As predicted by the angel and the Bible, the Virgin Mary gave birth to the promised Son of God in the city of Bethlehem. The process leading up to this birth in Luke's Gospel is full of ups and downs. Luke 1 describes the appearance and revelation of an angel, the visitation of a pregnant female relative, songs of praise and wonder, and a once barren woman giving birth to the forerunner of the Messiah.
After years of waiting for the Messiah, the promised Son was born. “And she gave birth to her firstborn, and she wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger” (Luke 2:7).
But what about after the birth of Jesus? What happened in the hours and days that followed? Is there anything that can be seen explicitly or implicitly inferred from the Biblical data?
1. The shepherds rushed to Bethlehem to meet the newborn baby.
This day was the same day as my birth. The angel said to them, “For today in the city of David is born to you a Savior, Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11). The shepherds find the baby still in the manger (2:12; cf. 2:7).
So, a few hours after Jesus' birth, Mary and Joseph had shepherds as visitors.
2. Jesus was circumcised on the eighth day.
According to Genesis 17, circumcision was a sign of God's covenant with Abraham.
Luke 2:21 says, “At the end of the eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, which was the name the angel gave him before he was in the womb.”
Mary and Joseph followed the Law of Moses.
3. Mary endured a period of ritual impurity.
According to Leviticus 12, if a woman gives birth to a son, she becomes ritually unclean for several weeks. Biblical law forbade her to go to the sanctuary until she completed her time of uncleanness. Once her uncleanness was finished, she was to bring an offering to the temple (Leviticus 12:5-8).
In Luke 2:22-24, Mary kept the provisions of the law and brought the appropriate offerings to the temple at the appointed times.
4. Mary and Joseph received the visiting wise men.
These men from the East brought gifts to the Christ Child (Matthew 2:11-12). They arrived at the “house” where Mary and Joseph were staying (2:11).
This home would have been the same relative's home where the couple first arrived in Luke 2:1-7. (The “guest room” in Luke 2:7 was a home guest room, not a motel guest room.)
The wise men did not arrive on the night of Jesus' birth. Matthew 2 does not say how much time had passed since birth, but Herod's plan to kill babies “under two years of age” was a year after Jesus' birth when the wise men came. This suggests that more has passed.
5. Mary and Joseph went to Egypt.
Joseph, who was still in Bethlehem with Mary and Jesus, had a dream. In that dream, an angel said to him: to destroy him” (Matthew 2:13). When Joseph woke up, he followed the angel's instructions and left Bethlehem with his small family for Egypt.
We only have snapshots of what happened in the hours, days, weeks, and months after Jesus' birth, but these snapshots should be studied and cherished.
This essay is first published At Substack with Dr. Mitchell Chase.”Biblical theology.”
