There is quite a lot of speculation as to when Jesus was born.  The Christian religion teaches that Jesus was born on December 25th. Messianic Jews favor a date that ties in with one of the fall Feasts, such as the Feast of Trumpets or Feast of Tabernacles.  There are also a few spring predictions out there.

Let’s start with what Jesus is. The seed of God (Luke 8:11).  God is called the husbandman,  which means gardener.  A gardener plants his seed in early spring.  Let’s assume God planted His spiritual seed into the physical womb of Mary the first day of spring, the March equinox beginning on March 20th.  The flesh that would house this spiritual seed takes forty weeks to form, putting the birth on precisely December 25th.  

A December 25th date puts Jesus among the many other gods believed to be born on this day: Buddha, Krishna (eastern gods), Mithras (Roman god), Quetzalcoatl (Aztec god), Hercules (Greek god), Tammuz (Sumerian god), Horus and Osiris (Egyptian gods). This is where we need to look at the customs and practices of the people that worship these gods. The custom of the Egyptians was to be buried with their most valued earthly possessions, which they believed would go with them into the afterlife.  Certainly, not a concept of Jesus, who taught us not to put value on earthly possessions.  The reason we should not group Jesus with the eastern gods, is because the practices of the east are mind-body disciplines. Jesus advocated for a heart discipline, which brings us to the Aztecs, who sacrificed human hearts to their gods.  Clearly, not a concept of Jesus, who taught on the spiritual sacrificing of the impurities of the heart.

For the spiritually-minded, the birth of Jesus is not about a literal day, but about a spiritual or internal experience. When seed is planted in the earth, symbolizing the heart, the life in the seed (John 1:4) is regenerated through its conception, which through the process of time, brings forth.  Maybe our time would be better spent thinking about the birth of God’s spiritual seed in our heart instead of the birth of the physical body that housed the spiritual seed, which is why Jesus would not have been born on December 25th, a date that fits the physical conception of physical seed, rather than the spiritual conception of spiritual seed, which Jesus was.

Maybe we will never know the truth when it comes to the day that Jesus was born because it is the spiritual birth that matters. The birth of truth can not be given a day. It takes place within the individual, over an indeterminate period of time.

It is the Christian religion that is responsible for the way many think about the birth of Jesus.  And religious Christmas songs like, “Come let us adore him…” doesn’t help, taking our mind off of the spiritual, and putting it on the physical.  Christians say they believe in Jesus, which is to believe at a mind level. They adore the physical aspect of God’s holy seed.  But adoration for the spiritual aspect of Jesus requires us to believe on a heart level through spiritual or internal works, which has nothing to do with proclaiming we love Jesus with our mouth, or in our mind.

“Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men:”  Isaiah 29:13

“This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.”  Matthew 15:8

It is through these spiritual or internal works that we regenerate truth in that spiritual womb called the heart, giving birth to truth, through which we demonstrate our love for the spiritual Jesus.  Let us think about the birth of Jesus in the context of what his birth symbolizes.  There is not enough information to determine exactly when Jesus was born in the flesh. But there is enough information to determine how we give birth to truth in our flesh.

“Now Maccabeus and his company, the Lord guiding them, recovered the temple and the city: But the altars which the heathen had built in the open street, and also the chapels, they pulled down. And having cleansed the temple they made another altar, and striking stones they took fire out of them, and offered a sacrifice after two years, and set forth incense, and lights, and shewbread.  When that was done, they fell flat down, and besought the Lord that they might come no more into such troubles; but if they sinned any more against him, that he himself would chasten them with mercy, and that they might not be delivered unto the blasphemous and barbarous nations.  Now upon the same day that the strangers profaned the temple, on the very same day it was cleansed again, even the five and twentieth day of the same month, which is Casleu. And they kept the eight days with gladness.” 2 Maccabees, Chapter 10, verses 1-6. 

December 25th, the day the heathen profaned the temple. The word profane means lacking due respect. We profane the temple through our false religious and personal images or beliefs, which we have set up in that spiritual temple called the heart. We cleanse the temple by overcoming these false beliefs through the birth of the spiritual Jesus from within our heart. In doing this, we are no longer counted among the heathen, the unbelievers, who only celebrate the birth of Jesus literally, perpetually, one day out of the year.

Written by Sandra L. Butler © 2015