This is the love of God among us – pt5

The humility & obedience of Joseph and Mary. Simeon & Anna

Luke 2:21-40

What were the day’s of Jesus infancy like? What were Joseph and Mary like? As we will discover in today’s text, we can learn much and take to ourselves good instruction from their conduct in the period immediate after the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. The Spirit-inspired record of the gospel of Luke takes us back to the scene. Let us carefully observe God’s working through this couple and His working through Old Testament-style prophets in the Temple courts.

The birth of Jesus Christ occurred in 6/5BC. (You can blame the offset error from year 1 on the 6th century Roman theologian, mathematician, and astronomer Dionysius Exiguus). King Herod grew gradually ill and then died in the spring of 4BC, so Jesus had to have been born, and then at some point after that the Magi from the east arrived at Herod’s court. That had to have been while Herod was well and in the strength of his ruling power, so well before Herod’s decline and then death. Jesus’ birth then fits best in the 6/5BC range. It is in that timeframe then that the events recorded here for our contemplation and spiritual edification occur.