I have a friend that I will call George in this piece to ensure that I maintain the peace between us. One day as we were driving by a big old church building, whose architecture rang of spectacular antiquity, he suddenly pointed at the building and said to me, “Bet if I take off the roof of that church to go down into it they would arrest me.”
Nonchalantly without hesitation I responded, “You win the bet and I would agree with them.”
He enjoyed a hearty laugh and then said, “Why? Some men did it when Jesus was here and they did not get arrested.”
I answered. “Therein lies all the reason why I would agree with them not only to arrest you, but to lock you in a sanatorium and throw away the key. There is absolutely no parallel between you vandalizing and damaging the people's property, and what those men in the Bible did”.
He burst out into another round of hilarious laughter. I kept my eyes on the road showing no expression on my countenance. Recovering from his laughter he asked,
“How so?”
“Firstly, you are in a very different time and culture. Secondly, the architecture and construction here would not allow for such ease of removing the roof as those men had. Thirdly, Jesus was not in a church at all, he was in a house. Fourthly, you do not know to whom the house belonged. Maybe it belonged to one of the persons involved, so they had all the authority of ownership to do what they did. A vital element you definitely do not have in this proposed idea of yours. In the fifth degree, you would need a friend who is really sick on a stretcher and three more lunatics like yourself for it to vaguely resemble the Jesus' incident. And here is the clincher, on the sixth level, Jesus would have to be in that particular church in person; and what more, you and your friends cannot get in to Him, because too many people are before you”.
By now he was doubling over with laughter. If we were not in a moving car with seat belt and all, I'm certain he would be rolling on the floor. Finally he was able to speak and said, “ I guess I would have no defence eh?”
“You would not even have a chance to show purpose much less defence.”
After a few more bouts of giggles he said, “I see.”
We both laugh then.
That humorous moment came back to my mind today when I was thinking of the birth of Jesus Christ, His life and purpose on the earth. The Bible says that He went about doing good (Acts 10:38). He healed the sick, as the man that my friend alluded to above. His friends wanted to take him to Jesus, but they could not get in, because of the crowd, so take climbed up took off the roof and let their friend down in front of Jesus, the Son of God. He raised the dead and gave them back alive to their loved ones. He made the blind to see, the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak. He fed them when they were hungry. He delivered them from lunacy and demon possession. He taught them wisdom, knowledge, and gave them understanding and hope. He enlightened them about the Father and the way to the eternal kingdom of God. He instructed them about the devil and his wiles; and proved to them that he was defeated. He manifested love, peace, truth, joy, faith, righteousness, obedience, humility and showed them how they can live victoriously and powerfully in this present world, and how to have hope for the life to come.
Four Unified Gospel Accounts
There are four gospel accounts of the earthly life of Jesus Christ in relationship to God and Man. (“Man” is both male and female.) These are namely: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, in that order. Only Matthew and Luke speak particularly of Christ's actual conception in the womb and subsequent birth. The fast-paced actions of Mark's writings portray Him as an extremely busy Servant going about doing the work of the Father. John presents Christ as pre-incarnate to His life on earth. According to John, “All things were made by Him, and in Him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:3-4.) In short, Christ is God. Matthew identifies Jesus as Israel's long awaited Messiah. The Old Testament sets the place of His birth - Bethlehem Ephratah - as an identifying factor of the Messiah. So by necessity minute details of Jesus' birth had to be included in his account; so that those who want proof of Christ being the Saviour can have it. Likewise, Luke being a doctor by profession, having intimate conversations with Mary, Jesus' mother, and whose mandate is to show Christ as the perfect Man, find it very natural to give specifications of Jesus' birth.
