What did the First Christians believe and practice about Christmas? I know in a way that is a loaded question, because the word Christmas is found nowhere in the New Testament, nor is any noticeable celebration of Christmas as we know it.

Among many Jews, birthday observance is eschewed as originating in Egypt, and that could have influenced many among the First Christians, most of whom were Jews. Whatever the case, there is nothing in the New Testament that so much as hints at celebrating Jesus’ birth. It could be argued that this fact does not weigh against modern celebration, but that is not what interests me at this point.

My question is what the First Christians believed and practiced relative to Jesus’ nativity. To get a better understanding of this, let’s first look at the beginning of the Gospel of Luke and the story of another birth—that of John the Baptist.

One of the things that puzzles me about the Book of Daniel is the question, Why now? Why did God, at this particular juncture in history, lay out the prophecies that he did? The visions that he gave to Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar span a panorama of prophecy that goes from their day all the way to the very end.

And as you read along through here and see the incredible breadth of revelations of times and empires and places and you ask yourself, Why? I’m not sure I have the answer to that question, but sometimes it’s important to ask the questions and get them out on the table so that we can better know where we are going—and recognize when we get there.

We have been going through Daniel in this series of programs and now arrive at the eighth chapter, which is, appropriately enough, another vision given to Daniel. It begins with the prophet standing beside a river and witnessing a conflict between two fantastic beasts. Let’s join him beside that river as the vision is explained.

What was it about Daniel? Through at least three major administration changes in Babylon, he kept coming out on top. For the believer, it makes perfect sense. God gave Daniel and his companions favor through these hard and dangerous times for his own purposes. But you have to wonder what this looked like from the perspective of King Darius, the latest king Daniel had to deal with.

From Darius’ point of view, Daniel and his ilk were smart. And they had a great common sense. They made wise decisions and he could depend on them. What Darius had no way of knowing was that the Jews in his newly-conquered kingdom made their decisions within the framework of the Law. This is more important than most people realize. Most of us make life’s decision based on what feels good and looks safe at the moment, with no overriding framework. And that can leave us all over the landscape in our decisions; having no standards, no consistency.

Daniel and the Hebrew children had been brought up on the law of God and it formed the framework for all of life’s decisions. And the biggest thing about this is that the system works. As the psalmist said, Your law is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. And it can help you see in the darkest places. We’ll find the story in Daniel, chapter 6.

Did you know that Nebuchadnezzar, the mighty king of Babylon, wrote one chapter of the Book of Daniel? Initially, I couldn’t help but wonder why God would allow a writing from a pagan king to enter the Bible. But then the answer occurred to me.

Yes, the Bible is the word of God—and inspired by God—but it many cases, it takes the form of testimony. One of the strong threads in biblical jurisprudence is that everything has to be established by witnesses. No man could be condemned except by the testimony of two or three witnesses. Perhaps that is part of the reason we have four Gospels in the New Testament, not just one.

So it is, that the best way to establish for history what happened to Nebuchadnezzar was to have him write it down and have Daniel attest to it—two witnesses. Here is that king’s account of his encounter with the God of Israel.

Daniel may be the most important prophet in the Bible. He is easily the most fascinating. And he is the one that most tempts us to offer interpretations. And his work is of singular value in providing a framework for understanding those who would come later.

The dream of Nebuchadnezzar in the second chapter is an excellent example of this. Nebuchadnezzar saw in a dream a great statue—the image of a man. The image degenerated from head to foot. The head was gold. The breast and arms were silver. The belly and thighs were mere brass; the legs, iron. The feet and toes were iron and clay.

I want to be careful not to over interpret Daniel, because that has been done too often. But what makes this prophecy so important is that it outlines the history of a governmental system (a kingdom, if you will) that continues from Nebuchadnezzar until it is destroyed and supplanted by the Kingdom of God. Here is how Daniel interpreted the dream for the king.

Of all the major prophets of the Old Testament, one stands out as the most fascinating. One has had a hold on the imaginations of men from time immemorial. One has more fulfilled prophecies that any of the rest. In New Testament prophecy, this man is referred to more than any other. His name is Daniel.

Daniel was captured and taken as a hostage to Babylon some 600 years before Christ. He was a very young man at the time. He was a contemporary of another prophet in the same captivity: Ezekiel. He probably finished up his memoirs some 60 years later.

And I think it is good to approach his book as the memoirs of a prophet. I don’t mean to suggest that the book is anything but divinely inspired. But I think it is Daniel’s story, his testimony of the interactions he had with God, with angelic beings, with the Holy Spirit, if you will. I believe Daniel’s story—and it is a fascinating story, indeed.

The last days of Jerusalem and Judah were hard times. When a nation, a people, begin to lose their identity—their sense of who they are and where they are going—when a nation becomes morally bankrupt, indolent, self-indulgent—sooner or later, the nations around then sense the weakness and begin to gather.

Israel had a good leader in King Josiah, and leadership makes an enormous difference among the people, but things didn’t change much at the grass roots. They had just gone too far down the slippery slope to oblivion. And after the death of Josiah, when Israel could no longer effectively govern herself, God turned her over to the nations to govern.

Jehoiakim was twenty and five years old when he began to reign; and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Zebudah, the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done. In his days Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up, and Jehoiakim became his servant three years: then he turned and rebelled against him. And the Lord sent against him bands of the Chaldees, and bands of the Syrians, and bands of the Moabites, and bands of the children of Ammon, and sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by his servants the prophets.

Almost any kingdom will get a little tired and old in 300 years. The House of Israel only made it a little more than 250 years. And Israel must have been worn out by the end of the long reign of King Manasseh. No one did more to corrupt the worship of God than did Manasseh in his day.

The strange thing about all this was that it was not so much ordinary sin that destroyed Israel, it was idolatry. And the idolatry was not merely a pattern of setting up idols and bowing down to them. The idolatry involved destroying the lives of their own children, both in sacrifice and in temple prostitution. What makes idolatry different from other sins is that it destroys the way back to God for the repentant sinner. By the time King Manasseh died, some 330 years after the death of Solomon, the worship of Jehovah was on the rocks in Judah.

And Manasseh slept with his fathers, and was buried in the garden of his own house, in the garden of Uzza: and Amon his son reigned in his stead. Amon was twenty and two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned two years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Meshullemeth, the daughter of Haruz of Jotbah. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, as his father Manasseh did. And he walked in all the way that his father walked in, and served the idols that his father served, and worshipped them: And he forsook the Lord God of his fathers, and walked not in the way of the Lord. And the servants of Amon conspired against him, and slew the king in his own house. And the people of the land slew all them that had conspired against king Amon; and the people of the land made Josiah his son king in his stead.

It was a bloody and violent time. Amon was so vile that even his own servants conspired to assassinate him. But then, the people took a hand. They dealt with the assassins and put the 8-year-old son of Amon on the throne.

Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned thirty and one years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Jedidah, the daughter of Adaiah of Boscath. And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in all the way of David his father, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left.