesus, make your confession, make your commitment, and follow him today.