I can write here right now because I am not really sure what I want to write about. What? The holidays are here: Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years. In fact Thanksgiving just passed and today is the day after Black Friday. Yes, it's Saturday, evening and here I am at home sharing a little bit. But what? Christmas is coming? Or should I write like this: Christmas is coming!
Speaking of Christmas...interesting to note I have been reading one of my textbooks from a class I took last year or so (haha no I didn't really read it then, for after all I wasn't taking the class for credit) and for the past few days have been covering the date Jesus was born. When was Jesus born?
This being a book of tradition (The Words and Works of Jesus Christ by J. Dwight Pentecost), it argues in favor of a mid-winter birth in either 4 BC or 5 BC. It has been quite awhile since I started to believe Jesus was probably born on the Feast of Tabernacles (and not in 1 AD), but I find their reasoning interesting if even I am not persuaded. To me history is interesting, it keeps my attention, and the birth of Christ is not only historical but a great spiritual event.
Much has been written and taught about the Feasts of the Lord these days, and their significance to Christianity, so I don't suppose writing that Jesus may have born on the Feast of Tabernacles to be a surprise to everyone. One book I particularly like that argues in favor of this point is A Prophetic Calendar: The Feasts of Israel by Jill Shannon.
Though Pentecost's book shows why the shepherds may have been out tending to their sheep on a mid-winter night, if offers no contradiction to Zechariah conducting his priestly service in "late June or July" after which John the Baptist would have been conceived, and Jesus conceived six months after that. That all said, I will simply leave you with John 1:14:
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
