David was born in Bethlehem many hundreds of years previously. He was a a young shepherd boy, guarding flocks of sheep on the cold hillside. These were unblemished lambs that were slaughtered by the High Priest in the Temple of Jerusalem for the remission of sins. Mary's cousin, Elizabeth's husband, Zachariah, was that High Priest. They were too old to have children, yet, when an angel appeared and Elizabeth became pregnant, Zachariah was struck dumb for his unbelief in this miracle.
Mary, a young girl, maybe not long after her menarche, on discovering she was pregnant after a similar visit by an angel, went to visit Elizabeth who was soon to have her baby which lept for joy in her womb. His name was to be Jonathan and he would become not the successor to his father, but a man living in the desert, washing all people of their sins, and performing this same function as his father but in a different way, a way where all people could benefit without exclusivity of the Temple.
After Mary and Joseph's arduous journey to Bethlehem on a donkey while she was very soon to bear her first child, they were guided to a shed where animals were sheltering through the old night. As men were strictly separate from women in those days, especially around childbirth, we do not know if Mary delivered her first child herself without assistance. She laid her baby, wrapped in cloth in the animal feeding trough, as many of the priceless and sacred lambs would be laid for the Temple sacrifices.
The first to learn of the birth of Jesus was the animals within the shed. Then an angel appeared to the shepherds on the hillsides of Bethlehem to tell them of the baby's birth, shepherds who knew that King David was once a shepherd like themselves, preparing the purest lambs for sacrifices in the Jerusalem Temple for the remission of sins.
By Wendy Stokes https://wendystokes.co.uk
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