<TITLE>04. Par 10-12</TITLE>L-10 So in the days when Jesus was born, they didn't have press, and so forth, like we have today, and radio, and television. News just come merely from lip to ear. And when Jesus was born, some magis was watching for the star of Jacob to rise, so they followed it over from the Orients and worshipped Him out on the hillside--or in the Bethlehem manger, rather, as a young child. Not a little infant like Christian tradition has it, it was a young Child: baby's two years old. Herod went to immediately killing children from two years old down. Why'd he kill them from two years old if it's just a little new suckling baby a few hours old? See? Strange how people can get things mixed up, isn't it? See?
He was a young Child. A young child's not an infant: a young child. He was two years old. So the magis come from the Orients, following a star that led them to the Child. The shepherds was on the hill, a bunch of peasants out there, herding the sheep, not on the 25th day of December. That's Catholicism. Along in April, 25th day of December, it's as cold as it is in Indiana on Judaea. So they wasn't laying out there on a hill in that snow watching sheep. So that's just something they set up so they taken on that way. But He wasn't born on December the 25th. You ought to go to over there one time and see how they laugh at that.

L-11 Now. But however, when the shepherds heard the voice of the angel and the singing, they went into Jerusalem and told what--or down into Bethlehem and told the sights they'd seen and they met the Christ. Well now, of a Jewish law, every eight days the mother of the child has to come and offer a sacrifice for the, her cleansing, purification, and for the circumcision of the child.
Now, let's give just a little drama here before we get ready for the line. Let's set up the picture now. Something's been noised about, way down in Judaea there, about a star, some fellows coming in, about a star appearing. I hear them talking on the street, saying, "You know that bunch of fanatics that believe in that?" See? But it was so.

L-12 And then here's an old man. Let's see--let's say it's Monday morning. And here's the people all standing in this building for worship. Thousands of Jews in the land in those days, many of them was up in there for taxation. And there's probably two or three million Jews in the land in that day, so there'd probably be as many as fifty or a hundred babies born every day from the Jews. Well, that meant every day standing in the line for purification and circumcision of the child, would be at least fifty mothers standing with their sacrifices for the purification of child.
Let's say it's Monday morning. Here stands a long string of people, many thousands swarming in and out the temple. And along the row, here's a woman holding a little chain; she's got a lamb on it; she's a rich woman; she's dressed in fine laces and silks, holding her little baby here, all wrapped up real nice. And the neighbor woman who goes to the same church she does, they're talking about the baby and how lovely it is, and exchanging remarks.


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