The New Testament gives the story of not one but two extraordinary births. It had long been prophesied that a Messiah would come to liberate the people, and many took this to mean freedom from their Roman overlords. The sense in which the prophecies were given was more to do with raising people above the limitation imposed by their religious customs. These focussed mostly on outward appearances and very little on the mind and its use of harmonious feelings, through which true happiness and peacefulness were and still are to be found.
Zachariah was a priest whose duties included serving in the Temple at Jerusalem. Whilst performing his duties in the inner sanctuary he looked up to see an angel figure. The spirit messenger, Gabriel, had come to tell Zachariah that his wife would bear a son who was to be named John. He would be filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother’s womb. Coming in the spirit and power of Elias (the prophet Elijah), John would prepare the people for what was to follow.
The detail of the Holy Ghost being present even from his mother’s womb is significant, but more of this when we come to the birth of Jesus.
Zachariah was bewildered. He and his wife were childless and getting on in years, and he questioned the angel as to how it could be true. The angel replied that as a sign he would be struck dumb until his son was born.
When Zachariah emerged from the sanctuary he found to his utter amazement he could no longer speak. He saw the people wondering what had kept him for so long and made signs to them he had seen a vision. More than that he did not attempt to reveal.
At home in the hill country of Judea, his wife, Elisabeth, also received an angel visitor. “You are to have a son,” she was told. Elisabeth, a woman scorned by others for being childless, was to give birth to a son who would be strong of spirit.
Those who are born strong of spirit, or strong of soul, (like John and Jesus also), still require a covering matter body to be conceived in the normal way of the earth. And so it was that after Zachariah returned from his week’s service in the Temple his wife became with child.
In the sixth month of Elisabeth’s pregnancy, some distance away in Nazareth, it was the turn of a young woman named Mary to be visited by Gabriel. “Hail, you that are highly favoured. Blessed are you among women,” he said.
Seeing she was in awe of his presence, Gabriel continued: “Don’t be afraid. You will have a son whom you should name Jesus. He will be given the throne of his forebear, David, and his reign over the house of Jacob (the father of the twelve tribes of Israel) will endure forever.
Mary was alarmed, thinking the angel meant she was pregnant already, before being married to her fiancé, Joseph. “How can this be, seeing as I have not been with a man?” she said.
The angel replied: “The Holy Ghost will come upon you, and the power of the highest will overshadow you. Therefore the holy one that will be born of you will be called the Son of God. Your cousin Elisabeth has also conceived a son and is now in the sixth month.”
Again we hear of the Holy Ghost. This is little understood by people as being akin to the life force, the highest power of which each and every individual soul is a part, making us all sons and daughters of God.
Not fully comprehending the angel’s words, and dreading to tell Joseph to whom she was betrothed, Mary made up her mind to visit Elizabeth. Upon Mary’s arrival Elisabeth felt the baby move strongly in her womb and blessed her cousin for coming to help.
In due course Elisabeth bore a son, much to the delight of her family and her neighbours. On the eighth day, in keeping with their religion, the boy had to be circumcised. The religious officials performing the procedure upon the child pronounced his name would be named Zacharias, after his father.
Elizabeth called out, “Not so, his name is John.”
Her words confused the officials and all those present, for this name had not been in the family before. They looked over to Zacharias, who, still being dumb, wrote down his response: “His name is John.” Everyone was astonished, even more so when Zacharias began to speak once more and to prophesy that his son would be a prophet of the highest.
All those who were there, and the many that heard of it afterwards, wondered what manner of child had been born. For indeed this child grew up to be John the Baptist, the prophet who laid the groundwork for Jesus.
Return To Nazareth
Our story now moves back to Mary. Returning home she felt she must attempt to explain to Joseph all that the angel had told her.
Mary didn’t understand what was meant by conceiving of the Holy Ghost, making it sound as if she was pregnant, even though after three months there was no sign that she was. She had no idea of the inner self or the workings of the soul. Despite this she lived a good life and the brightness of her aura made her a suitable mother for the teacher that was to come.
Joseph was dismayed at what Mary said. To avoid both her disgrace and his own humiliation, he decided he would send her somewhere to have the child in secret. Later, having laid down and eventually fallen asleep, Joseph had a dream in which an angel appeared. He was told to take Mary as his wife, for she had not conceived physically but of the Holy Ghost. Joseph awoke and went into Mary, which by convention meant they were then married.
Matthew’s gospel says that Joseph knew not his wife until she had given birth to Jesus. We can be certain the author of these words was mistaken, for there could be no child without an earthly father. This gospel further states that the anticipated birth of a son would fulfil the prophecy of a virgin bringing forth a son called Emmanuel, meaning God with us. Here we have a play on the word which translates into virgin in English but which can also mean young unmarried woman. For Mary was unmarried when she took on the enlarged soul which would be used by Jesus, before the consummation of her marriage to Joseph made possible the conception of the matter body.
Today we are privileged to have been given a fuller understanding of the Holy Ghost by teachers from the higher unseen worlds.
With a normal child, the inner self usually enters at some time after conception, causing the foetus to quicken or to move in the womb. From the time of the quickening the mind of the child is to a certain extent merged with that of the mother.
Mary, however, was to give birth to one with teacher status. Her child would have an enlarged soul open to the wider state of consciousness called the Christ Mind. Because of the powerful effect this would have upon her whilst carrying the child, the soul of Jesus came into Mary three months before the conception of a matter body – of which Joseph would be the father.
It can therefore be said that this child was conceived of the Spirit, the Holy Ghost, which would be present even from his mother’s womb like John the Baptist.
Jesus the man was called “The Christ” because he had the responsibility of a soul enlarged with the Christ Mind, or the Christ Spirit. Yet his brain and body were like ours. Like any child growing up he could be naughty, and as an adult he was open to making mistakes. To teach in the way he did and to be the example, he had to continue building light to use the power that came from his soul. We too can learn to use the same level of consciousness that feeds our own mind with wisdom, with strength, and with understanding.
A Teacher Is Born
At the time when Mary was heavily pregnant, Joseph had to take his wife on a journey south to his ancestral home, Bethlehem. After a long and arduous journey, Joseph and Mary arrived in Bethlehem and set about finding somewhere to stay. The city was exceptionally busy, and having gone from one inn to the next and being told they were full, an innkeeper, seeing Mary’s condition, allowed them the use of a stable. Soon after, a son was born and Mary wrapped him up warmly and used a manger to lay him in.
Later that night, some shepherds watching over their sheep were alarmed to have a spirit visitor, one whose light shone over and around them all. This frightened them, until the visitor spoke. “Don’t fear! I’m here to bring you good news. A baby, the Christ, has been born in the city. As a sign you will find him wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger.”
By now other angel visitors had appeared, greeting the dumbfounded shepherds with the words: “Peace on earth, good will toward men.” And then, just as quickly, the visitors all disappeared.
The shepherds lost no time in making their way into Bethlehem and soon found what they were looking for. Seeing the Messiah, the anointed one, was an honour that they never thought to have.
After eight days the baby was circumcised and given the name Jesus. Of this, Luke’s gospel says he was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb. We note the reference to Jesus being named before he was conceived in the womb, which is to say before the matter conception that took place when Joseph took Mary as his wife.
Luke’s gospel then tells us that six weeks later, in accordance with their religion, Jesus was taken by his parents to the temple in Jerusalem. There in the temple a devout worshipper, Anna, prophesied that the child would be a light for all the people.
Luke then reports that the family returned to Nazareth. However, as the author tells us, his account is made up of the traditions and eyewitness testimonies passed down to him. It is in Matthew that we take up a part of the story missed out in Luke – the visit of the wise men referred to as the Magi.
The Magi
Magi is a term associated with priests or followers of Zoroaster, a Persian religion that embraced both astrology and the interpretation of prophetic dreams. Three such followers, men of standing, had divined that a person of note was to be born into the earth, and having then seen a new ‘star ‘ in the heavens they journeyed to find him. (This is not unlike Tibetan monks in more recent times, who are guided by dreams and visions when searching for a child they consider is a born reincarnation of an important lama.)
The travellers came to Jerusalem, asking if anyone knew the whereabouts of the one predicted to become a king. Their presence in the city was brought to the attention of Herod, the Jewish king. Herod was troubled by the reports he heard, for he was a man constantly afraid of being deposed.
He summoned the chief priests and scribes, demanding that they tell him the prophecies relating to a king being born. The assembled authorities were only too pleased to speak of what the prophets had said in days long gone, that the anointed one, the Christ, would be born in Bethlehem of Judea.
Herod invited the Magi to an audience with him, asking them to let him know when they found the child, so that he could in turn make obeisance to this newborn king.
Arriving in Bethlehem the Magi came across the child they sought. Wanting to pay homage to an exalted soul, the men proffered expensive gifts of gold and frankincense, symbolic of his expected roles of king and priest, and myrrh, the ointment used to anoint the notable dead.
Having accomplished what they had set out to do, the Magi prepared to return home. As they took their rest prior to starting the long journey, each awoke with a dream warning them not to speak again to Herod. Quickly, they got themselves ready and set off on a route avoiding Jerusalem.
That same night Joseph also dreamed. An angel being spoke to him: “Arise now and flee with your wife and child into Egypt, for Herod will seek the child’s life.” Joseph aroused Mary from her sleep and mounted her on an ass with the child, and together they made their escape.
It was some time after when Herod realised that the Magi had no intention of returning to see him. In his extreme anger he sent soldiers to Bethlehem to kill all young male children two years old and under. It was a brutal act from a man who showed no mercy to anyone suspected of trying to take his crown, not even members of his own family. Yet the same man has also been revered as Herod the Great, builder of the temple in Jerusalem and founder of many cities.
Joseph, Mary and Jesus were out of harm’s way on the long trek that took them to Egypt. The Coptic (Egyptian) church has a well-established tradition of the route which the family took through Egypt, where they lived for several years before it became safe for them to return home.