Introduction:

In the Bible story of Jesus being born in Bethlehem, His birth on earth represents His birth in our hearts. His birth in us is the creation of unselfish love in our hearts. We cannot create this; only He can do it.

Before He can come to us we must do our part - obedience to His law, shunning the evils forbidden in the Ten commandments, doing good to the best of our abilities. The story of His birth follows those actions in our lives.

Luke 2:1: "And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This census first took place when Quirinius was governing Syria. So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city."

Rome was the earthly government at that time. It brought order - subject to its whims. It represents the external government of our own reasoning power - that ordered, logical process which can amass legions of thoughts in patterns and attack a problem with ruthless force.

The Emperor called a census. He wanted to know how many people he had so he could tax them better. This tells of our life, when we are trying to be good. We too gather our mental powers, put the things of our minds into a more proper order so that we can live our lives. We do it from a rather worldly perspective. We feel that we are good, and that we have the power to order our lives.

Think of that census. Think of all those families criss-crossing the land, each going to the place from whence they came. Remember that when the tribes came into Canaan hundreds of years earlier, each was given an inheritance, and in fact the families' genealogies were kept in their original cities, recording each birth and all the descendants. It made sense that Rome would call such a census in Judea and Galilee.

This shaking up of the families represent our re-ordering of our minds as we try to live good lives, obedient to God.

But unknown to Caesar or to Herod, one journey was taking place which would change the course of history. It was of the Lord's providence that the census took place, and that Joseph, who was living in Nazareth, not in Bethlehem, would make a journey. For while we are trying to order our minds, rearranging our priorities, there is a part of our minds which is lifted into a new realm.

Luke 2:4: "And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David."

Joseph was a carpenter - working with tools of iron on wood, shaping the wood into useful items. He represents the human understanding - perhaps particularly that part of the understanding which is interested in religious and truly moral matters. Joseph, carving wood into pleasant forms, stands for how we use our understanding to mold our goodness, believing that this will bring us true happiness.

But true happiness comes from a much more miraculous source. It comes from the Lord incarnate, flowing into our hearts from within.

However, as we use our understanding to seek for the meaning of life and of goodness, we are lifted up into higher thoughts. The journey of Joseph and Mary from Nazareth to Judea, and especially to Bethlehem, represent a spiritual journey - the uplifting of our understandings to see deeper truths about life. Bethlehem, which means "the house of bread," represents the deepest meaning of the Lord's Word, a spiritual understanding of truth. So as Joseph went up to Bethlehem, our understandings are secretly raised up to see deeper truths. We think it's because we are working on understanding life. Joseph thought he obeyed Caesar's command, whereas it was the Lord's providence that led him to Bethlehem. So it is the Lord who secretly uplifts our thoughts.

David, the great king of Israel, represents spiritual thought also. Joseph was of the house of David. Our understanding seems to be very practical and earthly, but it is endowed with the power to see above the body and beyond the world. It is "of the house and lineage of David."

Luke 2:5: "To be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child."

As Joseph was promised to Mary, so our human understanding is promised in love to something rather precious inside of us. Mary, the virgin, represent the innocent affection for truth. Each of us has a strain of idealism deep within us. The understanding receives impulses from many sources, but as we try to obey the Lord it promises itself to the spiritual Mary - to a love of more innocent, apparently naive truth. We fall in love with ideals and with dreams of unselfish, worthwhile love.

We all have this idealism, for the Lord has secretly implanted it in our beings from the moment we are born, Every lovely feeling, every true thought, is stored within us by our loving God and becomes our spiritual Mary.

Joseph naturally thought that his marriage to Mary would produce a child who would bring them happiness. We think that if we marry our understanding to our ideals, we will build our happiness. And in one sense that is true. Yet in fact, it is the power of almighty God inflowing into our idealism that produces true love. As Joseph was not the father of Jesus, but was his natural guardian, so our understanding plays a role in our future happiness, but true love is a Divine birth within us. This is the true message of Christmas - that He who came to earth, He alone can warm people's hearts with love.

Luke 2:6: "And so it was, that while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered."

It took centuries for the Lord to be born on earth. During all that time He prepared people for His birth, and because of those promises, they looked forward to it.

We lose our innocence quite early, and feel, perhaps, that we are very selfish people. It takes time for the Lord to create love in our hearts. We'd love to become kind, totally loving people in an instant. That birth needs time and patience. But its time does come!

Luke 2:7: "And she brought forth her first born son and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for Him in the inn."

He could have been born anywhere on earth - in the most splendid palace, heir to worldly power and might. He chose a humble stable. Partly this was because He didn't come to be an earthly power. As He said, "Who is greater? He who sits at the table, or he who serves? Is it not he who sits at the table? Yet I am among you as the One who serves." (Luke 22:27).

But the reasons were greater than that. Even in Bethlehem He could not be born in the inn. The inn represents a place of instruction, a place where people gather and exchange thoughts. But the inn was full, even as in our own minds, we often think we know it all.

So He was born in a stable, where the horses feed. A horse, which carries us where we want to go, represents an understanding of specific truths which show us the way in life. It represents an understanding of spiritual truth. And He was wrapped in swaddling cloths, which represent simple, innocent truths, and laid in the place where horses come to eat. Innocent truths are the ones we are tempted to scoff at - simple ideas like "It's good to be good," or "It's wrong to hurt others," or "I can use my abilities to bring happiness to those I love." These are among the most fundamental teachings to be found in all of Scripture.

In other words, the Lord, when He descends into our minds and hearts, finds that in many parts of our lives our spiritual "inns" are full. We think we know very well how to make our way in life. So He chooses instead to move us with His love in a special part of our mind - where we seek spiritual truths, and we do so from innocence.

We all have a spiritual manger in our minds. Every person has an innocent spot, where she or he wants to learn, and where she feels humble in learning ideas which will make life so very much better than it is now.

Conclusion: Our Savior wants to come to all of us. He created us for heaven, and in order that we may know the joy of heaven He teaches us His laws. When we respond, then His love is born in our hearts, and that birth follows this orderly pattern:

1. All the ideas of our minds are brought into order - apparently by our own efforts. (The census).

2. A spiritual journey takes place. Our understanding is gradually raised up from thinking only of worldly values into a new light. We take our idealism (our spiritual Mary) with us into that light, to the spiritual Bethlehem.

3. The Lord is not born in those truths which we have filled and perverted with purely worldly values (the inn).

4. Instead He is born into those innocent truths from His Word which we have always trusted and loved, and easily understood (our manger).

5. They are wrapped in simple, clear observations (the swaddling cloths) which protect our newfound love as it grows within us.

4585. 'They travelled on from Bethel, and there was still a stretch of land to go to Ephrath' means the spiritual of the celestial at this point. This is clear from the meaning of 'travelling on from Bethel' as a continuation of the progress of the Divine from the Divine Natural - 'travelling on' meaning a continuation, see 4554, and here in the highest sense a continuation of the progress made by the Divine, while 'Bethel' means the Divine Natural, 4559, 4560; from the meaning of 'a stretch of land to go' as that which exists in between, dealt with below; and from the meaning of 'Ephrath' as the spiritual of the celestial within the initial state, dealt with below where Bethlehem is the subject. ¹ 'Bethlehem' means the spiritual of the celestial within the new state, and this is why the phrase 'Ephrath, that is, Bethlehem' is used in verse 19 below.

[2] In these verses progress made by the Lord's Divine towards aspects more interior is the subject, for when the Lord made His Human Divine His progress involved a similar order to that employed by Him when He makes man new through regeneration. That is to say, it was a progression from external things to more interior ones, and so from truth as this exists in the ultimate degree of order to good which is more interior and is called spiritual good, and from this to celestial good. But ideas about these things do not come within the mental grasp of anyone unless he knows what the external man is and what the internal man is, and that the former is distinct and separate from the latter, though the two seem to be one and the same while a person lives in the body. Nor do those ideas come within his grasp unless he knows that the natural constitutes the external man, and the rational the internal man, and above all unless he knows what the spiritual is, and what the celestial is.

[3] These matters, it is true, have been explained several times already. Even so, those who have not previously had any idea concerning them - for the reason that they have not had any desire to know the things which belong to eternal life - are incapable of having any such idea. These people say, 'What is the internal man? How can it be anything different from the external man?' They also say, 'What is the natural, or the rational? Are these not one and the same thing?' Then they ask, 'What is the spiritual and the celestial? Isn't this some new distinction? We've heard about the spiritual, but not that the celestial is something different'. But the fact of the matter is that these are people who have not previously acquired any idea of these matters. They have failed to do so either because the cares of the world and of the body occupy their whole thought and take away all desire to know anything else, or because they suppose that no one needs to know anything beyond what the common people are taught and that there is nothing to be gained if their thought goes any further. For these say, 'The world we see, but the next life we do not see. Maybe it exists, maybe it doesn't'. People like these push those ideas away from themselves, for at heart they reject them the moment they see them.

[4] All the same, because such ideas are contained in the internal sense of the Word, though they cannot be explained without suitable terms to depict them, and as no terms more suitable exist than 'natural' to express exterior things and 'rational' to express interior, or 'spiritual' to express matters of truth and 'celestial' matters of good, the use of words like these is unavoidable. For without the right words nothing can be described. Therefore so that some idea may be formed by those who have a desire to know what the spiritual of the celestial is, which 'Benjamin' represents and which 'Bethlehem' means, a brief reference to it must be made here. The subject so far in the highest sense has been the glorification of the Lord's Natural, and in the relative sense the regeneration of man's natural. It was shown above, in 4286, that 'Jacob' represented the external man of one who belongs to the Church, and 'Israel' his internal man, thus that 'Jacob' represented the exterior aspect of the natural and 'Israel' the interior aspect; for the spiritual man develops out of the natural, but the celestial man out of the rational. It was also shown that the Lord's glorification advanced, even as the regeneration of man advances, from external things to more interior ones, and that for the sake of such a representation Jacob received the name Israel.

[5] But now the subject is further progress towards aspects more interior still, that is, towards the rational, for as stated immediately above, the rational constitutes the internal man. The part which exists between the internal of the natural and the external of the rational is what the term 'the spiritual of the celestial' - meant by 'Ephrath' and 'Bethlehem', and represented by 'Benjamin' - is used to denote. This intermediate part is derived to some extent from the internal of the natural, meant by 'Israel', and to some extent from the external of the rational, meant by 'Joseph'; for that intermediate part must be derived to some extent from each one, or else it cannot serve as an intermediary. So that anyone who is already spiritual can be made celestial he must of necessity make progress by means of this intermediate part. Without it no advance to higher things is possible.

[6] The nature of the progress made therefore by means of this intermediate part is described here in the internal sense by the statements that Jacob went to Ephrath, and that Rachel gave birth to Benjamin there. From this it is evident that 'they travelled on from Bethel, and there was still a stretch of land to go to Ephrath' means a continuation of the progress of the Lord's Divine from the Divine Natural to the spiritual of the celestial, meant by 'Ephrath' and 'Bethlehem', and represented by 'Benjamin'. The spiritual of the celestial is the intermediate part about which something is said above; it is spiritual insofar as it is derived from the spiritual man, which regarded in itself is the interior natural man, and it is [celestial] insofar as it is derived from the celestial man, which regarded in itself is the rational man. 'Joseph' is the exterior rational man, and therefore he is spoken of as the celestial of the spiritual derived from the rational.

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