1. 1350 years before Jesus was born, Jacob blessed his son Judah and promised that Kings would be born from his family. Who would the special King be?​

2.  750 years before Jesus was born, the Prophet Isaiah said ‘A young woman will have a baby and will call his name ‘Immanuel’ (Jesus means Immanuel or God with us). Who was the young woman? 

3.  400 years before Jesus was born, the Prophet Micah said ‘From Bethlehem a great ruler ( or King)  from God will come to bring peace”.

4  God sent the Angel Gabriel to tell Mary her baby would be the great ruler and she must name him ‘Jesus’. What does the word ‘Jesus mean?

5. Mary and Joseph were all prepared for the arrival of their baby, but  not knowing that....

6.  “Oh no” cried Mary, “Go to Bethlehem. Not now, when I am about to have a baby.”

7.  The Emperor told everyone to go to their home town to be counted. As Joseph’s hometown was Bethlehem, Mary and Joseph had to leave immediately and travel 150 klm.

8.  When Mary and Joseph arrived at Bethlehem, Mary  was exhausted but there was no-where for them to stay. Her baby would be born very soon – what  would  they  do?

9.  A kind inn-keeper showed them a stable where they could stay.

10.   During that night, Mary called out  to Joseph “Wake up, the baby is going to be born”. Did Joseph immediately take Mary to hospital?

11.  There were no hospitals so Joseph had to help deliver Mary’s baby in the stable. They wrapped the baby in baby clothes and put him to sleep in a manger. What was  the baby’s name?

12.  Mary and Joseph were so excited about the new baby Jesus whom they knew was God’s son, but with no telephone, they could not tell anyone  that he had been born. No-one would know or so they thought.

13.  God was making sure everyone would know that Jesus had been born! He even sent his choir to tell the shepherds – that was much more exciting than a telephone call.

14  The night was dark and quiet...... SUDDENLY an angel, bright as day, stood near the shepherds up on the hill. “Don’t be frightened, I’ve got great news for you – Jesus  is born.”

15. “God has sent to earth his son, Jesus and you will find him in a stable in Bethlehem, just as the Prophets told us hundreds of years ago”.

16.  Before the shepherds could even say ‘Happy Christmas’ God’s choir appeared in the sky and sang praises to God in heaven, and peace on the earth.

17.   Suddenly it was dark and quiet again but the shepherds said “what are we waiting for?” so off they stumbled in the dark, down the hill to Bethlehem.

18.  How do you find a baby in the middle of the night? What did the angel say “you will find him in a stable”, so where is  that  stable?

19.  Mary and Joseph were exhausted after their long long walk and the birth of their baby. All they wanted to do was sleep when ‘bang bang’ – someone was banging on the stable door. Who could it be?

20.  As Joseph opened the door of the stable, some shepherds rushed in saying “ has a baby been born here tonight?  Can we  see him?” Mary and Joseph were shocked – how could these shepherds know about baby Jesus?

21. That same night a new star appeared in the sky a long way away in another country. “What does that star mean?” asked the Wise Men.

22.  “ The new star is moving across the sky – I wonder if a special King has been born? Let’s follow the star.”

23.  On their camels, the Wise Men followed the star all the way to Bethlehem.

24.  The Wise Men gave Jesus very special presents for when he grew up, gold for a King, frankincense for a priest ( God’s helper on the earth) and myrrh for when Jesus died on the cross.

25.   What can I give him small as I am?      Give my heart!

  
Recently I was with three couples, all in the senior age bracket, and each wife had the same comment to make about her husband – how nice he was to others but when it came time to interact with his wife, how difficult he became. My eye surgeon was a grumpy old man ( he retired a week after my cataract was removed) and ‘fortunately’ I had had enough experience  in dealing with his type of dialogue, not to become angry with him. Now , I am not going to go down that path, except to say that I do feel it is a situation to be explored from a medical point of view, but what it did do was make me think of how Jesus reacted to women.

Of course, Jesus did not get to the age of being classed as a grumpy old man, but we do hear of even younger men ‘dying’ of ‘man flu’ for example – in other words, when something goes wrong, life is all about them – wives never have to suffer such debilitating conditions! I realise not all men are like this, but the proverbial joke is not without some truth.

So let’s look at Jesus, in the setting of a patriarchal society. Yesterday I read an article about Malala Yousafzai, that wonderful outspoken  teenager from Pakistan, and who was shot by the Taliban at age 15. Maybe her background was more extreme than in Jesus’ time but it did give a  contemporary  example of how women are treated in a patriarchal society – her father certainly bucked the system by treating his daughter equal to a male, starting with a good education. 

Jesus never put down women; he never ignored them; he never treated them any less because they were women – just read the gospels for examples of this behaviour  as there are plenty there.
​
But what has always really amazed me, is Jesus words to his disciple John, when Jesus was slowly dying in absolute agony on the cross. ( John 19:26-27) “When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother ‘Woman, here is your son’ . Then he said to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother’ “. What man, slowly being suffocated and in excruciating pain, can think of someone other than themselves?  And that is just the human side of the story – the theological one  for Jesus was even worse. Yet here is Jesus, reaching out to his mother. That really gets to me, that Jesus  is still capable of such love, even under these horrific circumstances. I sure would not expect that of anyone.

The Bible tells us quite clearly, that Jesus was both God and human, but the human part – how much of this was ‘male’? Physically we assume him to be male, but mentally/emotionally? Was  his thinking  typical of  any  men of his time? If anyone has done  or read of a study on this subject please let me know as I am sure it would be really fascinating to explore this further.
Why did Jesus think the way he did? Could he have grown into a grumpy old man?

 Or did Jesus show us what should be normal in society and give us an example that we should follow?
​
Love was his message; Jesus is God and God is Love.