If you went out on the streets and declared the Greatest Historical Event #2 was the birth of a baby, stares would greet you. Someone might offer counseling.
The mere birth of a baby can’t automatically be labelled as a great historical event. No one knows how it will pan out. What’s the baby going to become?
Logic dictates seeing what the baby becomes. No one knew the baby named Abraham would become Abraham Lincoln until years later. In 1943, a newborn in Liverpool, England, was named George. Baby George eventually became George Harrison, a member of a rock group called the Beatles. You may have heard of him. But no one would have predicted that outcome at his birth.
However, has there ever been a baby born, and the world was actually anticipating his birth? A baby whom numerous men had been writing about hundreds of years before he was born?
The prophet Isaiah writes about the baby to come: “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel.” (Isaiah 7:14)
The prophet Micah predicted where the baby would be born: “But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity.” (Micah 5:2)
Once this baby was born hundreds of years later, the current King of Israel, a fellow named Herod (who incidentally was destined to be king from his birth because, well, that’s how kings become kings. It’s known as the Silver Spoon Effect.) grew concerned because he heard a future king of Israel had been born in Bethlehem.
But the baby wasn’t just a mere king. According to Herod’s priests, who did the research, the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. ‘Messiah’ was the title given to a future king—the king of all kings, the king of eternity. Herod reacted like all jealous, self-serving, insecure sovereigns would react. He wanted the baby dead.
Thugs carried out his desire, leaving in their murderous wake the dead bodies of every male baby in Bethlehem who was two years old or younger. However, the baby and his parents had escaped to Egypt.
With the exception of kings murdering their own children to protect their noble position—‘noble’ being used loosely here—never in the annals of history can we find a king becoming overwrought because of the birth of a supposedly non-descript, no-name baby born in a junk-heap of a town miles away from the hub city of his kingdom.
This particular baby escaped the death grasp of Herod. What then? In the eyes of every Israelite he was still only a no-name baby with no visible path to kingship. Certainly more valuable than a flea on the back of a camel, but not significantly more.
Except the baby carried one incredible aspect to his existence. According to the prophetic verses from Isaiah, his mother knew exactly who he was. She called the baby Immanuel: ‘God with us.’
The Creator of the universe, the Omnipotent God had become a human being. No other god of any other religion has entered the human realm as a person, much less a baby. Sure, the other gods had frolicked in the midst of cumulus clouds, somewhere around New Jersey most likely.
The obvious question is why would any god leave his or her position of power in order to become human? From every egotistical god’s viewpoint, it would be humiliating and purposeless to do that.
Yet, that’s exactly what the only God does. He becomes a baby in the most obscure, humiliating manner possible. Yet, it’s historic. So historic it ranks as the second of the four greatest historical events in the history of the world. The first one occurred when He created the universe, life, time—everything. The second one occurred when He became human and lived among us. Why would He do that? The answer leads to Greatest Historical Event #3.