IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 179

YES, HE is Talking to YOU! (continued)

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

We have finished our thoughts on John the Baptist and in doing so we should clearly see the mission that he had in bringing to the world the first Light of the teachings of the Master. He was a bridge between the old and worn Jewish way of looking at man’s relationship to God, of reliance on the priests and the learned holy men as guides, of the ideas of the law and atonement; and the new dispensation of Light and Love and GoodWill to be expressed by all who desire to journey on the Path. In the brief words that we know of from the Baptist we see the beginning of the  ideas which are further expressed by Jesus in his teaching parables; ideas of repentance to change, giving of oneself for others, being fair and honest and righteous, seeking at all times peace and having a true sense of humility. John paved and made straight the the way for the continuation of the new doctrine of Love which the world was ready to receive. It is likely that many, both Jews and gentiles, were crying out for more Light and were seeking the ways of God but were finding only the priests and the Pharisees who were turning them back to the what they knew as the tried and true and which was, at the same time, practiced superficially.

The Great Plan being put into motion is in the words that we have been studying for the last several posts from the writings of Luke and the Apostle John and in the persons of Zacharias and his wife Elisabeth, Mary the Mother of the Lord, the Angel Gabriel and of course John and Jesus. We continue now with the story of Jesus’ human father-figure Joseph along with some additional ideas which lead up to the birth of the Master. Matthew tells us that: “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a publick example, was minded to put her away privily. But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins. Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying,  Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us. Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife: And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS” (Matthew 1:18-26).

Now this follows rather neatly with the version from the Gospel of Luke where “…..the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest…..” (Luke 1:26-31). Matthew shows us here again what we have spoken about in previous posts; nothing happens in this sequence of events leading up to the birth of Jesus by accident. All of those involved, Elisabeth, Mary, Zacharias and Joseph had their roles as their destiny. In this Great Drama of the Nativity of the Lord there are chosen Souls that are close to or are in the Presence of God and who, through the mystery of the way in which spiritual things work, are born to their special purposes. The visit of the angel to Joseph, his vision, should be seen in the same way as we should see the role of the dumbness inflicted upon Zacharias and the lengthy stay by Mary with Elisabeth; all are used as an assurance that the flesh would stand aside and let the Soul’s purpose do its work.

The rest of this story we leave for Christmas Day; all of the groundwork has been laid. The Baptist is born to Zacharias and Elisabeth and Mary and Joseph are together and awaiting the birth of the Master. The plan is in motion and there is nothing that can stop it.

There is much confusion and debate on the timing of the birth of Jesus; not the day only but the year as well and there is also much mystery regarding the two versions of the genealogy of Jesus found in the Gospels of Matthew and of Luke. Let us spend a few minutes exploring these issues. As to the day chosen to celebrate we should see that there is really no way to pinpoint it exactly as there is not a written document that proclaims the date and time as we have today. Many theories abound regarding the date and to name a few as example may be useful:

• It is the day of the Roman Winter Solstice of which we read:  In 46 BCE Julius Caesar in his Julian calendar established December 25 as the date of the winter solstice of Europe*. It is at this solstice that persons in the northern hemisphere see as the return of  the Sun or as next, it’s birth.
• It is intended to conflict with a pagan winter festival; Rev. Hartdegen writes that: From the fourth century the liturgical feast of the Savior’s Birth has bee observed on December 25, but the choice of time was obviously made in order to counteract the pagan “dies natalis solis invicti” or the birth of the sun, with the commemorative birthday of the Incarnate Son of God¹⁰. This view is based upon numerous early Christian writings.
• It is based on some elaborate calculations that were assumed to establish this as the actual date as  we read in this about St. John Chrysostom who preached a sermon in Antioch c. 386 which established the date of Christmas as December 25 on the Julian calendar since the conception of Jesus (Luke 1:26) had been announced during the sixth month of Elisabeth’s pregnancy with John the Baptist (Luke 1:10-13) as dated from the duties Zacharias performed on the Day of Atonement during the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar Ethanim or Tishri (Lev. 16:29, 1 Kings 8:2) which falls in September–October**.

We could go on but the above should suffice to show that there is no certain date nor any certain reason for the date chosen, December 25, and many place the Master’s birth in different months based upon other criteria such as the winter season not being favorable to the census nor for the presence of shepherds in the fields at night, they  cite the birth month as being in October or November¹⁰.

Much the same is the debate and the confusion regarding the year of the Master’s birth which is generally placed in a range of from 7 to 2 BC and there is no need to get into the minutia of this argument as it follows along in the same way as the day of the year, that is that there many opinions and no way to ascertain which might be correct. The same can be said regarding the genealogy of Jesus , here we have the writings of Matthew and of Luke but they do not agree. Both trace the Master’s ancestry to King David from which line He is prophesied to come but both use different lists and different names to do so. Again, we could go through these various arguments and explanations and would likely come away no better idea than we currently have; the problem here is that there are written records which are perhaps intentionally different so as to dissuade ideas that these gospels are  inerrant. Perhaps too, they are both right but do look upon the matter each from a different perspective.

The long and short of it is that the date and the time of Jesus’ birth does not matter in the least and, from a spiritual perspective, neither does the celebration of it. The True celebration of the birth of the Christ would be better fixed with each one of us as the day that the Christ was Truly born in our hearts; when our conscious personalities Truly accepted the Light of the Soul, the Christ Within, as our guiding Light. This is the reality of being Born Again and it is from this moment on that one’s Life becomes the Life of an aspiring disciple of the Lord who then continually strives toward and seeks out the Kingdom of the Father.

For any of us who genuinely seek to follow the Master, to keep His words and to do His work, none of these things, the day, the year nor the lineage, matter in the least. That Jesus genealogical line is from David should only matter to the Jews or to those that seek to show that the prophesies of the Old Testament are true. We who today follow the Master accept the 25 th of December as the commemoration of His birth and we understand that it is not possible to tell the year from the information that we have; we know also that it is likely that Jesus is somehow a descendant of King David though we are not at all sure of how that may be. And, with the virgin birth placing him securely in the rank of the Son of God, His family tree is actually of no moment to us at all.

We will conclude our look at these events of the Christmas Season in our Christmas post tomorrow.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Note on the Quote of the Day