15 Things You May Not Know About the First Christmas

We mainly focus on Jesus’ birth during the Christmas season, but the message of God taking on flesh to come and reach us is not an account that should only be reserved for 1/12th of the year!  It is part of the beloved gospel!

You may not be aware, but we get a lot of the account incorrect in our modern-day depictions of Jesus’ birth.  Here are 15 things you may or may not know about Jesus’ birth.

  1. Out of the 4 gospels, only 2 of them focus on Jesus’ birth – Matthew and Luke.
  2. Matthew was writing to a Jewish audience so he included plenty of Old Testament references concerning the Messiah’s birth that confirmed it for him that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah.
  3. In his genealogy, he not only points to Abraham (father of Israel) and David (king of Israel), but he shockingly includes 5 women (Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary – all of who had intriguing stories into how they made it into Jesus’ family line).  It shows that if God could work through this family, he can work through yours!
  4. Matthew also shows a disgraced Joseph who decided to grace his betrothed, Mary.
  5. Joseph and Mary are depicted as godly, obedient servants of God.
  6. Matthew also includes the story of the Magi.  These men were astrologers who God got their attention in order to follow another light.
  7. The Bible never says how many wise men there were, it just said there were 3 gifts.  There could have been 2 wise men or 100.  We simply do not know.
  8. And, they do not belong in your nativity set at Christmas time.  Read the account and you will see they probably got to Jesus when he was around 2 years old.
  9. Luke most likely interviewed Mary for some of the facts and sayings he uses.
  10. His account reveals Mary’s cousin Elizabeth who has a leaping-bundle-of-joy herself.  She carried John the Baptist who was already gleefully turning flips is his mother’s belly at the Messiah’s coming.
  11. Mary is seen as a sincere worshiper humbly accepting the responsibility of birthing the Messiah all the while completely losing her reputation.
  12. The census that takes place is not by accident.  God orchestrates it to get Joseph to a tiny town called Bethlehem so that Micah 5:2 can be fulfilled.
  13. Probably born in a cave and placed in a stone troth to feed animals, Jesus was born in worse circumstances than most of us.
  14. The first men to get word of his arrival shows how Jesus changed everything.  These shepherds were unable to be a part of religious life since they were ceremonially unclean and that is exactly who Jesus came to first.  These hard-working outdoorsmen learned how to worship in the presence of their King.
  15. These shepherds were keeping their flock by night – which might indicate that Jesus was not born in the winter :/.

Jesus’ incarnation and arrival was so unorthodox.  And the world has never, ever been the same.