Jesus Before the World was!
The pre-existence of Christ is clearly stated in John 1:1-4: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life…" It is this Word or Logos in Greek who became incarnate in Jesus. "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us," John tells us (verse 14).
The eternal, uncreated Word who was God, and yet was with God as one of the Persons of the Godhead, became a human being. Note that the Word "was" God but "became" a human being. The Word never came into being, that is, he didn’t "become" the Word. He always was the Word, or God. The Word’s existence is open-ended. He has always existed.
A long time ago the creator of all things which is called God decided to send His son in the form of a human man to earth. Before this time the only way a person could relate or speak to Him (God) was through a Priest. This Priest would be the person that spoke to God and gave Him what we call sacrafices for the peoples sins. This man became God in the flesh to come and be the LAST sacrifice every to be made and to now allow all people to speak to God not just a selected few. God chose two people to have a son together and his name would be Jesus. He chose a woman named Mary and a man named Joseph. They were only a couple, not even engaged. When Joseph heard Mary was having a baby, he wanted to break up with her. The night before he decided to tell Mary, he had a dream. It was more like a message from God. God sent Gabriel (an Angel) to send the message for him. "Do not part with Mary, Joseph." Gabriel said." For Mary is having a child sent by God, and his named shall be Jesus." Joseph decided to stay with Mary the next morning. When he went to Mary's house that day, soldiers from Bethlehem had come to announce that if you were born in a different place you had to go there. So Mary and Joseph packed their things and started to go to Bethlehem. Joseph walked as Mary road a donkey. Mary was pregnant when they left to journey to a place called Bethlehem the city of DAVID.
Days later, they got to the town of Bethlehem. Jesus was about to be born and there were no places to stay. The rooms were all taken. Finally they came to a man who didn't have a room, but he had a stable, which is like a cave on the side of a hill. Mary was about to give birth to Jesus so they took the stable. Jesus was born in that stable. Mary took some old clothes and wrapped them around baby Jesus. Some wise men had been traveling that week. They had found a new star. It shone brighter than any other star. The star shone where baby Jesus was born. The wise men followed where the brightest star led. This took a very long time for their journey was from a far off land. When they got to the stable they gave baby Jesus gifts of myrrh, frankincense, and gold. Angels were singing songs of praise in the night. Animals bowed before baby Jesus, and so did many of the people outside. It was a peaceful, restful night.
After the wise men had left Jesus an angel warned Joseph to flee with Jesus and Mary into Egypt; and Joseph did fly, and remained there with the young child and his mother until the death of Herod; and this it is alleged was done to fulfil a prophecy. The words (Hos. xi. 1) are not prophetic and have no reference whatever to Jesus. The Jesus of the Third Gospel never went into Egypt at all in his childhood.
That is the beginning.
Children are like a big sponge!
Just as a sponge draws liquid into it so do our children with such amazing absortion into their brain. This is why in my programs I developed the STS method. They soak up everything they hear, see and experience like a sponge. They are so impressionable. Children model acceptance, trust and often teach us lesson about what it means to believe in God. Too often though their acceptance and trust are taken advantage of by adults and children then become fearful, disillusioned and forever damaged.
As adults, it is easy to become egocentric and think only of ourselves and our needs. We often forget or ignore the fact that the kids of today are the adults of tomorrow and that the adults of tomorrow will someday define life and society as we know it. Someday, the kids of today and the adults of tomorrow will take care of us and we will be at their mercy. But because we are have become so intoxicated with the immediate, bond issues for new schools are routinely voted down in our country and children pay the price. The future for the children whose bond issue was voted down is often not even considered. The impact of poor education is often never acknowledged.
Was Christmas really on December 25th?
We neither know the hour, nor day, nor month, nor year of Jesus's birth; divines generally agree that he was not born on Christmas Day, and yet on that day the anniversary of his birth is observed. The Oxford Chronology places the matter in no clearer light, and more than thirty learned authorities give a period of over seven years' difference in their reckoning. The place of his birth is also uncertain. The Jews, in the presence of Jesus, reproached him that he ought to have been born at Bethlehem, and he never replied "I was born there ", (John vii. 41, 42, 52).
Jesus was the son of David, the son of Abraham (Matt. i.), from whom his descent is traced through Isaac -- born of Sarai (whom the writer of the epistle to Galatians [iv. 24] says was a covenant and not a woman) -- and ultimately through Joseph, who was not only not his father, but is not shown to have had any kind of relationship to him, and through whom therefore the genealogy should not be traced. There are two genealogies in the Gospels which contradict each other, and these in part may be collated with the Old Testament genealogy, which differs from both. The genealogy of Matthew is self-contradictory, counts thirteen names as fourteen, and omits the names of three kings. Matthew says Abiud was the son of Zorobabel (i. 13). Luke says Zorobabel's son was Rhesa (iii. 27). The Old Testament contradicts both, and gives Meshullam and Hananiah, and Shelomith, their sister (1 Chron. iii. 19), as the names of Zorobabel's children. The reputed father of Jesus, Joseph, had two fathers, one named Jacob, the other Heli. The divines suggest that Heli was the father of Mary, by reading the word "Mary" in Luke iii. 23, in lieu of "Joseph," and the word "daughter" in lieu of "son," thus correcting the evident blunder made by inspiration. The birth of Jesus was miraculously announced to Mary and to Joseph by visits of an angel, but they so little regarded the miraculous annunciation that they marvelled soon after at much less wonderful things spoken by Simeon.
Jesus was the son of God, or God manifest in the flesh.
Who were these Men Wise Men?
The birth of Jesus Christ the Messiah was first discovered by some wise men or astrologers, a class described in the Bible as an abomination in God's sight. These men saw his star in the East, but it did not tell them much, for they were apparently obliged to ask information from Herod the King. Herod in turn inquired of the chief priests and scribes; and it is evident Jeremiah was right if he said, "The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means," for these chief priests either misread the prophets or misquoted the Scripture, which is claimed to be a revelation from God, and invented a false prophecy (Matt. ii. 5, 6; cf. Micah v. 2) by omitting a few words from, and adding a few words to, a text until it suited their purpose. The star -- after the wise men knew where to go, and no longer required its aid -- led and went before them, until it came and stood over where the young child was. This story will be better understood if the reader will walk out some clear night, notice a star, and then try to fix the one house it will be exactly over. The writer of the Third Gospel, silent on the star story, speaks of an angel who tells some shepherds of the miraculous; but this does not appear to have happened in the reign of Herod.
