Tom Christmas lightings at Orchard Road, Christmas Tree at Raffles City and Christmas shopping for gifts. These have become synonymous of Christmas in Singapore. While the festive season gives us a time of rest and rejuvenation with our friends and loved ones, Christmas has also somewhat lost its original meaning and is now synonymous with Santa Claus and Coca Cola instead…
The Nativity Story in the Bible
The birth of Jesus Christ was described in both the Gospels of Matthew and Luke (Chpt 1,2) where some of the key events are known to us today as the “Nativity Story”
1. The birth of Christ was foretold in Isaiah and Micah:
– “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” (Isaiah 7:14)
– “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.” (Micah 5:2)
2. The Return to Bethlehem. Joseph and Mary, parents of Jesus, returned to Bethlehem (as he was from the line of King David) due to a census ordered by Caesar Augustus (Luke 2:1). As was no place at the inn, Jesus was born in the manger.
3. Wise men, Shepherds and Angels. Angels appeared to shepherds who were tending to their flock by night telling them about the birth of the Christ. The shepherds heeded the word of the angel and saw Jesus together with Joseph and Mary just as what they were told (Luke 2:16). Wise men from the east also sought after Jesus and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh – all of which costly gifts during their time (Matthew 2:11). The wise men probably knew of Jesus’ birth due to Daniel’s prophecy of the birth and death of the “anointed one” in (Daniel 9:25-27) – this was about 500 years before the birth of Christ. Daniel’s walk in the fiery furnace (Daniel 3) and the lion’s den (Daniel 6) would have cemented the wise men’s faith in Daniel’s prophecy.
4. King Herod tried to kill baby Jesus. As Jesus’ birth was prophesied as the “Messiah”, the “Christ” and the “anointed one”, King Herod, a king of Judea under the Roman authority, wanted to eradicate this possible threat to his own kingship by killing all the male children in Bethlehem and the region, who were 2 years old or younger. This fulfilled a prophecy in (Jeremiah 31:15) – “A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted because they are no more.”. Thankfully, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream to escape to Egypt. That too, fulfilled another prophecy from (Hosea 11:1) – “Out of Egypt, I called my son“.
Why is Jesus’ Birth Significant?
Enticed by the serpent, Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate a fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Genesis 3:1-6). By the way, we only know it as a “fruit” though many pictorial depictions today, depict the “fruit” as an apple.
As a result, sin entered the world. Together with serpent’s enticement and temptation of the world, man’s downfall had begun. However, right from the beginning, God had a redemption plan as stated in Genesis 3:15
“And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.”
And you’ve guessed it, the serpent “head crusher” was Jesus, the son of God. There are many other stories from the line of Abraham to Jacob to David, Solomon and eventually to Jesus. But the question is, are any of these even real?
Did Jesus Really Lived and Is the Bible Real?
If we used the stories in the Bible to argue for the life of Jesus, that would be a “circular argument” – The Bible is real therefore Jesus lived and because Jesus lived and died, it proves that the Bible is real. (??)
Hence, we have to look at external references and we do have quite a few non-Christian writers of the day who wrote about Jesus:
1. Flavius Josephus- A Jewish historian of the first Century . In AD 93, Josephus wrote about Jesus:
“About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who performed surprising deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah. And when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us, Pilate had condemned him to a cross, those who had first come to love him did not cease. He appeared to them spending a third day restored to life, for the prophets of God had foretold these things and a thousand other marvels about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.”
– Jewish Antiquities, book 18 chapter 3
“Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James”
– Jewish Antiquities, book 20 chapter 9
2. Thallus – A first century Greek historian. In AD 221,Julius Africanus cited a passage from Thallus who tried to explain the three hours of darkness during Jesus’ death.
“Thallus, in the third book of his histories, explains away this darkness as an eclipse of the sun-unreasonable, as it seems to me.”
3. Pliny the Younger – A second century Roman Politician. In AD 112, Pliny wrote to Emperor Trajan and he had this to say of Christians:
“They were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verse a hymn to Christ as to a god, and bound themselves to the solemn oath, not to do any wicked deeds, and never to deny a truth when they should be called upon to deliver it up”
There were many other references outside of the bible that confirms the life and death of Jesus as well as the early Christians. This meant that external sources had verified events in the bible, confirming its authenticity.
What does all this mean to me?
If the birth and death of Jesus as well as the authenticity of the Bible is true, could there really be a God who loves me and has provided a way back to Him through Jesus? Could Jesus really have risen from the dead as described in the Bible? Do miracles like this happen?
In 2015, the movie Breakthrough, described the rescue of a teenage boy who was underwater for 15 minutes. Based on a true story, the ice cold body of the boy, John Smith, was taken to a hospital where the medical team tried to resuscitate him after 43 minutes of CPR to his cold, lifeless body. At this point, he would have been clinically dead for almost an hour. John’s mother then came in an uttered a desperate prayer
“Holy Spirit, please come and give me back my son!”
At that moment, John’s heart started beating again. Although doctors gave low chance of survival and probably the loss of neurological function, John was able to answer questions within 48 hours and walked out of the hospital on his own 2 feet, 3 weeks later.
Miracles do happen. Even today. Miracles are God’s way of speaking to individuals and groups of people and they are often unable to be explained by scientific means.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
– John 3:16
“Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
– John 14:6
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.”
– Ephesians 2:8,9
This Christmas, we hope that you too will be able to receive this most precious and wonderful gift. Simply by believing in the redeeming grace of Jesus Christ and His miraculous resurrection from the dead.
Have a blessed Christmas and wonderful 2022 ahead everyone!
