We are all familiar with the scripture in Luke 2 that says about the birth of Jesus that “the shepherds were keeping watch over their flock by night.” What makes no sense is the part, “by night“.  We know that the flocks did not graze at night. In reality they were brought into caves that existed on the hillside overlooking Bethlehem. A hedge was then put at the cave entrance to keep the sheep in and the wolves out. There was only one exception, that being a few flocks of lambs that did graze at night beside the road that passed by Bethlehem going to Jerusalem. Those lambs were sold to people passing on that road early in the morning to be used as sacrifices later in the day in Jerusalem. The fact is that the angels recorded in Luke came to announce the birth of Jesus to shepherds whose duty it was to watch over the lambs that were to be the passover sacrifices.
        Of course Jesus was born in a stable because there was no room in the inn. Bethlehem was small and there may have only been one inn at that time. At any rate, the stable referred to did not look like a stable we see in pictures. In reality it would have been one of those hillside caves I just mentioned. So Jesus was born in the same place those sacrificial lambs were born.
        Incidentally, the Hebrew word that we read as “swaddling clothes” was actually the word that described some very cheap cloth that was in fact used to wrap the lambs in as soon as they were born.
        The description of Jesus being the Lamb of God sent as a sacrifice to take away the sins of the world can be seen very dramatically in His very birth. His story began in a cave on a Bethlehem hillside where other lambs were born for only one reason, to serve as a passover sacrifice. Jesus was the Lamb of God whose passover sacrifice once and for all gave us eternal life.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 14th, 2009 at 12:26 am and is filed under Shadows.