Lamb of God

 Just when you think you know everything there is to know about the birth of Jesus.........😁

So who knows about the Tower of the Flock?  ( dont tell me if you do cos Ive only just discovered this and Im super excited 😂)

 I already knew that the area around Bethlehem was used for rearing the sheep which would be used in the temple for sacrifices.  Thousands of lambs were needed every year for the special festivals as well as for regular sin offerings so it was a large and full time business raising sacrificial lambs.  It is why there were shepherds out in the fields watching the flocks by night.  The countryside was full of sheep.  And therefore also full of shepherds.

I also knew that there was a specific procedure the sacrificial lambs underwent as soon as they were born.  As they had to be perfect without any birth defects or markings on them they were checked over as soon as they were born and if they were deemed good enough to go to the temple they were then wrapped up in swaddling clothes to prevent them getting dirty or injured.   Not hard to see the parallels with the birth of Jesus.

But get this.......this is the bit Ive just found out.....

Near the road between Bethlehem and Jerusalem was a special building into which the shepherds would take ewes which were about to give birth.  It was a tower and was kept spotlessly clean as per the Rabbinical directives about sacrificial lambs.  The pregnant ewes would give birth here and the lambs would be inspected, sorted and those that were deemed perfect would be wrapped up to keep them warm and clean. The tower structure was called Migdal Eder and it is specifically mentioned in the book of Micha as the place the Lord will come.

And you, Migdal Eder [tower of the flock], hill of the daughter of Zion, to you it shall happen and shall come, the first [or beginning] dominion, the kingdom of the daughter of Jerusalem. Micha 4;8

What is more, the local shepherds would have known this building as ' the manger'.  The safe place for the delivery of lambs.  The place where they would be fed and cared for as soon as they were born.

The angels who appeared to the shepherds that Christmas Eve did not say ' You shall find him wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger'  .Apparently that's a mis-translation into English.  What the text says is ' You shall find Him wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in THE manger.'   Which would explain how the shepherds managed to find Jesus soon after they had been told about Him.   There must have been hundreds of houses in Bethlehem which had stables and barns and rooms for animals in their houses.   Lots and lots of doors to knock on in order to find this promised baby.  Unless........  unless the angels directed them to the one place they knew better than anyone else.  The tower by the roadside which would have been the perfect place for Mary and Joseph to shelter as the time for the birth grew near.   The tower which would have been stocked with swaddling clothes ready for those sacrificial lambs.   The tower prophesied by Micha.   

A ruined agricultural tower near Bethlehem.

We have always known that Jesus is the spotless lamb of God.  We know that his birth foretells His death and that God doesnt overlook a single detail in the plan to fulfil every Biblical prophecy. But the more I discover about those details the more amazed I am.  It makes me think of God as a poet.  Writing this intricate and beautiful story where no word or comma is out of place or unnecessary and where every reading shows new and deeper meaning. 

This week Im going to be rehearsing the Nativity play with Suday School.  Its all about the Inkeeper.  As we tell the story once again I shall have a new appreciation of what might have been going on that night when there were no rooms and Mary and Joseph were sent back off down the road to a stone tower in a field to give birth to the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.