It's a delight to be with you. I do love this church, and I've gotten to know some of you very well. And let me just say that I and we at the Shepherd Seminary and at the church, along with you, are absolutely delighted at God's sweet providence in the life of your church and your pastor. We were a little bit devastated along with you when we heard of the diagnosis and to trace God's sweet providences and see how, and you know, praise God for common grace. You know, there are people who have developed some remarkable abilities and so on medically, and they won't give God the glory, but I will. That was God who enabled that. So greetings, and what a delight to be with you. And we do find ourselves in the, it doesn't exactly sneak up on us in our culture, but here we are in that season of the year when, I think very appropriately, we focus our minds on that blessed narrative of the nativity. You know, it's interesting, you have, and by the way, I believe there is a set of, what's that all about? I'll explain that. Oh, yeah, there's where you go to get the sermon notes. No, that's great. I do have some notes. It's interesting that you have, in Matthew and in Luke, you have these really blessed nativity narratives, and they fit together so well, and I'd love to deal with that, but we're gonna look at both of them. It's interesting that John, writing some decades later, sums the whole story up in these simple but bottomlessly blessed and profound and mysterious words. The word became flesh. And let me just say concerning that, number one, to me that's such an interesting illustration of the dynamic between the Gospels. Because those four Gospels were carefully orchestrated, penned, holy men of God spake as they were born along by the Spirit of God, and we have these four Gospels which together give us exactly the full portrait of the life of our Savior that God intends us to have. But have you ever thought of John, writing late, is very carefully supplementing and he knows you've got the other three Gospels. And I always think this, if you didn't have Matthew and Luke, how meaningless would be the phrase, the Word became flesh? But in point of fact, because you have that narrative, and John knows you have that narrative, and he is on to other things, and so he blessedly just sums up the Nativity narrative with that phrase. And I want to come back to that for just a moment, because, folks, listen. There is bottomless mystery and blessedness in the person of the God-man. Amen and amen. And as I always say, when we encounter that which transcends our capacity to fully understand, our obligation is to bow the knee to all that the Bible says. And the Bible says, Jesus was God, very God, and he took upon himself genuine humanity, became man, very man. Amen and amen, right? I wonder if we wonder as we ought. I don't know that God has ever set before mankind a truth statement that more immediately and thoroughly drives us to our knees in happy wonder, and humility than this, the word became flesh. But that is the blessed reality and we have it spelled out for us in, I mean, laid out in such a beautiful fashion in those two nativity narratives. Now, let me just say, all right, let me see if I can, all right, now listen. Forgive the, there is hubris in this, okay? But it's generous hubris. I have just a Dropbox file where I have a whole lot of material that I upload. Anybody ever wants to look at it, you're interested in the life of Jesus, there are a lot of things there. I teach this and so if you're interested in that, that'll be on the screen for just a moment, it's yours. I always say that there's probably a lot better material out there, but I can't give the other guys away. I can give this away, okay? So you're welcome to it. It's just a lot of audio and video stuff and notes. All right. Now having said that, let me get to the nub of what's at stake here this morning. I listen. It's a little bit dicey to return to that so blessed and familiar narrative of the Nativity and suggest that I can give you an insight that you didn't have before. But that's what I'm going to try and do. And I'm going to ask you to sort of rethink the Nativity story on three particulars. And that's the nub of my message to you this morning. But let me say that what's at stake most fundamentally is that I think we tend to read that story, at least in terms of our own culture, And beyond that, perhaps, in terms of Christmas cards, you know what I'm saying? And it is so important in all of the scriptures, learn to read the Bible in terms of its own culture. I could spend a lot of time with that, but I'm going to try to point out some specific areas in which, when you read the Nativity narrative, In terms of its own culture, there is a really important dynamic element of the story that I think is almost universally underappreciated, if not neglected. So that's where I'm taking it. I want to rethink the story in three particulars. And here it is. Number one, and this is on your notes. I'm going to follow the printed notes if you have access to that. I say, number one, concerning the relationship between Mary and Joseph, and quite simply, the point is that they were man and wife. Why is that an issue? Because what the Bible says is that Mary was betrothed. That's the standard word. The old King James. you know, read to King James and man enough to admit it, for heaven's sakes. But, you know, the old King James word was espoused, which is really a good word. They were man and wife. Now, the confusion arises because we look at that word betrothed in many cases, and in some versions it was actually translated engaged. The NIV has pledged. Well, let me ask you something. I hope this doesn't excite any unhappy memories, but what does it take to break an engagement? One bad dinner, right? You're out of here. But what does it take to break a betrothal? It takes a divorce. They were husband and wife. All right, now why is that important? And here's where we have to step in to the culture of first century Judaism. And I say that, and that's why, well, I'll just say, let's talk about marriage. You know, I mentioned a minute ago that It's so important to read the Bible in terms of its own culture. It takes some work. And I would really encourage you to spend time learning that culture. There are good ways to do it. Here is a good place to start. Here are two good places to start as you study that culture, weddings and funerals. because they are so different, so entirely different from our culture, and they show up so often in the record, word pictures and so on. So let's think about marriage in a first century Jewish setting. And by the way, in a 21st century Hasidic Jewish culture. And so here's the point. Jewish wedding was, it was, there were two very important stages. And to make this as simple and as quick as I can, let's say that we have two clans here. Now, a clan, that's another thing, by the way. If you're going to understand the Bible in terms of its own culture, Old and New Testament, you have to think in terms of a clan culture. Oh, I'd go on for this forever. But they lived as a clan, an expanded family. So let's say here's a clan, and you have a young woman of marriageable age, and here's another clan nearby, perhaps, but they have a young man of marriageable age. And so now, by one means or another, the young man or his family is interested in this young woman. And so, and by the way, real quickly, the reality of the claim, you see, Even when they're living under this or that government, the government has no practical day-by-day function in the lives of anybody. It's the Klan that keeps you safe. It's the Klan that gives you dignity. And you want your Klan to grow large and so on. Remember Abraham, Genesis 14, when Lot was carried off by the king? Did Abraham call 9-1-1 call the police. Nobody's answering that phone. So he had to put together his militia and chase him. That's what you do. That's what a clan does. So and by the way, this clan has born a young lady. Well, you want your clan to grow and the only way to make that happen is to have kids. And that's why they married rather young. They're going to live as part of the clan. So they're not going to be as independent as we think today. But as soon as they're physically able to have kids, get busy doing it, for heaven's sake. And so you've had a young daughter. And what's going to happen is you're going to raise and invest in her. Then she's going to go strengthen somebody else's clan. I'm told that in a Jewish setting, especially in the first century, perhaps, or in the Bible times, that when a family was expecting, the mother, the birth mother, would be with the midwives and so on, and the husband, the father, would be waiting to hear the news with some of his friends. And if it was a boy, they would kind of, the midwives would come out and whisper in the ears of the men, and they would kind of fight to get the first one to get, and give him this good news, and then they'd come in dancing. It was a daughter. they do the same thing and whisper in the ears of the men gathered and they would just put their coats on and go home and leave him to, you know, cry in his soup. Now, that's not because they didn't love their daughters. It was because their daughter is going to, that's why the bride price. Does that make sense to you? So, and I go back to my illustration. So what happens is someone from this clan, this is the grooms, the young man's clan, someone who knows the young man well, And he is dispatched by the family and by the elders of the clan to approach the family and the elders of this clan. And if they determine that, indeed, these young people are going to be married, and it is true, these were arranged marriages, and they may not have met until they stand there. But I will say this, that we regard that as sort of primitive and, I don't know, ungainly. Well, I think if all the demons in hell spent a weekend trying to come up with a method of courtship that was most thoroughly doomed to disappointment, they'd come up with what we got. So I don't know if we got any high ground, if you know what I'm saying. But that's another subject. The point is that now, here's the thing. The family and the young lady and maybe some of the elders of that clan meet before a rabbi, a judge in this case, he's going to oversee this, and there is a formal document. And that document is the betrothal document. And that document spells out the bride price. But most importantly, it spells out, it identifies the date of the wedding. And it's going to be several months off. because during the betrothal period, the bride remains with her clan and the groom with his, but during that period, they each have a responsibility. The bride's groom, the bride, all right, the groom's job is to prepare the house to which he will fetch her as his bride. So he's gonna prepare. Now, again, this is a clan, and one of the kind of the expressions for getting married was adding a room to your daddy's tent. That's about what it was. You get some goat hair and put a tent in the back and get the missus and move in because you're going to be part of that clan, that family. But his job was to prepare the home and then her job was to make herself beautiful for the wedding day. Because when the wedding day came and there was no time that was more celebrated, more rejoicing, there had to be gladness. You remember Jesus tells a parable about a man who comes to a wedding feast in a drab garment and he gets tossed out. That's because it has to be a time, and this is the highlight of the life of that clan when one of theirs is wed. When the wedding comes, the wedding day comes several months later, all that happens is that the bride, I'm sorry, the groom goes to the home of the bride and fetches her to the place he has prepared. By the way, time out, I haven't time for this. hear this in John 14. Remember I told you that wedding and funeral, they come up in so many places sometimes. And when Jesus says on the night of his, before his arrest, he's in the upper room with the 11, John 14, and he says, I go to prepare a place for you and I'll come and take you to myself, that's wedding talk. It's really stunning that he's using that kind of language to express his love for his disciples. But at any rate, So he fetches the bride to the home that he's preparing. It's not that simple, because all along the way, they went all through the streets of the village of the city, and there's dancing, and the bride is adorned in her finery, and she's perhaps on a chair, and she's being lifted up, and you hire poets to extemporize verse to her beauty, and you've got Musicians and so on and it's just a and and by the way, it's very very much obligatory that if you encounter a wedding march Even if you don't know those people and you're coming home from the grocery You put the groceries down you get it on for a few minutes you you you you know I like to say at this point. This is kind of but you remember it's kind of a sorry story But you remember Jezebel right wicked Jezebel Ahab and Jezebel. Do you remember how she died? I was like say this is one of those Bible stories for which you may be a little hard put to find a flannel graph, if you know what I'm saying. Because the Bible says that she was thrown down and eaten of the dogs. But they ate everything but the palms of her hands and the soles of her feet. And there is a, it's a Jewish midrash. You know what a midrash is? No, that's not what it is. But Jewish midrash, it's a sermon. And there's an agent that says that the reason God thus graced her was because as wicked as she was, when she encountered a wedding march, she clapped her hands and danced. Now, I don't know how thoroughly advantaged she was by God's goodness in that regard, but the fact is that it's just an illustration of how important this wedding day is, and how you make preparation. Now, what's going to happen, and I haven't got time to develop this, I'd love to, but they're going to run their way through the streets, and then the groom is going to be kind of absent himself. Everybody knows it's going to happen, and the crowd's going to go into the into the home that he's prepared, and they're gonna begin to make ready. But of course, the groom is not there yet. He deliberately, with some of his friends, and this is the virgin with the 10 virgins, you remember, waiting for the coming of the groom and so on. This is John's, oh, I love this picture, but remember John the Baptist when some of his disciples are offended because he's getting bigger crowds than Jesus is, and he says, hold on here. I've told you again and again, I'm not, this is John 3, verse 22, I'm not the Messiah. I'm the friend of the bridegroom. And he who has the bride is the bridegroom. Because what would happen, just real quickly, is while they're waiting for the groom to appear, he'd been with them all day, but now he's slipped away. We're making ready, and the feast can't start, of course, until he shows up. And the friend of the bridegroom, probably the guy who initially approached that clan about the young woman, the friend of the bridegroom is the star of the show, because he knows his voice. So you're all crowding on him. Is he coming? Is he coming? and uh... you know that uh... so he's very much the center of attention and he's listening all and uh... that's what john says the friend of the bridegroom listens for him but uh... uh... and then and of course finally all he's coming i hear him and he comes in and everybody gets excited and gathers around the bridegroom how bottomlessly inappropriate would it be for the friend of the bridegroom to resent the fact that all of a sudden all the attention is on the bridegroom And why is that inappropriate? This is what John means when he says, he who has the bride is the bridegroom. Which is to say, this is all about him. So with all that, and all those places where it intrudes into the narrative. So here's the point. That's what a wedding looked like. Now let me take you to Matthew chapter one and verse 18. And here is Matthew's telling. And I wanna just very deliberately insinuate, I want us to think about it in terms of that culture. So I'm in Matthew 1, verse 18. Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows. Have I advanced this at all? Yeah, there's, I couldn't remember my PowerPoint. I forgot I made one until just this morning. But at any rate, the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows. Now here, here, read this. You know what? After the betrothal ceremony and the official, and by the way, that's where there would be an exchange of tokens, whatever it might be, and so on. So the betrothal, they were man and wife, but it was appropriately, biblically, culturally incumbent upon them to maintain purity. And by the way, that's why in many cases, because you can imagine that in that culture as in ours, if in fact you are legally formally man and wife, there might be a temptation to wickedness, and so greater temptation even, and so the young woman would often absent herself. And that's exactly what she does. She goes to be with Elizabeth, John the Baptist's mother, for some three months. But now, the point is, after the betrothal, the happy word went out. And you remember that, and I want to come back to this later, but they are living in Nazareth up there just north of the Valley of Jezreel in Galilee, but their home is down here in Judea, Bethlehem, south of Jerusalem. That's where the greater part of their family is. So the word would have gone out to family in the north and in the south, and they would have marked the day, because I'm telling you something. In that culture, if there's a family wedding, you get there, all right? I'd love to, I think that's a little bit what's behind Jesus showing up at that wedding in John chapter two, but that's a whole different question. I'll just say this. He was just coming off the wilderness experience. He had fasted for 40 days, and angels had ministered to him undoubtedly for several weeks, maybe months, to get him back to health, and I picture Maybe Jesus saying, I'm feeling good, Sam Horton, I'm feeling good. And maybe the angels are saying, Jesus, you're still looking a little peaking. You sure you're ready for this? No, I'm feeling good. I'm making this up. But I think it might be part of the narrative. And I picture Jesus saying, no, I'm good, I'm good. You know, we got a wedding and my mom will be so upset if I don't show up. I really think that might be part of the dynamic, I'm telling you. But at any rate, the point is that, to come back to it, that the message had gone out and everybody had prepared and so on. Now, what happens is, and here it is, with all of that background, he says, the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows. After his mother was betrothed to Joseph, now this little phrase, before they came together, she was found with child. And I want you to hear a gasp as wide as at least two families, the village of Nazareth, that phrase, before they came together, she was found with child. Now it goes on to say of the Holy Ghost, but nobody knew that except Mary. Joseph didn't know that. And where I'm taking you, and I'll put it on the table right now. There is a measure of shame, embarrassment, ignominy, humiliation, anger. How Joseph's family must have been humiliated. This is a small village. Everybody knows everybody in this village. And now, and what happened is Mary came home and quite frankly, we don't know how long after she had been with Elizabeth, but she comes home. Of course, she had been visited by the angel and the spirit of God had come upon her and she'd become pregnant before she left. But now she goes down there for three months and she comes back and how, I don't know how long, but in time, there's no denying that she is showing. And I want to say again, Joseph's family would have been just so humiliated. Mary's family would have been, and again, and please don't spend any time with this, okay? But we can probably all, without too much effort, remember in our own lives this or that story about, forgive me, a young woman who did wickedly and found herself, as we used to say, in the family way. And I can remember some pretty creative excuses. You know what I'm saying? Try this one on for a sec. No, really, I'm still a virgin. No, it was the Holy Spirit that came upon me. Now, what's interesting is that, and this is one of the points at which critics and deniers of the scripture insist that these two narratives are so irreconcilable, Matthew and Luke, but Because Luke has the angel coming, of course, to Mary. But Matthew tells the story of how she was found with child. And now it says, Joseph, and let me just point this out to you. I'm in trouble. But in verse 19, it says, Joseph, her husband, being a just man. That's Matthew 1 and verse 19. It's a present participle, but you can read it one of two ways, and I think generally we read it this way. Joseph, because he was a just man, decided not to shame her public. It could better be read, and it's certainly legitimate as far as the syntax. I think what it means is, Joseph, although he was a just man, don't read into this the idea that he was careless. about the standards of the law. And we're talking New Testament, so I mean, all right, I could get into exactly how the adultery execution thing fits. But the point is that the essence of the law is that God demands and expects purity. And don't think Joseph was careless about that. But out of a heart of love, I think it says, he was minded to put her away secretly, that is, to divorce her secretly. While he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, I love this, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take marry your wife. Now let me just stop on that. Look, do you have your text open? If you look in verse 20, you very possibly have a rogue, aberrant word in that phrase because most translations have this, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. Do you have that? Do you? Do you have the word as? Don't belong there. And it changes the whole story. If the angel said, don't be afraid to take Mary as your wife, what would that suggest? They're not married yet. Oh, they're married. What he is saying is, Joseph, don't be afraid to go fetch your wife. There's not going to be any parade. There's not going to be any rejoicing. People are upset. The happy message had gone out several months earlier that Mary and Joseph are going to be wed. Now another message has gone out. There's not going to be a wedding. She's pregnant. She's carrying a child. Clearly didn't happen after the wedding because the wedding never happened. And Joseph insists, acknowledges it's not his child. But what the angel is saying is, won't be any rejoicing, won't be any songs, you probably better do it under cover of night. It suggests that in the next passage because it goes on to say, drop down to verse 24, Joseph being aroused from sleep did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. I think the suggestion is there that he did it under cover of night. so that it wouldn't be spitting and throwing rocks and so on. I'm telling you folks, you can't overstate the impact, the corporate impact that this would have had on that little village. but Joseph doesn't. And I think one of the nobler scenes of life is Joseph going to fetch his wife, his betrothed, but now bring her home. And notice it says there, did not know her till she had known, really that would have been part of the wedding feast, but of course the wedding supper and so on, but he took to him his wife. All right. So I'm going to leave it alone. My point is simply a, the Joseph and Mary were already married. So the engagement, get that off the table. Number two, when you really read it in terms of the culture that day, that little phrase, she was bound with child before they came together is just a corporate gasp. All right. And, and, and, and, and that really is what's at stake. All right. But let me hurry. Take you to the second, uh, way in which I'm gonna fine-tune the narrative and this really is important though it's a little I'm gonna be very quick with it but what's at stake is this that we have and this is where we we you know we we generate our understanding the nativity narrative on the basis of Christmas cards if you don't mind but we have this idea almost universally and it couldn't be more clearly misrepresentative of the biblical narrative but we have this idea that a Joseph got a postcard you know up in Nazareth and and it's because Luke says he begins his telling of the actual birth of Jesus having talked about the announcement the angels and so on but in chapter 2 he says that a command had gone out that all the world be taxed And matter of fact, I can take you there quickly. Well, you don't see this. But Luke 2 verse 1, came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus. All right, I got to be quick here. Let me just say this. That number one, this is a thing with me. This decree, I'm convinced, was a very special decree. And it was not part of the regular cycle of Roman sensae and so on. The fact is that Herod the Great is about to die. Herod the Great, one of the great geniuses, one of the greatest minds who ever lived, by reason of the power that was afforded him and the wealth and so on, he had become an absolute insane madman. And he was about to die. jurisdiction there in Israel was Rome's greatest cash cow. And so they kind of looked the other way with all of his shenanigans and carrying an awful lot of money, but he was pumping money into Rome and so they kind of looked the other way. He's about to die. He's a rogue client king, and I think Caesar is simply saying, we cannot have everything go up in smoke and miss a couple of years of taxation out of that barrier. So we're going to have a census in anticipation of Herod's death. Like I say, you get the idea that Joseph is up there living in Nazareth. And I have on the notes, I'll say very quickly, it's interesting that these two Judahite Davidic families, Mary's and Joseph's, who belong in Bethlehem, are living up here. Well, suffice it to say, in one sentence, a hundred years before Jesus, during the Hasmonean rule. That's foreign to you, we'll go over it another time. A Hasmonean king by the name of Aristobulus had conquered Galilee. And Galilee is where the good living is. Josephus refers to the Galilee as the ambition of nature. If nature could grow up and be what it wants to be, it would be Galilee. Judea, on the other hand, is some of the toughest living on all the face of the earth. And so as soon as they annexed that, thousands and tens of thousands of Jews living down here in the south made their way up to Galilee. So that when Jesus begins his ministry, there are many times more Jews living in Galilee than that. That's where he spends 18 months of his ministry. So my point is, you have, and there's a little village called Nazareth, and there are these two families, that of Joseph and that of Mary and so on. But the point is that That's where they're living. And so that's where their families were living. Their clan, the majority of their clan would have been down in Bethlehem. But Joseph and Mary, their families are living up here. And you get the idea that Joseph got Alex a postcard. And it said, you know, Bethlehem City Hall, 10 o'clock, Tuesday, be there, you know, like he had to be there. No, that's not the way it worked. What I'm after is this idea that Mary and Joseph came screeching into Bethlehem just in time for the baby to be born. You've got to just totally disabuse your mind of that notion, all right? The Bible says, and I'm going to come to it in just a minute, Luke chapter 2, verse 6, they came to Bethlehem, and while they were there, the days were fulfilled. so that she should bring forth a child. So they get there sometime earlier. All right, back to it. The point is that when there would be this sort of a Roman census for the taxation, in point of fact, it'd usually be several months, maybe a year, somewhere within this period. And it's an expansive period. This also, I'm going to say in a minute, blows. I think we need to disabuse our idea, the idea of this inn. And they came, and there was no room in the innkeeper. Everybody has a sermon called the Innkeeper of Miss Christmas. No wind, no innkeeper, okay, but I'll come back to that. The fact is that they had a, and so I think that's what Luke is saying. Luke is saying he, Joseph knew he was gonna have to go down to Bethlehem in order, he was gonna have to make that trip. Now, here's my simple point. I'm going to make the point that I'm going to conjecture something. My point is that the Bible is clear, and I give you three lines of evidence. The fact that he took Mary, if he was only going down to register to come home, he wouldn't have taken Mary. The fact that it says he was there for some time after that. And then thirdly, the fact that when After the wise men and the flight to Egypt and they hear that Herod is dead and they come back and they settle in Judea. And it's only when they hear that Archelaus is in fact going to be made king that they, or governor, that they move back up to Nazareth. So here's what I'm saying. Joseph and Mary clearly, biblically, were not making a quick trip to Bethlehem to register. They were moving to Bethlehem. Now that I think I can demonstrate quite clearly. Here's the conjecture. Why? And I think the answer is because life had become unlivable in that little village in Nazareth. I really do. You know, Joseph, all right, I'm going to rock your world. Joseph, I think, was a stonemason, all right? I know, translated carpenter, the word tekton means builder. In Israel, you don't build with wood. You never have. You build with stone, however you like it. Jesus, the point is that whatever his guild, all work was day work. And so he, Joseph, and after him, Jesus, and after jesus i think jesus was probably apprenticed his half siblings in the family business that you know i would say uh... we wonder about what we're gonna do or grow up in that culture you know what you can do it father does for heaven's sakes you know so uh... the the young voice but anyway Generally, you would have a work gang, you know, from the neighborhood and you'd work well together and you'd go off every day and get a day's work and come home after the sun had gone down. I think maybe, I'm making this up, but I think very possibly it makes a lot of sense that his, you know, his fellows had come to him and said, Joseph, we're going to work with you. You're not welcome to be part of our work gang. You have brought home as your wife a woman who is carrying a baby which is not yours? We can't tolerate that. That make sense to you? So all I'm saying is, A, biblically, he's leaving. He's quitting Nazareth for Bethlehem. I wonder. But here's the big one. And I got to be quick. And a third, and I give you the lines of evidence here. But that's my proof. But I already did it. All right, so here's my final point, and that is, as I say in the notes, Jesus was not born in an inn, all right? Now, let me be very quick with it, because it really kind of pulls it all together, and we're done. But the fact is that What the text says in Luke chapter 2 and verse 7, it says, after Jesus was born, he was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. Now that manger, that feeding trough, and I gave you an example of what it might have looked like, that feeding trough, that animal's feeding trough, is also mentioned with regard to the shepherds. You'll find the babe lying in a manger. So that's the only hint we have in the narrative that Jesus was born in a place where animals were stable. What Luke says in Luke chapter 2 and verse 7 is, they laid him in because there was no room for them in the inn. All right, that word inn in the Greek is kataluma. It means upper room. Now, it is used twice, and I give you this in the notes, once in Mark, once in Luke, to refer to the place where Jesus went for the Passover, the last Passover, with his disciples. This is what you have to understand. Every house, and I give you a picture of this. In the Jewish world, you build your house so that the roof is a workable space, is a living space. And one of the uses to which you put it is a guest chamber. Now it might be in a wealthy home, a villa, that you would have a large upper room furnished for a feast. But the primary use of that kataluma, that upper room, was as a guest chamber. And it would, in many cases, be rather humble, just a place where the guests could find some privacy. And you'd have a cot and some water and so on. All right, so that's clearly what's at stake here. What happened is that Jerome, in the Vulgate in the fourth century, translated it guest chamber, which is not bad. But out of that came an English translations inn. I'm convinced that a public hostelry where you could rent a room for the night and maybe have a breakfast in the morning or something, that didn't exist. I'm convinced. It certainly didn't exist in a place like Bethlehem. But more important than that, and here we're back to reading the Bible in terms of its own culture, the Jewish demand, I mean the Mosaic, Biblical, Levitical demand for hospitality means you care for people who are traveling. And it is unthinkable that Joseph, when he came to Bethlehem, would go anywhere but to his own family. Now, Luke 2 verse 7 says, they laid him in a manger because there was no place for them in the inn. It's a strange word. It doesn't say no room. It says no place. And it can be well read this way. They laid him in a manger because the kataluma was no place for them. I'm going to put it all together. I think what's at stake, and it's all part of the narrative, if you read it in terms of its own culture, is number one, Mary and Joseph were betrothed. She was found to be with child. There was anger and resentment and bitterness, and then Joseph kind of piled on with his own family by fetching her to the clan. And and now they're living there and I think that that I'm gonna say one more time The anger would have been beyond what's easy for us to appreciate But then I think we we learn in the narrative that they decide to move back You don't do that. You live your life in the in the in the village your youth, but no Joseph and Mary are going to reestablish themselves now they don't because Archelaus is in fact given that area and he's more of a butcher than his father and an angel directs him and they do in fact return to Nazareth, but I'd love to talk about that but On the other hand, and I think what happened is this. So here come Mary and Joseph. She is clearly great with child. She's not about ready to give birth. They're going to be there for some days or some weeks before that happens. But Joseph would have come to his family. And somebody in his family is part of the clan, and they would live in proximity to one another and so on. And I think that relative probably said to Joseph, Joseph, We love you. You're part of our family. We're going to learn to love this woman you've taken as your wife. But we are so horrified. We're so embarrassed. You've brought such shame upon this family. I can't give you the place of honor. But right next to the house, and I think this is exactly, that was always the case, nearby there would be a cave that had been carved out as an animal pen. And as part of that, as you carved out the cave, and usually you're carving out building stones for a wall or something, but as you carve it out, you leave it appropriate to an animal pen, and part of that is you would leave some little pillars, if you don't mind, of limestone attached to the earth, and you just leave this, and then hollow out the top, and that would be your feeding trough. And I think the scene is this, that Joseph's family says, we can put the animals to pasture, or we can kind of block off a corner of the cave, and you can stay there. And it's some time. While they were there, the days were fulfilled. So for some days, weeks, Mary and Joseph are living in that cave, and everybody knows exactly why. And how many times do you think Joseph might have gone over to that manger and that kind of gnarly feeding trough and cleaned it out and scrubbed it up and gotten some fresh grasses and laid it there? Because that's where the baby's going to be laid. And it's stunning as part of this. And let me just say, and I won't go here, but later on, they're going to return to Nazareth with the born baby, and the village of Nazareth is going to accept them. But they're going to make life. You got to live with your clan. And there are only two places where their clans are living. But now, as the child is about to be born, they are there in that cave. And it's fascinating that on the night when the baby is born, the angels come to the shepherds and they give them the happy news. And then they say, this will be a sign to you. Don't get the wrong baby. So I'll give you a sign as to which baby it is. You'll find, this will be a sign to you. You'll find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes. That's not the sign. You do that with every newborn baby. You'll find him lying in a manger. Now, why is it that that would serve so well as a sign to the shepherds? Because you don't do that with a newborn baby. You don't lay your baby in a feeding trough. But that's where Jesus was laid. Now, I got to be done. But I like to say, and I actually have it on the screen here, that when you properly appreciate, I believe, the narrative of the Nativity, that it calls to mind Isaiah's remarkable lament in Isaiah 53. And he begins by saying this, who has believed our report? Who could believe that having longed for this Messiah and being taught to wait for him for all these thousands, when he comes, there's no beauty, there's no form or comeliness, we despised him. And when you read that, your mind goes appropriately, your soul spirit indeed goes to the cross. I'm just suggesting that it also fits the cradle. And that when it says in Philippians 2 that Jesus humbled himself, he laid aside the glory that was rightfully his. even in the blessed story, what newborn child is not welcomed into the world? I know you can find some other examples, but I mean the normal thing, of course you would, not the baby Jesus. So I leave it there. There was a measure of shame and anger and ignominy that I think arises from the narrative when you read it in terms of its own culture, and even at Christmas season, it ought to cause our heart to rejoice over this reality that Christ, that the word has been made flesh. Father, thank you for the time together, for this wonderful church, prosper it. We do thank you for just the good success with regard to the pastor's health, and we pray that you continue to prosper this church. But Father, might we indeed make this season, with all of its distractions and corruptions, might we make this season a special opportunity to rejoice over this blessed reality, that the word was made flesh. And we ask that in his name, amen.