The Birth Of Jesus Christ

The Birth of Jesus Christ

Every year at Christmas the story is told again. The angel Gabriel visiting a young woman in Nazareth. A long journey to Bethlehem on a donkey. A stable because there was no room in the inn. Shepherds startled by angels in the night sky. Wise men following a star from the east. A manger where a baby slept. The story is so familiar, so deeply woven into the fabric of global culture, that it is possible to hear it a thousand times without ever being stopped in your tracks by the sheer staggering weight of what it is actually saying.

Because what the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke are describing is not primarily a touching story about a poor family and a humble beginning. They are describing the most extraordinary event in the history of the universe, the moment when the God who created everything, in whom all things hold together, through whom and for whom all things exist, became a human infant. The Creator entered His creation. The infinite became finite. The eternal entered time. The one who upholds all things with His powerful word needed His mother to hold Him while He learned to nurse.

If that is not the most astonishing thing you have ever heard then familiarity has done what it so often does, it has dulled the senses to the extraordinary. This study is an invitation to encounter the birth of Jesus Christ with fresh eyes, to see again what the Gospel writers were actually describing and to receive once more the full weight of what it means that God came.

The Announcement to Mary: Gabriel Visits Nazareth

Luke 1:26-38 records the most important announcement ever made to a human being. The angel Gabriel, who had already announced the birth of John the Baptist to Zechariah in the temple, was sent by God to a town called Nazareth in Galilee, to a young woman named Mary who was pledged to be married to a man named Joseph of the house of David.

Nazareth was a small and unremarkable town, "Can anything good come from Nazareth?" was apparently a saying in circulation (John 1:46). Mary was a young woman of no particular social standing or political significance. The combination of an unremarkable town and an ordinary young woman was the setting God chose for the most world-altering announcement in human history. This is deeply consistent with how God consistently operates throughout Scripture, choosing the unlikely, the ordinary and the overlooked for His most extraordinary purposes.

Gabriel's greeting to Mary is startling: "Greetings you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you." Luke 1:28. Mary was greatly troubled at the greeting, not because she was ungodly or fearful in a negative sense but because the greeting was unprecedented. "Highly favored" the Greek word kecharitomene, indicates that she had been the recipient of God's grace in a specific and extraordinary way. She was trying to understand what kind of greeting this could be.

Gabriel's announcement that followed explained everything and introduced more mystery simultaneously: "You will conceive and give birth to a son and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David and he will reign over Jacob's descendants forever; his kingdom will never end." Luke 1:31-33.

Mary's question was entirely reasonable: "How will this be since I am a virgin?" Luke 1:34. She was not expressing unbelief as Zechariah had, she was asking a genuinely practical question about mechanism. Gabriel's answer did not explain a mechanism, it declared a miracle: "The Holy Spirit will come on you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God." Luke 1:35.

And Mary's response, one of the most beautiful expressions of faith in all of Scripture, was complete surrender: "I am the Lord's servant. May your word to me be fulfilled." Luke 1:38. The most consequential yes in all of human history was spoken by a young woman in an unremarkable town who chose trust over the enormous personal risk and social cost that her acceptance of this calling would involve.

Mary and Elizabeth: Two Miraculous Pregnancies

Luke records that Gabriel had also told Mary about her older relative Elizabeth, herself miraculously pregnant with John the Baptist in her old age, and Mary went to visit her. The meeting of these two women, each carrying within her a miraculous child, is one of the most tender scenes in the birth narratives.

When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting the baby leaped in her womb, an extraordinary event that Luke's Gospel later identifies as John the Baptist's first prophetic act, his prenatal recognition of and response to the presence of the Messiah carried in Mary's womb. Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and cried out: "Blessed are you among women and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" Luke 1:42-43.

Mary's response was the magnificent song of praise recorded in Luke 1:46-55, the Magnificat. It is a song saturated in Old Testament language and theology, reflecting a young woman whose mind was deeply formed by Scripture and who understood the birth of her child in the context of everything God had been doing throughout Israel's history. She praised God for regarding the humility of His servant. She celebrated His power, His holiness and His faithfulness to His covenant promises. She declared that all generations would call her blessed. And she saw in the coming of her son the fulfillment of everything God had promised to Abraham and his descendants.

Joseph's Response: A Righteous Man's Difficult Night

Matthew's birth narrative focuses primarily on Joseph rather than Mary, and it begins at the moment of his most devastating discovery. Joseph had found out that Mary was pregnant before they had come together in marriage. Matthew 1:19 records his response: "Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace he had in mind to divorce her quietly."

This verse reveals the character of Joseph in a few words, he was righteous (faithful to the law) and merciful (not wanting to expose her to disgrace). He resolved to do the minimum that righteousness required while protecting Mary as much as possible. He had not yet decided to trust the impossible explanation that she was pregnant by the Holy Spirit.

But before he acted on his decision an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream with the explanation and the commission: "Joseph son of David do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son and you are to give him the name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins." Matthew 1:20-21.

The name Jesus, the Greek form of the Hebrew Joshua, means the Lord saves. The angel was announcing not just a birth but a mission: this child would save His people from their sins. Not from Roman occupation as many expected the Messiah to do. From sins, the deepest and most fundamental human problem that no political or military solution could address.

Matthew then notes that all this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet Isaiah: "The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and they will call him Immanuel which means God with us." Matthew 1:23. God with us. This is the meaning of Jesus' birth at the most fundamental theological level, the coming of God to be personally, physically, humanly present with the people He created and loves.

Joseph woke from his dream and did what the angel had commanded, he took Mary home as his wife. His obedience, like Mary's, was immediate and complete, a remarkable act of faith given how far the circumstances exceeded anything in his prior experience of God.

The Journey to Bethlehem: Caesar's Decree and God's Purposes

Luke 2:1-5 introduces the political context that would determine the location of Jesus' birth: "In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. And everyone went to their own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea to Bethlehem the town of David because he belonged to the house and line of David."

The sovereign God used the decree of a pagan emperor to accomplish His prophetic purposes. The prophet Micah had written 700 years earlier: "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. The Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem, the city of David. Mary and Joseph lived in Nazareth. The means by which God arranged for the birth to happen in the right place was the census decree of the most powerful ruler on earth.

This is one of the most striking demonstrations of divine sovereignty in the entire nativity story, God working through the ordinary instruments of political power and census-taking to accomplish purposes that the Roman emperor had no awareness of. Caesar thought he was registering his empire. God was directing the birth of His Son to the place prophetically appointed centuries before either of them existed.

The Birth: No Room in the Inn

Luke 2:6-7 records the birth itself with remarkable brevity: "While they were there the time came for the baby to be born and she gave birth to her firstborn a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger because there was no guest room available for them."

No guest room available. The Creator of the universe was born into a world that had no room for Him, a reality that John would later express in theological terms: "He came to that which was his own but his own did not receive him." John 1:11. The manger, a feeding trough for animals, became the first bed of the one through whom all things were created and for whom all things exist. The contrast between who He was and the circumstances of His birth is so extreme that it almost defies comprehension.

The wrapping in cloths, the swaddling cloths, was ordinary infant care of the time. Mary attended to the ordinary physical needs of this extraordinary child the way every mother attends to every newborn, with the tenderness and the practical care that new life requires. God incarnate needed to be wrapped warmly and laid somewhere safe. The infinite had become entirely, vulnerably dependent on the finite love of a teenage mother in a borrowed stable.

The Shepherds: Good News for the Overlooked

The announcement of the birth of the Messiah was made not to the religious establishment in Jerusalem, not to the political leaders in Rome or Herod's court, not to the wealthy or the socially prominent. It was made to shepherds in a field outside Bethlehem, workers who were among the least respected members of Jewish society, whose occupation made them ceremonially unclean and whose testimony was not considered legally reliable.

Luke 2:8-14 records the extraordinary announcement: an angel of the Lord appeared to them surrounded by the glory of God and they were terrified. The angel said: "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."

A baby in a manger, the sign given to verify the identity of the Messiah was the most unexpected and most undignified possible sign. And then suddenly there was with the angel a great company of the heavenly host praising God and saying "Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests." Luke 2:13-14.

The shepherds went immediately, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has told us about" found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in the manger exactly as they had been told, and returned glorifying and praising God. The first evangelists of the birth of Jesus were shepherds, people whom the religious world of their day overlooked and marginalized, going back to their fields full of joy after encountering the Savior of the world in a borrowed stable. This is the Gospel pattern established from the very first moments of Jesus' life.

The Wise Men: The World Comes to the King

Matthew 2:1-12 records the visit of the Magi, "wise men from the east" who had observed an extraordinary star and interpreted it as the sign of the birth of the King of the Jews. The precise identity of the Magi, their number, their country of origin, their specific discipline of learning, is not stated in Matthew's account. What is clear is that they were Gentiles, non-Jewish scholars from a distant land, who recognized the significance of the sign in the sky and undertook a long and costly journey to honor the one it announced.

Their arrival in Jerusalem created immediate political disturbance, "When King Herod heard this he was disturbed and all Jerusalem with him." Matthew 2:3. The chief priests and teachers of the law directed them to Bethlehem based on the Micah 5:2 prophecy. And the star they had seen appeared again, leading them specifically to the place where the child was.

Matthew 2:10-11 records their response: "When they saw the star they were overjoyed. On coming to the house they saw the child with his mother Mary and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold frankincense and myrrh." Three gifts, each one theologically suggestive: gold for a king, frankincense for a priest and myrrh for one who would die in sacrifice.

The wise men represent something profound in the nativity story, the coming of the nations to the King. The birth of Jesus was not for Israel alone but for all people. From the very beginning of His life the Gentile world was drawn to bow before Him. The universal scope of the Gospel, all nations, every people, every tongue, was foreshadowed in the arrival of the Magi at the manger.

Why the Birth of Jesus Matters: Theological Significance

1. The Incarnation: God Became Human

John 1:14 states the theological heart of the nativity with extraordinary compression: "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." The Word, the eternal divine Logos through whom all creation was made, became flesh. Not appeared to be flesh. Not inhabited a human body while remaining essentially separate from it. Became flesh, genuinely, fully, completely human while remaining genuinely, fully, completely divine.

This is the doctrine of the Incarnation, one of the most carefully defined and most centrally important doctrines of Christian faith. Jesus was not half-God and half-human. He was fully God and fully human simultaneously, two complete natures in one person. He experienced hunger, thirst, exhaustion, grief and temptation as genuinely as any human being while never ceasing to be the eternal Son of God. The birth narratives are the story of how that extraordinary reality entered human history.

2. God Came to Save: Not Just to Teach

Matthew 1:21 declares the purpose of Jesus' birth with unmistakable clarity: "He will save his people from their sins." Jesus did not come primarily as a moral teacher, a social reformer or a spiritual example, though He was all of those things. He came as a Savior, one whose mission was the rescue of human beings from the fundamental problem that no human effort could solve. The name Jesus, given by divine command, announced His mission before He had drawn His first breath.

3. God is With Us

Matthew 1:23 identifies Jesus as the fulfillment of Isaiah's Immanuel prophecy: "God with us." Every aspect of the nativity story is an expression of this fundamental reality, God coming to be with His people not from a safe divine distance but in the most intimate, vulnerable and human form possible. The God who created us came to live among us, to experience our world from the inside, to know our suffering from within and to be present with us in a way that no divine visitation or angelic appearance could achieve.

What the Birth of Jesus Means for You Today

The birth of Jesus happened once, in a specific town, in a specific stable, on a specific night two thousand years ago. But its meaning is not confined to that night. The Immanuel who was born in Bethlehem is the same Jesus who promised "Surely I am with you always to the very end of the age." The God who came is the God who stays, present with every believer through His Spirit in every circumstance, every season and every moment of daily life.

The God who made room for Himself in a borrowed stable because the world had no room for Him is the God who makes Himself available to every person who will receive Him, regardless of their social status, their past failures or their sense of unworthiness. The shepherds received the announcement first. The Magi came from outside Israel. The stable was the most unlikely birthplace imaginable for the King of the universe. From the very beginning the birth of Jesus declared that no one is too ordinary, too foreign or too insignificant to receive the Savior who came for all.

Conclusion: The Night That Changed Everything

The birth of Jesus Christ is the hinge on which all of human history turns. Not because it was the birth of a remarkable person who would teach and inspire, remarkable as that would have been. But because it was the birth of God in human flesh, the moment when the eternal entered time, when the infinite became finite, when the Creator submitted Himself to the experience of His own creation so that He could save it from within rather than manage it from without.

God came. That is the message of Christmas. God came, to a stable, to shepherds, through a young woman's yes and an old man's obedience, wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. And He is still coming today, to every person who, like the shepherds, goes to find Him where He has promised to be found and returns from that encounter glorifying and praising God.

Reflection

What aspect of the birth of Jesus most moves you or most challenges you, the vulnerability of the Incarnation, Mary's surrender, Joseph's obedience, the shepherds' response or the wise men's costly worship? And how does the name Immanuel, God with us, speak specifically into whatever circumstances you are currently facing?

Share your thoughts and reflections in the comments below!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Was Jesus really born on December 25th?

The Bible does not specify the exact date of Jesus' birth. December 25th as the celebration date was established by the early church, likely in the 4th century, for reasons that are historically debated. The shepherds being in the fields with their flocks at night (Luke 2:8) has led some scholars to suggest a spring or autumn birth was more likely since shepherds typically kept their flocks outdoors in warmer months. The date of the celebration is secondary to the reality of the event, that the Son of God was born of a virgin in Bethlehem in fulfillment of prophecy, which is well-established historically.

How many wise men were there?

Matthew 2 does not specify the number of Magi. The tradition of three wise men derives from the three gifts mentioned (gold, frankincense and myrrh), but Matthew does not state how many men brought those gifts. Eastern traditions sometimes suggest twelve Magi. The number three is tradition not Scripture and should be understood as such.

What is the significance of the virgin birth?

The virgin birth is theologically significant for several reasons. It is the means by which the Son of God entered human nature without inheriting the fallen sinful nature transmitted through normal human generation, enabling Him to be genuinely human while also being genuinely sinless. It fulfills Isaiah 7:14's prophecy of the sign of a virgin-born son. And it demonstrates that Jesus' origins are from above, from God, rather than merely from human biological processes, establishing His identity as the unique Son of God before His ministry even begins.

A Short Prayer

Lord Jesus thank You for coming. Thank You for the extraordinary condescension of leaving the glory of heaven to enter a borrowed stable so that the world You created would have a Savior. Thank You for choosing the ordinary, an unremarkable town, an ordinary young woman, shepherds in a field, to accomplish the most extraordinary thing the universe has ever witnessed. Help me to receive You afresh today, not as a familiar story I have heard many times but as the living God who is still with me, still Immanuel, still the Savior who came and who stays. Amen.

Continue Reading: The baby born in Bethlehem grew into the teacher, healer and Savior whose ministry transformed the world. Discover everything Jesus did during His earthly ministry by reading our complete study on The Ministry of Jesus Christ and trace the extraordinary life that began in that Bethlehem stable.

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