Leonard: What are swaddling clothes?
Every student who goes to Dallas Theological Seminary takes the class BE101 (Bible Exposition) their first semester. Howard Hendricks, aka Prof, taught it for over 50 years and after he died Dr. Mark Bailey, the previous president of Dallas Theological Seminary, took it over.
In the second week of classes, the homework revolved around getting to know the library really well and a few hundred students spent a few hours learning how to find the perfect book, author, topic, or specific sentence for papers or sermons. We learned how to dig to learn more about our faith.
Last week I went digging. Over the years I have learned that so many things in the scriptures have tons of meaning that are lost if they are not fully researched. When one “digs” long enough and in the right places (or listens to or reads the ones who have) you can uncover some amazing things.
With regard to Jesus’ birth I’ve found (and written on) the star that the Magi followed to find Jesus, learned about the Migdal Edar and how the shepherds found Jesus in a manger rather quickly (they didn’t have to knock on hundreds of doors to find Joseph and Mary), but what of the “swaddling cloths” Jesus was wrapped in? This one has captivated me for days.
When our kids were babies we put socks over their hands so they wouldn’t scratch their faces with their nails (and yes, Cara did her best to make sure their nails stayed short but still …). Today most infant clothing comes with hand covers built in.
Support Local Journalism
This is an ancient custom and is just what Joseph and Mary did, but to them, there was way more to the story. If you remember the Passover story recorded in Exodus 12 you’ll remember the first reference to the Passover lamb’s needing to be unblemished (verse 5). Once a year, at Passover, the Jews were to sacrifice an unblemished lamb to remember what the Lord had done for them by delivering them from slavery under the Egyptians.
When you take this concept and fast forward it to the first century we find out that this had become a sort of specialty among the priesthood: taking care of the Passover lambs from their birth through their sacrifice.
Priests wore a special robe called an ephod. My Friday morning Bible study just finished 1 Samuel and if you go back and read Chapter 2:18-19 you see Hannah making her young son Samuel a linen ephod each year so that he could perform priestly duties alongside Eli. Priests were “on duty” for about two weeks each year and after offering sacrifices on behalf of the sins of the people, their ephod would get “retired,” a similar idea to when a great athlete retires and their jersey gets used for another purpose, usually hanging in perpetuity in the arena.
Well, the priests’ ephod would get torn into smaller pieces to then wrap the newborn lambs that would eventually become Passover lambs. They needed to be unblemished from the moment they were born.
Now for the fun part. Do you remember in Luke 1 what Mary did shortly after the Angel Gabriel told her that the Holy Spirit would appear to her and that she would conceive the Son of God? She went to see Elizabeth, her cousin (or some kind of relative).
Elizabeth was Zechariah’s wife … and Zechariah was a priest who had just been on duty and received a prophetic word from the Angel Gabriel regarding his son and Messiah. This next point can’t be proven from any ancient writings (or at least I haven’t found any) but the theory is that Zechariah, who knew that his son John (the Baptist) would fulfill the last prophecy in the Old Testament’s last two sentences (Malachi 4:5-6), gave his ephod to Mary to wrap Jesus in once he was born: he knew Mary was soon to give birth to the Messiah.
Jesus, our sacrificial Passover Lamb, at the time of his birth, was already wearing his priestly robe. Merry Christmas!
Scott Leonard is the president of Ascend Vail. You can reach him at ascendvail@gmail.com
