When was Jesus born?

Each year we as believers in Jesus Celebrate Christmas in honor of the birth of our Lord and Savior; in fact I started a family tradition when my children were very little of baking and decorating a cake for His birthday each year.
But I have been doing a lot of thinking about Jesus’ real birthday. I know there is no hard evidence to prove what day he was born. There is no birth certificate and no hospital records for us to pull up on a computer or even on old fashion microfiche files hanging out in some dank basement or dark stuffy attic. But I do believe that we can learn from Scripture and Jewish tradition a time period that is more likely than the date that we celebrate in December.

When Moses was sent to lead the Children of Israel out of Egypt God taught him His law and religious ordinances to teach His chosen people. Part of those ordinances was the institution of seven major feasts that each Jewish person was required to keep each year. They are Pesach [Passover], the Feast of Unleavened Bread [Hag Ha Matzah], the Feast of Weeks [Shavuoth or Pentecost], First Fruits [Yom HaBikkurim], Rosh Hashanah [Feast of Trumpets], Yom Kippur [the Day of Atonement] and Succoth [the Feast of Tabernacles].

Each of these feasts is a picture of an aspect of Jesus and what He has done for us:

Passover is his provision of a covering saving His followers from death. He is our perfect Passover lamb, slain for the sins of the world – if only they would believe and accept His sacrifice. Leviticus 23:4-8; Exodus 12:1-17; 1 Corinthians 5:7b; Exodus 12: 24,26-27; Exodus 2:23-24; 6:5-8; 13:3,14. Fulfilled in 1 Corinthians 5:6-7; John 8:34; John 1:29; 1 Peter 2:5; Galatians 4:3-5,9; 5:1; 2 Peter 2:19; Ephesians 1:7; Colossians 1:14; 1 Peter 1:18-19; 1 John 1:7; Revelation 1:5; Hebrews 10:1-10; John 1:36; John 13:1-16 & Luke 22:13-20

The Feast of Unleavened Bread was to remind the Israelites of the way God took them out of Israel in haste. Leaven was also an example of sin and how a tiny bit of it could totally corrupt the whole person and the community, if they allowed it to breed and grow. Exodus 12:15-20; 1 Corinthians 5:7-8 & Leviticus 23:4,6-14. Jesus fulfilled it as recorded in 1 Cor 5:6-8; Acts 12:3-4 & Acts 20:6

First Fruits is the offering of the first and best of the harvest to God instituted in Leviticus 23:7-14. Jesus is the first fruits of the resurrection from the dead. He fulfilled this as recorded in Matthew 28:1-3, Mark 16:1-3, 8-10, Luke 24:1-3, John 20:1-3, 18-20, Acts 20:6-8, 1 Corinthians 15:20-21.

Pentecost is the celebration of the giving of God’s law to Moses on Mt. Sinai; Leviticus 23:9-22 & Deuteronomy 16:9-12. This found it’s fulfillment in the gift of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2:1-41.

Yom Kippur – The Day Atonement was the day the Jews brought their sacrifices to the temple to cover their sins and postpone them for one more year until their true atonement came. Leviticus 16:1-34 23:26-32 & Isaiah 34:5-6. Jesus came to be our atonement once and for all time. He poured out his blood of our redemption on the cross of Calvary. We can read this in Matthew 27:31-51, Mark 15:14-38, Luke 23:20-49, John 19:15-37.

Rosh Hashanah – the Feast of Trumpets was the day they celebrated the Jewish Civil New Year. The day started with the blowing of the Shofar, to call everyone to a ‘Holy Convocation’ a nationwide worship service to the Lord God. It is both a time of rejoicing as well as a holy occasion. Leviticus 23:23-25. The Shofar was sounded for other reasons, too. To call the men to war was one reason. But another was during the procession of a bridegroom coming to take away his bride the Shofar would be sounded to announce his coming, so that the bride would be prepared for him when he arrived. This feast has yet to be fulfilled in Jesus. I believe that it will be fulfilled when Christ comes again to carry His bride away to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. 1 Corinthians 15:51-53, 1 Thessalonians 4:15-18.

But we were talking about the birthday of Jesus, weren’t we. The one feast we haven’t touched is Succoth, or the Feast of tabernacles. This feast was set up for the children of Israel to remember the time of their wandering in the wilderness after they were freed from their captivity in Egypt. Leviticus 23:43 states; ‘That your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.’ They would build a tabernacle of foliage, palm fronds and branches and decorate it with fresh flowers and other things of beauty. They would set an extra place for any stranger that might wander by and need a place to eat and stay for the evening. But I feel this feast of tabernacles has a much broader meaning than this. It should also remind them, and us, of when God dwelt in the garden with Adam and Eve and draw them to seek their Messiah – Jesus – who came to earth to dwell, to tabernacle with us. Even the name of Jesus given by the angel to Joseph was Emmanuel, God with us, in Luke 1:26-38. Jesus birth came in fulfillment of the Feast of Tabernacles. This feast is celebrated in the fall of the year, the Jewish month of Tishri, our months of September or October. So in my mind, if He came in fulfillment of Tabernacles, he most probably was born during this feast time. Looking at the records of the census/tax that caused our couple to travel to Bethlehem is said to have taken five years to complete. But I found no actual dates that pinpoint the specific time they traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem to be taxed and recorded.

Whether we Celebrate Jesus birthday at Christmas time or during the Feast of Tabernacles, or even every day of the year – as we rightly should – doesn’t change the fact that He is indeed God with us. He lives is our hearts and has brought to us life and that truly in abundance! God again dwells with men just as he did in the Garden with Adam and Eve, and yet in a much closer way even than that. He doesn’t just dwell in our homes, but in our lives, our hearts – the very innermost part of our being. We have become and are becoming ‘one’ with Him more and more each day! 1 Corinthians 6:19; ‘What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?’

‘Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us. Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife:’ Matthew 1:22-24