DETAILS OF JESUS' BIRTH

  Mary visited her cousin Elizabeth and returned to Nazareth. Joseph was distressed that his engaged wife was pregnant. He didn’t know about the angel Gabriel’s visit to Mary or the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit.   

He planned to break his engagement to Mary in a quiet way — didn’t want her to suffer public disgrace and wanted to avoid embarrassment for himself. 

As a just Jewish man, Joseph could have followed the Mosaic Law on adultery. God himself authored the Mosaic Law. Here is what justice requires for adultery, according to the Law: “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death” (Leviticus 20:10).   

If Joseph did not act according to the Law, we might consider him merciful, but not just, sources say. 

(In the case of rape, under the Mosaic Law, the woman would go free, but the man who did it should die.)
 
THE DREAM (Matthew 1:20-23)
 
“But while he [Joseph] thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.

“And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins.’

“Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, ‘Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.’”
 
THE MARRIAGE  
 
“The marriage was quietly solemnized according to the laws of the Jewish religion, and Joseph meekly accepted the task which Divine Providence assigned to him as the protector of Mary, and the foster-father of her Divine Child,” writes the Rev. Charles P. Roney, D.D., author of Beautiful Bible Stories. 

“And [Joseph] knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son.”

Mary and Joseph lived in Nazareth, but that wasn’t where Jesus was to be born. 

Augustus Caesar, the Roman Emperor who ruled most of the known world at that time, helped bring about God’s will because he wanted all his subjects enrolled and taxed.

“She [Mary] and her betrothed, Joseph, were members of a conquered people group, forced to travel about 90 miles to be counted for the census of the conquering empire so that it might know just how many people it had available to tax,” sources say. 

“And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child” (Luke 2).
 
THE BIRTH
 
“And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.”

“Though it flies in the face of Christmas tradition, the truth of the matter is that Mary and Joseph probably stayed with family in Bethlehem,” according to biblestudytools.com. “The Bible never says Jesus was born in a stable; it simply says he was placed in a manger: ‘She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them’ (Luke 2:7).

“Note that there was no “guest room” available for them; Mary and Joseph probably stayed on the crowded ground floor of a relative’s house, writes Tim Chaffey for Answers in Genesis. The idea of a fruitless search for an inn comes from a translation of the Greek word for guest room getting turned into ‘inn’ in some English Bibles. (Not to worry; you can still have cute animals in your nativity scene. Small animals were often brought inside the house during the night in the first century. This is probably where the manger came from.)” (from biblestudytools.com).

Whatever the details, the Bible says that in the city of David there was born a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

Dr. Roney writes, “Hidden from the eyes of a thoughtless and wicked world, possessed of a dual inheritance of royalty, and destined to receive a name that has no equal in heaven or earth, the Son of God made his silent entrance into the world.”

APPLAUSE IN CHURCH?

  Sources say applause began in 6th century BC when lawmaker Kleisthénes of Athens made it so that audiences would have to clap in approval of their leader, since there were too many people to meet individually. Through this came the “applause,” the unified voices of people in the form of clapping together in admiration.

“Miss Manners,” Judith Martin, said in 1994 that applause should not be given in church. 

“All this [applause] is because the only public event anybody recognizes anymore is entertainment,” Miss Manners said. “Having forgotten church manners, people are substituting those that would be proper for a performance. This drives Miss Manners wild. Hard as it may be to imagine, musicians in church are supposed to play or sing for the glory of God, not the pleasure of the congregation (whom people increasingly slip and call ‘the audience’).”

Robert Brown, a Facebook friend of mine, wrote recently, “As a child and much younger adult, I do not remember applause in church after someone sang or played an instrument. Has my memory changed or has applause become much more the norm?”

Here are some responses to his post:

One man said, “It [applause] is praising the servant instead of The Master. My God-fearing grandmother called it ‘Blasphemy.’”

A lady said, “It may be just our age, but I was taught that you do not applaud in church as it is a reverent place of worship.”

Another lady said, “There are times when applause is appropriate and times when it is not. If the applause is an outward sign that someone was touched by a performance, I have no problem with it.”

Martha wrote, “I wonder … has worship in music become a performance? Has applause become agreement that we want this [the performance] to be pleasing to God? Sometimes your heart is so full and happy, you can’t help but applaud.

“Applause is becoming the norm,” a lady said. “When I joined the worship team at my former church, I remember feeling very strange when hearing applause in the church. That feeling never fully went away.”

Kevin wrote, “Let the waves clap their hands … let the hills sing out in praise. … Applause is a 21st Century “Amen,” as long as the object of our worship (and applause) is the LORD!”  

“Applause is not appropriate in church,” Kathleen said. “I was taught quiet reverent respect in His house of quiet worship.”

Someone posted, “O clap your hands, all ye people; shout unto God with the voice of triumph” (Psalm 47:1).

Bonnie wrote, “No applause at our church during a service. And I like it that way. Applause is not reverent, in my opinion … just my opinion, mind you.”

Sally said, “I grew up with reverence in church, but as I get older, I like the freedom of praising God in raising my hands, applauding if warranted. When I think of what the Bible says of Heaven being a place of great praise, with every instrument used, some of us might be surprised how God interprets worship.”  

“I didn’t grow up with church applause, and hearing it now makes me think ‘performance,’ and I cringe a little, “Kathy said. “The next thing I expect to hear is ‘Let’s give it up for God,’ as if He’s a celebrity of sorts and being called to the stage. Let the clappers clap; only they and God know the heart of their applause. I’ll be saying my amens and smiling because that’s me.”

Rick wrote, “When worship became a production to satisfy the masses, it changed. Worship was supposed to be quiet reflection (dignified by cultural norms), not cause for joy and celebration.”

Folk once thought it irreverent to applaud after hymns were sung or played in church. Listeners may have said “amen” after a song but did not applaud.  

Applause is now accepted as an act of worship — like saying “amen” with one’s hands. Applause may indicate approval of a performance more than approval of a message, but that’s a complication we’ll have to live with. Applauding in church is here to stay. Should “the rocks” Jesus referred to have to “cry out”?

'PICTURING' JESUS: WHAT DID HE LOOK LIKE?

 A copy of what a painter named Sallman may have thought Jesus looked like hung in our home when I was a child in the 1950s. My family attended Gum Springs Pentecostal-Holiness Church, Taylors, SC, where Sunday school illustrations also showed Jesus as fair-skinned.

Warner E. Sallman’s (1892–1968) “Head of Christ,” created in1940, depicts “a gentle Jesus with blue eyes turned heavenward and dark blond hair cascading over his shoulders in waves,” Emily McFarlan says.

Sallman’s “Head of Christ,” called the “best-known American artwork of the 20th century,” became an image of a “white Jesus” that influenced generations. 

A backlash to Sallman’s painting began during the civil rights movement that gained speed in 1954 when the U.S. Supreme Court made segregation illegal in public schools in the case of Brown v. Board of Education.

What did Jesus look like? What color was he?

The late Dr. E.V. Hill (1933-2003), a former pastor of Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, became a leader in the civil rights movement and was honored by Time magazine as one of the seven most outstanding preachers in the United States died at age 69 in 2019.

Dr. Hill, a black pastor, was asked if he thought Jesus was Caucasian as depicted in paintings. This was his reply:

“I don’t know anything about a white Jesus ... I know about Christ, a Savior named Jesus. I don’t know what color He is. He was born in the brown Middle East; He fled to black Africa; and He was in heaven before the gospel got to white Europe. So, I don't know what color He is.

“I do know one thing: if you bow at the altar with color on your mind, you'll get up with color on your mind. Go back again — and keep going back until you no longer look at His color, but at His greatness and His power — His power to save!”

The Bible gives no physical description of Jesus, but he was a Jew, born of a Jewish mother. His friends were Jews; he worshipped in synagogues. The New Testament names his younger brothers: James, Joses, Simon, and Jude (Mark 6:3, Matthew 13:55, John 7:3, Acts 1:13, 1 Corinthians 9:5).

According to Wikipedia, art of the first centuries showed Jesus with a short beard. The long-haired, bearded depiction of Jesus that emerged in fourth century A.D. was influenced by imagined images of Greek and Roman gods, especially the Greek god Zeus, sources say. By the 1800s, theories that Jesus was non-Semitic (not Jewish) were being developed, with writers suggesting he was white, black, Indian, or some other race. The average Jew from Judea, at the time Jesus was born, likely would have had dark brown to black hair, olive skin, and brown eyes. Judean men of Jesus’ time averaged about 5 feet-5 inches in height. Jesus likely had short hair and a beard, in accordance with Jewish practices of the time, scholars say.

If you wonder about Jesus’ physical appearance, consider “Some Children See Him,” a song by Wihla Hutson (1901-2002). She wrote the lyrics and Alfred S. Burt penned the music in 1951:

      SOME CHILDREN SEE HIM

Some children see Him lily white,


The baby Jesus born this night.


Some children see Him lily white,


With tresses soft and fair.


Some children see Him bronzed and brown,


The Lord of heav'n to earth come down.


Some children see Him bronzed and brown,


With dark and heavy hair.



 

Some children see Him almond-eyed,


This Savior whom we kneel beside.


Some children see Him almond-eyed,


With skin of yellow hue.


Some children see Him dark as they,


Sweet Mary's Son to whom we pray.


Some children see him dark as they,


And, ah! they love Him, too!



 

The children in each different place


Will see the baby Jesus' face
Like theirs, 

but bright with heavenly grace,


And filled with holy light.


O lay aside each earthly thing


And with thy heart as offering,


Come worship now the infant King.

'Tis love that's born tonight!

VISITING AUNT FRANCES IN ASSISTED-LIVING

   My Uncle Fred and Aunt Frances Crain are pictured when they were fairly young. 

  My Aunt Frances, 94, born in 1927, lives at Spring Park, an assisted-living place in Travelers Rest, SC.

When my late wife, Carol, and I moved from Southern Pines, NC, to Taylors, SC, in Jan. 2018, Aunt Frances Hawkins Crain and her husband, Uncle Fred E. Crain, already lived at Spring Park. They’d left their Silver Ridge subdivision in Greer, SC, where they lived for years, because of Aunt’s Alzheimer’s. They had no children.

Uncle Fred (my late father’s only sibling) chose to live in the memory-care wing because he figured that if he died, Aunt would be adjusted to the memory-care hall and could live on there by herself without having to be transferred into memory-care and enduring stressful readjustment. He could have chosen to live in the regular wing with Aunt because he could have looked after her there, but he chose the memory-care area. He later said he wished he had chosen to live in the regular wing because he was lonely in the memory-care wing, surrounded by dementia-affected residents, some hugging and “caring for” children’s babydolls.  

In November 2021, I drove to see Aunt on a Friday morning and phoned from the memory-care wing door to the front desk in regular-care. Two days earlier, I arranged a 10:30 appointment — something needed because of COVID-19. 

“Hello, Spring Park. May I help you?” a young lady said. 

“Hi. I’m here for my appointment to see Aunt Frances Crain. I’m her nephew, Steve Crain,” I said. 

I donned my mask and waited for a young lady aide who opened the door. I signed in between the outside door and the locked door to the memory-care wing.  

“She’s in the sitting area,” the young woman said. “I’ll get her for you.”

The central sitting area is down the hall from Aunt’s room (404). It’s where residents sit and watch TV or sleep in chairs or wheelchairs. The dining area is next to that living room-like area, so many residents congregate there to wait before mealtime.  

The aide unlocked Aunt’s door, went for her, and wheeled her down the hallway to her room, where I waited. 

Aunt, weighing less than a hundred pounds and wearing a dark-colored sweater, seemed a little groggy. I wasn’t sure she recognized me as she didn’t say my name or return a greeting. I took my guitar from its case and sang hymns. She warmed to the music and said, “That’s good, Steve.” She mouthed the words to a song or two.

Suddenly, we heard a loud on-going sound — “Gw-ack, gw-ack, gw-ack … !”

The sound was no siren or bell, but a loud electronic “gw-ack.” I walked to the door of  Aunt’s room. A light flashed from the hallway ceiling, and the sound continued, loud enough that I wanted to put my hands over my ears. An attendant down the hall said, “It’s a fire drill. We’ll have to take her outside.”

I cased my guitar and left it as I wheeled Aunt to the hallway. A young attendant, dressed in white, headed toward us. “I’ve got her,” I said. He nodded. 

I wheeled Aunt past the gathering area and dining tables to a windowed side of the building, through a door to an outside patio. The morning was chilly but sunny. I looked about, noticing that most residents were small and in wheelchairs. There were no more than 25 residents, plus some attendants. 

Ms. Peterson sat near us. Her husband once owned Peterson Lumber Company in Travelers Rest. Ms. Peterson eats at Aunt’s table at almost every meal. Residents congregate in usual places, like people do in church pews in a sanctuary. Ms. Peterson said to me, “How are you?” 

“Doing fine,” I said, thinking that Ms. Peterson’s mind was probably in better shape than Aunt Frances’ because she right-away recognized me. 

“There’s your friend,” I said to Aunt. She looked and smiled at her friend but said nothing. An attendant said we should stay outside till the fire department came and looked around the building. Soon, I heard a siren in the distance. 

In a while, we moved back inside, and I returned Aunt to her room. I sang and talked. As I played one song, Aunt said, “My husband plays a guitar.” 

I realized that, during a short time, perhaps seconds, she thought Uncle Fred was alive. And I wondered if she didn’t realize that I, Steve, was there, in her room, playing my guitar for her. 

I soon prayed with her and let her attendant know she could return to the gathering place. One attendant told me that sometimes Aunt will be in the hallway and ask her, “Where’s Fred.”

Driving away, I wondered whether it would be better that my body wore out before my mind or my mind wore out before my body. It appears the latter has happened to Aunt Frances. 

GIVING THANKS ALONG THE WAY

 “I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving and will call upon the name of the LORD”  (Psalm 116:17).

“In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you” (1 Thessalonians 5:18).

Here are the words to a much-loved chorus, Give Thanks, by Don Moen:

  “Give thanks with a grateful heart.
  “Give thanks to the Holy One.
  “Give thanks because He’s given Jesus Christ, His Son.
  “And now let the weak say, ‘I am strong.’
  “Let the poor say, ‘I am rich,’
  “Because of what the Lord has done for us.
  “Give thanks.”

“Being grateful” is defined as being “warmly or deeply appreciative of kindness or benefits received; thankful.”

The Rev. Dan Carr, a pastor I met while living 28 years in N.C., recently wrote about Jewish people traveling to the Temple in Jerusalem during Old Testament times. The following material is borrowed from the writings of Dan Carr:

“Families, especially the men, made the trip three times a year from all parts of the nation,” Carr says. “They prepared food for the trip and slept on the ground along the way. From the north, some traveled over 200 miles one-way, and many from all over traveled over 100 miles one-way.”

Some of the Psalms are called “ascension” Psalms because they were sung by pilgrims as they climbed upward on their way to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. 

“The giving of thanks to Jehovah was a vital part of their journeying worship as well as when they reached the Temple,” he says. “They brought offerings to the Temple and one of the offerings was ‘thanksgiving’ … The Psalms gave structure to their thanksgiving. Some of our hymns today do the same thing as the Jewish Psalms.”

Carr says the fall trip occurred around October and three feasts were observed: The Feast of Trumpets, The Day of Atonement, and The Feast of Tabernacles. 

There were seven memorial days Jews practiced after settling in the Promised Land. The Feast of Passover began on the night they left Egypt. The Feast of Tabernacles reminded them of how their forefathers lived in tents and hovels made of branches.  

Kevin Howard and Marvin Rosenthal, authors of The Feasts of the Lord, say, “The three fall feasts portray events to be associated with Christ’s second coming. The Feast of Trumpets depicts the Rapture of the Church. The Day of Atonement points to a great host of people, Jews and Gentiles, who will be saved when the Messiah Himself will tabernacle among men, wipe away every tear, and bring in the utopian age or ‘golden age’ of which men have dreamed since time immemorial.”

Carr says that when Jesus visited with the woman at the well, he told her that God is a Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in truth and that God seeks such to worship Him. 

“Getting saved involves much more than eternity in Heaven,” Carr says. “It’s the entry gate into a continual fellowship or communion with God.  Thanksgiving is always a great part of communion with God because He is our creator, redeemer, and provider, and we acknowledge those things.”

The Bible is full of references to humble people giving thanks to God, Carr says. “Those who truly know God understand that in Him we live, and move, and have our being (Acts 17:28) and have no trouble understanding the essential practice of thanksgiving and worship of the living God.

When we stray away from our daily fellowship with God, our hearts are cold and calloused, and we know it; no one has to tell us, Carr says, adding, “Praying comes hard. There’s nothing that will warm a cold heart like beginning to thank God for His blessings. Thank Him for everything you can think of because He made it all. After we remind ourselves of all the things He has already done for us, it’s not so hard to pray for other things we may need.” 

YOUNG PEOPLE NEED THE BIBLE TO BUILD CHARACTER

 “In the last several years, Americans have been sensing that something is seriously wrong with the current crop of young people,” Annie Holmquist, editor of Intellectual Takeout, wrote in 2017.

Young people are likely to have the most education credentials any generation has ever received, are technically-savvy, and have a wealth of knowledge at their fingertips, Holmquist said.

“But in spite of these factors, today’s students seem to exhibit a character that is high in sensitivity and low in knowledge,” she said. “Why are our students turning out like this?”

Camille Paglia, a Democrat, feminist, and college professor, believes the problem started in the earliest stages of education in America’s public schools.
  “I’ve been teaching now for 46 years as a classroom teacher, and I have felt the slow devolution of the quality of public school education in the classroom,” she says.

Paglia notes that teachers at elite institutions are unable to see this decline in knowledge because their students often come from private schools and wealthy homes, which presumably still retain some elements of rigorous education. The great majority of students, however, can be described in the following way.

“What has happened is these young people now getting to college have no sense of history – of any kind! … No world geography. No sense of the violence and the barbarities of history. So, they think that the whole world has always been like this, a kind of nice, comfortable world where you can go to the store and get orange juice and milk, and you can turn on the water and the hot water comes out. They have no sense whatever of the destruction, of the great civilizations that rose and fell, and so on – and how arrogant people get when they’re in a comfortable civilization. They now have been taught to look around them to see defects in America – which is the freest country in the history of the world – and to feel that somehow America is the source of all evil in the universe, and it’s because they’ve never been exposed to the actual evil of the history of humanity. They know nothing!”  

Paglia continues, “There’s one exception to this, however. Even while today’s students have not been taught knowledge, they have also been taught not to bully a person on the basis of their race, class, gender, or any other trait. On the surface, that seems like a good thing.”

But Paglia implies that such a lesson (against bullying) gives students a high level of sensitivity and a stilted view of the world and its problems. She fears students are pushing their country toward a situation similar to that of ancient Rome in its last days.

John Adams (1735-1826) said that the failure to teach truth, combined with the dumbing down of education and the embrace of Epicurean pleasures and teachings is one of the things most likely to bring “punishment” to America.

“The Bible is the history book of the universe,” says “Answers in Genesis.” If we teach young people about the accounts, wisdom, and salvation recorded in the Bible, they will learn about life. 

Youth Leader Chris Cherry says, “We don’t teach the Bible for head knowledge — it’s not a textbook. … We teach the Bible because it is one of the core pieces that awakens youth (and all folks, for that matter) to the presence of God in the world.”

Mark Yaconelli says, “Our first task as youth ministers is to be with young people just as Jesus was with people. … We are also called, like Jesus, to be teachers.”

The quality of public school education has declined, as far as teaching Bible truths. Patrick Henry said, “The Bible is worth all the other books which have ever been printed.” Parents, pastors, and youth leaders, please teach the Bible to young people!

HOW ABOUT THEM APPLES?

 

  Apple season made me hungry in the 1990s. I then often worked in Ellijay, Georgia, on carpet-dyeing projects at “Courier” (part of Blue Ridge Carpet Mills that closed in 2011). While in Ellijay, I bought tasty apples and fried apple pies.

This year celebrates the 50th year of the Georgia Apple Festival (Oct. 9-10 and 16-17, 2021). 

Most Georgia apples are grown in the north Georgia mountains. Ellijay, in Gilmer County, is the state’s apple capital. Its apple season can extend from July through December. An estimated 360,000 apple-bearing trees grow in Georgia, sources say. 

I like Fuji apples. Granny Smiths are too tart for me.

“I wouldn’t want to be eating Granny Smiths just to be eating them,” Barbara, my wife, says. “They make good pies, though.”  

In 1900, there were about 14,000 varieties of apples in the U.S. “By the late 1990s, U.S. commercial orchards grew fewer than 100 apple varieties,” Eric J. Wallace notes. About 11,000 varieties of apples have become extinct, he says. 

As people become less attached to the natural world, their sensitivity to God can suffer. 

St. Paul said that the natural world reveals to us that God exists. Paul wrote, “For the invisible things of him [God] from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead” (Romans 1:20 KJV).The English Standard Version (ESV) translates that this way:

“For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.”

Psalm 19:1-3 (ESV) says that God is seen in his created world:

“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard.”

The Greenville News is delivered to our house. Barbara recently said she “saw” me in the “funny papers” (the comic strips). Shoe is a strip about a crew of newspaper folk depicted as birds. Professor Cosmo Fishhawk is an osprey who wears glasses and sports a tuft of white hair on the back of his head. He sits at his computer and writes for a newspaper, the Treetops Tattler.  

In one strip, Cosmo grows tired of working at his computer and says he needs to get away from “the screen” for a while. In the next panel, you see him sitting in front of his TV. Barbara has seen me do the same thing — go from the computer screen to the TV screen. 

Ms. Tish Harrison Warren, writing in Christianity Today, says, “I spend my days talking to colleagues on screens. I eat food that appears magically on my table with hands never dirtied in planting or harvesting. … For many of us, bodies seem hardly necessary.”

As we move away from the wonderful natural world that God created (Genesis 1-3), we become less aware of the evidence for God’s existence. 

Scott Turpin wrote about Bertrand Russell, the famous English atheist philosopher. When asked what he would say after death if God asked why he had not believed in him, Russell said, “Not enough evidence, God, not enough evidence.”

“While Russell believed he could charge God with not providing enough evidence for his existence, this goes against the apostle Paul’s argument that human beings already know God exists through his revelation in creation, so no one has an excuse,” Turpin says. “This includes all people living in all places and all times.”

Turpin says that idolatry (whatever replaces God) is the result of suppressing God’s general revelation in creation, but it is only God’s special revelation through the Gospel that turns people from idolatry to trust in the living and true God.”    

“ … [O]ur gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. … and … you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God” (1 Thessalonians 1:5-9).