Outside the Camp

In last Sunday’s blog entry, “The Christ­mas Myth”, we com­pared ele­ments of the pop­u­lar Nativ­ity story with what the Bible actu­ally says about the birth Jesus. In doing so I left out one major piece of the story — the shep­herds who visit Jesus. This was inten­tional; because as far as I can tell that aspect of the account is pretty much por­trayed in tra­di­tion accu­rately. But, there are some won­der­ful details that round out the pic­ture that are often over­looked when con­sid­er­ing this event. With that in mind this week I would like to take the time to look more closely at the Nativ­ity story in Luke’s Gospel.

In think­ing about the birth of the future King over Heaven and Earth we can barely think of a more mod­est set­ting for Jesus’ birth. He wasn’t born to a wealthy fam­ily. This is evi­dent because after his birth when Mary goes to the tem­ple for purifi­ca­tion she sac­ri­fices a pair of doves. (Luke 2:22) Accord­ing to the law of Moses this was the allowance if a per­son couldn’t afford to pur­chase a sheep. (Lev 12:8)

The city that wit­nesses the birth of the Lord was not overly promi­nent. It was just a small town liv­ing in the shadow of nearby Jerusalem. Though diminu­tive, it was notable for a few rea­sons. One was that the tomb of Rachel was just out­side the city. The town was also hon­ored as the birth­place of King David. Lastly, and most impor­tantly, Beth­le­hem was looked at as to be the birth­place of the promised Mes­siah. The gospel accounts of Matthew 2:5–6 and John 7:42 show that reli­gious teach­ers of the day were in expec­ta­tion of the mes­siah to come from Beth­le­hem. This was in view of a prophecy recorded in the book of Micah that read:

“But you, Beth­le­hem Ephrathah, Though you are lit­tle among the thou­sands of Judah, Yet out of you shall come forth to Me The One to be Ruler in Israel, Whose goings forth are from of old, From ever­last­ing.” — Micah 5:2

It is inter­est­ing then to con­sider how the birth of Jesus’ ful­filled this prophecy and how omnipo­tence of God is shown by his bring­ing his word to fruition exactly at the appointed time. Luke records that the fam­ily, orig­i­nally from Nazareth, was forced to travel their home to Beth­le­hem to com­plete a cen­sus reg­is­tra­tion. This was an unusual trip and one that a man with a very-pregnant bride-to-be would sel­dom under­take. But, the legal cir­cum­stances of the time forced them to make the jour­ney. When they arrived at Beth­le­hem it would have been cus­tom­ary to seek out a spot at a rel­a­tives house to stay. How­ever, with the cen­sus reg­is­tra­tion the town was inun­dated with trav­el­ing fam­i­lies and by the time Joseph and Mary arrive at their des­ti­na­tion they find the guest room was full. Rather than to be turned out in the cold they are found a place in the back of the house in the area nor­mally reserved for the fam­ily live­stock. It is then that Mary gives birth to the infant Jesus — right on time and in the very town des­ig­nated from Scrip­ture. Luke records the blessed event as follows:

And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Cae­sar Augus­tus that all the world should be reg­is­tered. This cen­sus first took place while Quirinius was gov­ern­ing Syria. So all went to be reg­is­tered, every­one to his own city. Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Beth­le­hem, because he was of the house and lin­eage of David, to be reg­is­tered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child. So it was, that while they were there, the days were com­pleted for her to be deliv­ered. And she brought forth her first­born Son, and wrapped Him in swad­dling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.” — Luke 2:1–7

In may seem strange and unusual for a mighty King to be born in a place where ani­mals were nor­mally kept and laid in manger; but, when we look at other scrip­tures it becomes the obvi­ous choice. In com­ing to the earth, as a man, the Son of God ful­filled many roles. One in par­tic­u­lar was as “the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29) Annu­ally, the nation of Israel cel­e­brated Passover which was fes­ti­val of deliv­er­ance. The cen­ter­piece of the obser­vance was the Passover lamb, an unblem­ished lamb that was sac­ri­ficed at the tem­ple for use in the Passover meal. Peter com­pares Jesus to such a lamb when he writes that we were ran­somed, “with the pre­cious blood of Christ, as of a lamb with­out blem­ish and with­out spot.” (1 Peter 1:19) Sim­i­larly Paul suc­cinctly says, “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sac­ri­ficed.” (1 Cor 5:7, NIV) With this rich sym­bol­ism in mind we can not think of a more appro­pri­ate place for the birth of our sav­ior but in the area of the fam­ily house were the valu­able ani­mals were kept.

That Jesus arrives at birth as the anti­typ­i­cal passover lamb also directly ties into the next part of the story — the arrival of the shep­herds. Let’s look at what the gospel of Luke says:

“Now there were in the same coun­try shep­herds liv­ing out in the fields, keep­ing watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. 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. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Sav­ior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swad­dling cloths, lying in a manger.”
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, good­will toward men!”
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.” And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger Now when they had seen Him, they made widely known the say­ing which was told them con­cern­ing this Child. And all those who heard it mar­veled at those things which were told them by the shep­herds. — Luke 2:8–18

That shep­herds were hon­ored to be among the first to wit­ness the birth of the Mes­siah is per­fectly fit­ting in light of Jesus’ being the lamb of God. How­ever, there is the inter­est­ing pos­si­bil­ity that these were no ordi­nary shep­herds watch­ing no ordi­nary flock. Alfred Eder­sheim makes an inter­est­ing suggestion.

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 Migdal Eder, ‘the tower of the flock.’ This Migdal Eder was not the watch­tower for the ordi­nary flocks which pas­tured on the bar­ren sheep­ground 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. … 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.” (Eder­sheim, Jesus the Mes­siah 1.187.)

It is an excit­ing propo­si­tion that the shep­herds that are spo­ken of in Luke were the very same in watch over the passover lambs at Migdal Eder. If so it would cer­tainly be fit­ting for the angels to appear to them and announce the birth of the anti­typ­i­cal passover lamb — Jesus Christ. At the begin­ning of our dis­cus­sion we looked at the prophecy of Micah that pinned the birth of the mes­siah to Beth­le­hem. While Micah 5:2 is often the pas­sage in focus when look­ing at the birth of Jesus it is actu­ally part of larger prophecy con­cern­ing the com­ing of the sav­ior of Israel and the deliv­er­ance of the nation. A par­tic­u­larly inter­est­ing pas­sage, and pos­si­ble prophetic link to the shep­herds in the field, is recorded at Micah 4:8:

And you, O tower of the flock [hebrew, Migdal Eder], The strong­hold of the daugh­ter of Zion, To you shall it come, Even the for­mer domin­ion shall come, The king­dom of the daugh­ter of Jerusalem.” — Micah 4:8

Luke’s Nativ­ity account con­cludes say­ing, “But Mary trea­sured up all these things and pon­dered them in her heart. The shep­herds returned, glo­ri­fy­ing and prais­ing God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.” (Luke 2:19,20) Now some 2,000 years later, like Mary, we are still trea­sur­ing these things in our heart. We also join with the shep­herds in glo­ri­fy­ing and prais­ing God for bring­ing the per­fect, pre­cious Lamb into the world, whose blood redeemed and deliv­ered us from the bonds of sin.