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The Life of Jesus Christ

Zondervan

Chapter One

Paragraphs 1-5. The Nativity

6-10. The Group Around the Infant

7. The Shepherds; 8. Simeon and Anna; 9. The Wise Men; 10. Herod.

11-24. The Silent Years at Nazareth

11,12. Lack of Trustworthy Records.
15,16. His Home.
17-24. Educational Influences-

18. The Old Testament; 19. Human nature; 20. Scenery of Nazareth; 21-23. Visits to Jerusalem.

1. THE NATIVITY

1. Augustus was sitting on the throne of the Roman empire, and the touch of his finger could set the machinery of government in motion over almost all the civilized world. He was proud of his power and wealth, and it was one of his favorite occupations to compile a register of the populations and revenues of his vast dominions. So he issued an edict, as the Evangelist Luke says, "that all the world should be taxed," or, to express accurately what the words probably mean, that a census, to serve as a basis for future taxation, should be taken of all his subjects. One of the countries affected by this decree was Palestine, whose king, Herod the Great, was a vassal of Augustus. It set the whole land in motion; for, in accordance with ancient Jewish custom, the census was taken, not in the places where the inhabitants were at the time residing, but in the places to which they belonged as members of the original twelve tribes.

2. Among those whom the edict of Augustus drove from a distance to the highways was a humble pair in the Galilean village of Nazareth-Joseph, the carpenter of the village, and Mary, his espoused wife. They had to travel nearly a hundred miles in order to be inscribed in the proper register; for, though peasants, they had the blood of kings in their veins, and belonged to the ancient and royal town of Bethlehem, in the far south of the country. Day by day the edict, like an invisible hand, forced them southward along the weary road, until at last they climbed the rocky ascent that led to the gate of the town-he terrified with anxiety, and she well-nigh dead with fatigue. They reached the inn, but found it crowded with strangers who, there on the same errand as themselves, had arrived before them. No friendly house opened its door to receive them, so they had to clear for their lodging a corner of the innyard, occupied also by the beasts of the numerous travelers. There, that very night, she brought forth her first-born Son; and, because there was neither womanly hand to assist her nor bed to receive Him, she wrapped Him in swaddling clothes and laid Him in a manger.

3. Such was the manner of the birth of Jesus. I never felt the full pathos of the scene until, standing one day in a room of an old inn in the market town of Eisleben, in Central Germany, I was told that on that very spot, four centuries earlier, amidst the noise of a market day and the bustle of a public house, the wife of the poor miner, Hans Luther, who happened to be in town on business, being surprised like Mary with sudden birth pangs, brought forth in sorrow and poverty the child who was to become Martin Luther, the hero of the Reformation and the designer of modern Europe.

4. The next morning the noise and bustle broke out again in the inn and innyard; the citizens of Bethlehem went about their work; the registration proceeded; but during that time the greatest event in the history of the world had taken place. We never know where a great beginning may be happening. Every arrival of a new soul in the world is a mystery and a closed box of possibilities. Joseph and Mary alone knew the tremendous secret-that on her, the peasant maiden and carpenter's bride, had been conferred the honor of being the mother of Him who was the Messiah of her race, the Savior of the world, and the Son of God.

5. It had been foretold in ancient prophecy that He would be born on this very spot: "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel." The proud emperor's decree drove the anxious couple southward. Yes, but another hand was leading them on-the hand of Him who overrules the purposes of emperors and kings, of statesmen and parliaments, for the accomplishment of His designs, though they know them not; who hardened the heart of Pharaoh, called Cyrus like a slave to His foot, made the mighty Nebuchadnezzar His servant, and in the same way could overrule for His own far-reaching purposes the pride and ambition of Augustus.

THE GROUP AROUND THE INFANT

6. Although Jesus made His entry on the stage of life so humbly and silently; although the citizens of Bethlehem did not dream what had happened in their midst; although the emperor at Rome did not know that his decree had influenced the nativity of a King who was yet to bear rule, not only over the Roman world, but over many a land where Rome's eagles never flew; although the history of mankind went thundering forward the next morning in the channels of its ordinary interests, quite unconscious of the event that had happened, yet it did not altogether escape notice. As the babe leaped in the womb of the aged Elizabeth when the mother of her Lord approached her, so, when He who brought the new world with Him appeared, there sprang up anticipations and forebodings of the truth in various representatives of the old world that was passing away. There went through sensitive and waiting souls, here and there, a dim and half-conscious thrill, which drew them around the Infant's cradle. Look at the group that gathered to gaze on Him! It represented in miniature the whole of His future history.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from The Life of Jesus Christ by James Stalker Copyright © 1984 by Zondervan. Excerpted by permission.
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