From the Desk of Luke T. Bitzkie

As someone who is studying to be a minister and an academic, Christmas brings with it the opportunity to explore the many dimensions of the birth of Jesus Christ. Rest assured, there is a plethora of ways in which one could view and appreciate the birth of Jesus. However, I believe that these various dimensions may not be the best way for us to understand the birth of Jesus this Christmas. So, today, I posit a different way to appreciate the baby Jesus – as a baby of Bethlehem. Around 4-6 BCE, Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem in Judea. Then occupied by the Roman Empire, Judea was a land marked by high tension, heavy taxation, and mass poverty. The Jewish people, of whom Jesus was a part, were being oppressed in their own land. Their existence and livelihood were subject to the whims of their imperial occupiers. These imperial forces called for a census, and because of this census, Joseph and Mary, the parents of Jesus, were forced to travel to Bethlehem – the ancestral homeplace of J...

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