All right, so we need to continue where we left off from last lecture. We even just two hours is not enough, obviously. But what we did last time was look at all the Annunciation, right, Annunciation to Zechariah, to Mary and very, very quickly, that third little bonus Annunciation to Joseph and his role in all of this. A lot more could be said and time will come, and we'll have a lot more time to dedicate to all these stories.
But now let's continue and look at our Lord's birth and his circumcision on the eighth day. And he's born in Bethlehem. Everyone knows this, right? Jesus is born in Bethlehem.
Just because of the census, all right? The Roman emperor has the census, because of tax reasons and all that good stuff. And you can see already that God's providence is using even the most powerful man in the world in order to accomplish his will, in order to fulfill the scriptures, because Jesus was meant to be born in Bethlehem. Bethlehem is called the city of David for a couple of reasons.
David was born there, so it's very appropriate that if King David was born in Bethlehem, the son of David, the Messiah, capital M, Grand Puba Messiah, would be born there as well. David was also anointed there as king. All right, so this makes a lot of sense why Jesus would be born in Micah prophesied that the Messiah would be born here in the city of David. So this is Micah chapter five verse two, but Jew of Bethlehem, Ephritha, who are little among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me, one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from old from ancient days.
Now, this is a whole, whenever we read prophecy, it's so important to go and look at the larger context. And that could be a whole slew of chapters or verses, or one chapter, it's really important, but one thing I want to point out with this particular prophecy is not just that the Messiah, the son of David, the new king would be born in Bethlehem, and that was foretold, that's true. But there's this little detail here who talks about how the ruler of Israel is the origin, the ruler's origin is from old from ancient days. This is language to describe the eternal nature of the ruler who's God, right?
The Messiah is going to be the son of David, and the son of God, that is really important. The Messiah is divine, Jesus is divine. You're gonna see all kinds of little connections with the prophecies about Jesus, not just being the king of Israel, that's true, great, awesome, but there are more details, there are more exciting, little tidbits that teach us, his identity is divine. It's from old from ancient days, and you find this in Daniel, we're not talking a lot about Daniel in the time, in future lessons, as we have in the past.
All right, well, it goes on, now Bethlehem here, to get back to the notes, Bethlehem means house of bread. And that is very significant in its own right, because it most obviously points to Jesus being the bread of life. You go to John chapter six, the famous bread of life, and this course, Jesus says, I'm the true bread that comes from heaven, the bread that I will give to the world is my flesh, et cetera. Jesus is the heavenly manna, right?
And we made all these connections in past lectures, especially when we're looking at this, we're going through the wilderness, the wilderness wanderings. We too are wandering through the wilderness of this life, and Jesus sustains us with his own body blood, so on divinity, given to us in the form of bread. So the fact that Bethlehem means house of bread, pointing to Jesus as the bread of life, that's pretty awesome. And then if you connect it also with the fact that Jesus is laid in a manger, he's not born in a manger, by the way, that's a little detail, this is where Greg Gramer's important, he's not actually born in the manger, right?
He's laid in the manger after he's born. So there's a little tidbit there when the little kids Christmas carols come around every single year. Well, he's laid in a manger and manger is a feeding trough for animals. Manjadeh in Italian, Mongeh in French, these romantic languages, it's where animals eat, right?
And that even more points forward to Jesus, Jesus' role as feeding us spiritually through his own body blood, so on divinity and the eucharist. I really, really love that. And the fact that he's laid in a manger, there's typology here. Now, I told you a couple lectures back here, when we're looking at the life of Jesus, the catechism, we go to the catechism, the catechism says, there's this threefold mystery being unveiled with our Lord's life.
His words, his deeds, from the moment he's born to the moment he rises up into heaven through his ascension, everything is a revelation of the Father, it's a revelation of redemption, and it's a revelation of recapitulation, where Jesus recaps or fulfills all the Old Testament prophecies and promises and figures and whatnot. Well, now I'm gonna give you an example of this, mystery of redemption. As Jesus is wrapped in the swaddling clothes and laid in a manger, so this is gonna point forward to the end of his life, it's gonna point forward to the fact that he'll be wrapped in burial clothes and laid in a tomb. So the Father's have always pointed this out.
He reads in good commentaries where, of course, the fathers of the church, they've recognized this, where he's wrapped in these clothes, these whose garments are laid in the manger, that's gonna point forward to him being laid in the tomb. So we can see the mystery of redemption, the mystery of his death, even in the moment of his birth. And that's something that just comes to mind right now, Archbishop Sheen, I'll quote him a little bit later, in just a few minutes, because I just love him, he's awesome. He had said once that every man comes into the world in order to live, that's our purpose.
We wanna have life, we're born to live, but Jesus is the only one who comes into the world in order to die. So that we might live, right? And you can kind of see this mystery right here, as I share the typology foreshadowing of the cross of his death right there in the manger scene. So it's a beautiful thing to keep in mind.
Every aspect of our Lord's life points forward to, well, the threefold revelation I shared with you, but it shows us how he came into this world to die for us. All right, now here he is, he's born, and obviously we've gotta do the highlights, everything that we do for the life of Christ, and the next number of lectures are just going to be the highlights. The tip of the iceberg, the tip of the Jesus iceberg, you can call it, because we can go so much deeper. I wanna just give you the flow here to understand what's happening in kind of this narrative form.
So he's laid in the manger, he's born beautiful scene. I'll have some meditation here in a moment, and I'll have some more on those on that scene, but the first people to come and worship him are the shepherds. This is an echo of the magnificat, because the shepherds are the lowest of the society, or at least they're in the lowest ranks of society, and Israelites society here, they weren't trusted, they're considered to be outcasts, this is really important, it points forward to how our Lord goes after those who are lowly, who are humble, those who are the sinners, the outcasts. So the shepherds are the ones who are able to come in and adore the infant king of the universe.
That's an echo of the magnificat, where we don't have a lot of time to talk about it, we talk about it with Hannah in her song, and you'll test them in first Samuel, but you've got this theme of reversals, right, where the low will be lifted up, the mighty will fall and the low will be lifted up, and that's what's happening here with the shepherds. Now, this is all in Luke, Luke chapter two, verses eight and following is the whole story of, of the shepherds here, when I flip there for a second, and it's really interesting, we don't have a lot of time to read all of these particular passages, I have to be very, very selective. In Luke chapter two verse eight, it says, in that region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night, an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around about them, and they were filled with fear. That's what you always were able to respond to angels and fear, you pretty much soil yourself, because they're so magnificent and so glorious, in your center, like if you have an vision of an angel, you're gonna be filled with fear, just mark my words.
And they respond, do not be afraid, behold, I bring you good news of great joy, which will come to all the people. For it's you is born this day in the city of David, a savior who is Christ the Lord, and you'll find this is the sign for you, you'll find the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. All right, so a couple things to point out here, not just the fact that they're the lowest of society, and this is who God, this is who God comes for, right? He comes for those who know they are humble, there's a lot of connections there for the beatitudes, we'll talk about in the electric down the line, but those we know, if we humble ourselves, God will exalt us and we'll be able to worship the king of kings.
But it says in verse nine, the glory of the Lord is shown all around about them. This is super significant. The glory of the Lord, that is the glory cloud, right? That's the Shekina, it's the Shekina, the Shekina glory cloud, I almost said Shekina, but the Shekina, you always wanna put the emphasis on the last syllable, right?
The rite infosus on salaval, that's how you wanna do this, but the Shekina has not been around for centuries, for centuries. If you remember back in lesson 23, I believe it was, we're talking about how the glory of the Lord departed from the temple because Babylon was, well, first it shows that through the sinfulness of the priests and the people, God cannot dwell on the midst any longer, he has left them because of their choices. Now Babylon's about to come into town and squish the city like a bug. And so Ezekiel has this vision, Ezekiel 10, how the glory of the Lord went forth from the threshold of the house.
Now, this is right about the year 586 BC, when Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians come into town. The glory of the Lord leaves, and it never comes back. Why? Because the Ark of the Covenant is gone.
So if you recall, in Second Mac, and the Beast Chapter Two, we discussed this, how Jeremiah found a cave. He brought there the tent in the Ark in the altar of incense. He sealed up the entrance and declared, the place shall be unknown until God gathers his people together again and shows them mercy. And then the Lord will disclose these things and the glory of the Lord and the cloud will appear.
All right, that's all super important languages, language because it evokes a new Exodus. All right, when God wants to gather his people together again, gather them from all the places where they've been scattered, bring show them mercy, bring them together, then you're going to see the glory of the Lord again. And what do we find here with these shepherds? Well, the glory of the Lord is back because the time has come for a new Exodus.
He is showing the people mercy. And now he's gonna bring all them together again through his son in the restored renovated kingdom of David 2. The upgraded kingdom of David, the kingdom of heaven. All right, so this is really, really important how the humble is to society.
They see the glory of the glory of the Lord that's been gone for so many years, almost 500 years approximately. That's insanely exciting then for them. And they go and they see the infant and they worship him and it's a beautiful scene. All right, so one of the things I want to point out before we move on here is the king of kings, the Lord of Lords is now born here in this, not in the manger, he's born in the cave in this humble setting.
I'd like to point out that many scholars have pointed out, I have some references here in your notes for you in the footnote, but there's this contrast between Caesar Augustus and little baby Jesus Christ. Because if you think back in lesson 26, I introduced to you the vision of Daniel, or not Daniel's vision, but he interprets in the Knesser's vision, his dream of the statue and there's the different metals, right? Symbolizing the different kingdoms. And now at the end of the vision of the kingdom of Knesser, there's this stone that's gonna come and destroy all these secular worldly leaders and the stone will become a great mountain for the whole earth.
This is all the vision of the Messiah, right? Jesus is the stone and he's gonna come and deep-roen if you wanna say, every all the worldly, pathetic leaders. That's already happening now in the contrast between Caesar, Augustus and Jesus. And Luke is the one who really kind of brings us to the forefront.
Now in the first century, Caesar Augustus himself was the one who was called the divine son of God, because he was the son of Julius Caesar, quote unquote, son, there's some history there, but suffice it right now, he was the son of Julius Caesar, Julius Caesar was declared divine. So Julius Caesar was declared divine. His successor, his adopted son really, is now the divine son of God. Caesar Augustus is the son of the divine Julius Caesar.
So he is depicted as the divine son of God. And Caesar Augustus is the savior of the world because he brought the Pox Romana. He brought peace on earth. The Pox Romana, the historians all point out, it really was a very peaceful time in the history of Rome.
Things were going well, commerce, economy, trade, all these different things were flourishing. So Caesar Augustus was the one who was hailed as the bringing peace on earth. So his birthday therefore was celebrated as good news and good tidings, it was the gospel of the birth of Caesar Augustus. So now if you didn't know any better, you would think this all seems to describe Jesus.
And it does. So Luke contrasts Jesus with Caesar Augustus because Jesus is the true son of God. He's not by declaring some man divine. No, he in his nature, he's the second person of the Holy Trinity, he's the true son of God and the real savior and Lord of all humanity who brings peace on earth and his birthday is hailed as a good news by the angels as well.
And I had the various references here in Luke where he mentions these specifically. But it's really great. You can begin to see how this vision of this statue now is gonna be crumbled by the stone, by little baby Jesus here. He is the true savior of the world, the true son of God.
I really like that contract a lot.