“Advent”! All media – radio and television stations, Facebook, twitter, and newspapers are currently full of references to it. With its mention they almost immediately go on to calendars and chocolates as if the two are inseparable. But what is advent and what does the word mean?
The word is of Latin origin and comes from the combination of ‘ad’ meaning ‘to’ and ‘venire’ meaning ‘to come’. So, it refers to the coming of something, which according to the Oxford Dictionary is usually the coming of something important like a significant event or person. In its current usage advent is the four weeks or so preceding Christmas which is the feast of celebration of the nativity of Jesus Christ. For the media that invariably seek to ignore or deny the relevance of Jesus Christ in human history and everyday life, the volte face is remarkable.
Of course, their interest is commercial, hence they would like to connect it with chocolates or anything else for that matter, rather than emphasise the true meaning. It’s the same with Christmas itself: make it a festive season of endless shopping – buying and giving presents; a time of families to get together; eating and drinking; of everyone to remember the poor and less privileged; and a season not to let the ‘poor child’ or ‘homeless person’ be without a present.
But why do people need to do these things? If you were a visitor to our earth from Mars or another planet and just read the newspapers, or listened to the radio or watched television you wouldn’t know what it is all about because they wouldn’t tell you. All they want is to promote commerce, but they would not tell you why you should do all that they promote at this time of year.
Jesus’s birth in Palestine about 2000 years ago is the reason for all this activity. Its occurrence and His physical existence are historical facts verifiable from contemporaneous records, especially those of the Romans whose Empire included the area of his birth. They kept impeccable records. Indeed, it was because of the Romans that He came to be born in Bethlehem in Judea, instead of further north in Nazareth in Galilee where His earthly parents, Joseph and Mary lived.
You see, the Roman Emperor at the time, Augustus (formerly Octavian) Caesar, nephew and adopted son of Julius Caesar, had decreed a census of all the people in his empire, for taxation purposes. The decree required people to be counted in their original homes, hence Joseph who was of the lineage of the Israelite King David, had to return to the homestead to be counted. That homestead was Bethlehem (also called Ephrata).
On the surface there seems to be no story at all to this: Joseph was just a law-abiding citizen who did what every good citizen does – obey the law. The only problem was that his wife Mary was nearly full term pregnant. What about it? I hear you say. Remember there were no cars then, and only the (Roman) military top brass had chariots and carriages. So, the journey was probably made on a donkey, all 100 miles or more of it. The actual distance was less than this, about 70 miles, but the shorter route went through Samaritan territory, and as the Jews ‘had no dealings with the Samaritans’, any right-thinking Jew like Joseph, avoided going through their land like the plague.
There were other travellers to Bethlehem for the same census; hence the guest rooms in most houses were occupied, meaning that when the time came for Mary to deliver her baby, ‘there was no room for them at the inn (guest room). So, Jesus was born where they kept animals for the night – ‘in a manger’. The story has become so much repeated with time – from infants and kindergarteners re-enacting the Nativity scene at school plays during Christmas, to Christmas cards portraying colourful scenes from the event, that we sometimes fail to see what was actually happening.
One interesting aspect of all this to any curious enquirer is that all these dovetailed into the fulfilment of prophecies made 500-700 years before the event itself. And it took Caesar’s decree to compel a man to take a full-term pregnant wife on an arduous journey of several days on a donkey – something no man in his right senses would do.
There was something else. After Jesus was born, various people came to see him in response to information they had received. One group was a group of shepherds out with their sheep in the fields. Another was wise men (magi) ‘from the East’. They were astrologers and had seen His star in the sky, and following it, they arrived in Jerusalem. Being noblemen, they went to see their counterpart to enquire about the location of the birthplace. Their description of Him as ‘King of the Jews’ elicited the interest of the Roman appointed king, Herod the Great – and his jealousy. He was alarmed ‘and all Jerusalem with him’.
Although he was king of the Jews, he was not one of them, but an Idumean, a descendant of the rival people of the Edomites. As such he was not versed in their scripture. The crafty king then consulted the Jewish religious people to find out where the Messiah was to be born, according to the prophecies of the older part of the bible, the Old Testament. They correctly identified the place as Bethlehem. The magi went to see Him, gave Him gifts: gold frankincense and Myrrh, and then returned home. After they had left, Herod set upon eliminating the new-born child he considered as a rival king…
Thus, he ordered the killing of all male infants in the area up to the age of two – the presumed period between the birth and the visit of the magi.He did not get at Jesus however, as warned about Herod’s designs, the parents had taken him to safety in Egypt. Many innocent children lost their lives because of Herod’s action, hence there was widespread mourning with wailing and weeping. This again was the fulfilment of another prophecy, of Rachel (one of the Jewish matriarchs) ‘wailing for her children because they have died’. Christians remember this macabre incident on Innocents Day on December 28.
So, several prophecies made hundreds of years before, were fulfilled in the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem. It took an odd assortment of incidents and events for them all to come together in a statistically unlikely and uncanny manner.
Therefore, as we celebrate advent with calendars and chocolates, and look forward to Christmas, with its travelling and getting together of families; its eating, drinking, and giving of presents, as well as the concern for the poor and needy, let us give a thought to how and why it all started.
Joseph and Mary’s travel to Bethlehem started all that getting together of families not seen for a long time. And we know that when families meet, they eat, drink and talk. The concern for the poor and needy started with the angels appearing to the shepherds – the lowest status people in that society; and the giving of presents started with the magi. And we received the greatest gift of all – the baby who would become the Jesus Christ of history, Saviour of the world.
Let us therefore look out for miracles or prophecies that may be fulfilled in our own lives.
