Beloved, let us peel back the veil.
We have been handed a lovely story: December 25th, a cold winter’s night, no room at the inn, wise men from the East following a star. It is beautiful. It is poetic. And it is, for the most part, a Gentile fable layered over a Hebrew mystery.
The question we must ask with the eyes of the spirit open is not what tradition tells us, but what does Elohim reveal through His Moedim, His Appointed Times? Yehoshua was not born in winter. He was born on Sukkoth, the Feast of Tabernacles, late September or early October.
And when you see it, you will see that it could not have been any other way. For Elohim does nothing without foreshadowing it first. His feasts are not mere holidays. They are prophetic shadows of the Anointed One Himself.
To find His birth, we must first find His forerunner.
The Conception of Yochannan: The Voice in the Wilderness
The key is hidden in the priesthood. In 1 Chronicles 24, the Levitical priesthood is divided into 24 courses. Josephus tells us in Antiquities 7 that each course served one week, beginning on 1 Nisan, the head of the year as YHWH ordained in Exodus 12:2. On three occasions, Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkoth, all the priests served together.
Zechariah, father of Yochannan, was of the course of Aviyah, Abijah, as Luke 1:5 records. His course was the eighth course. His service began in early spring, on the 27th of Iyyar, and ran through the 4th of Sivan. Because the very next week was Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks, Pentecost, in tradition the giving of Ruach Ha’Chodesh, the Holy Spirit, he remained in the Temple to serve that week as well.
Luke 1:23-24 gives us the next clue: “When his days of service were completed, he departed to his own house. Now after those days his wife Elisheva conceived.” This places the conception of Yochannan in the third week of Sivan, early June on our Gregorian calendar. Count forward nine months, a full 41-week Hebrew term, and you land in early spring, near March. But more precisely, let us count as the Ruach counts.
The Conception of Yehoshua: The Light Enters
We know Yehoshua was conceived after Yochannan. Scripture is explicit. In the sixth month of Elisheva’s pregnancy, Gavri’el comes to Miryam in Natzeret. He says, “This is the sixth month with her who was called barren.” Miryam leaves with haste into the hill country of Yehudah. When she enters the house, the babe in Elisheva’s womb, Yochannan, leaps.
He recognizes his Master while still in the womb. What more does this generation need to know that life begins at conception? Count it. Six months from Sivan brings us to Kislev, the end of Kislev. Kislev 25 is Chanukah, the Feast of Dedication, the Festival of Lights. In the darkest time of the year, this is the exact time the Light of the World was conceived.
Is this not like Elohim? Yehoshua is seen in John 10:22-23 walking in the Temple at Chanukah, the Feast of Dedication, and it is there He declares, “I and My Father are One,” Yochannan 10:30. He testifies to His divine conception at the very season of His conception. The early assembly understood this. This is why December 25th was remembered, not as His birth, but as His conception.
The Birth of Yochannan: Eliyahu Must Come First
The prophet Malachi speaks a mystery: “Behold, I will send you Eliyahu the prophet before the great and terrible Day of YHWH comes. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children.” Malachi 4:5-6.
For this reason, at every Pesach Seder, we set a place and pour a cup for Eliyahu, and leave the door open. For centuries Israel has waited for Eliyahu to return at Pesach. Gavri’el’s words to Zechariah are no accident: “He will go before Him in the spirit and power of Eliyahu, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children.” Luke 1:17. Yochannan is the fulfillment.
Now watch the calendar of Elohim unfold with mathematical precision. From the course of Aviyah in late Sivan to Chanukah in late Kislev is 27 weeks, two trimesters. A pregnancy needs 14 more weeks to reach full term. From Chanukah to Pesach, Nisan 14-22, is exactly 14 weeks. Therefore Yochannan was born at Pesach, on the first day of Unleavened Bread, circumcised on the eighth day and born into the covenant, the last day of the feast. He is born exactly when our people expected Eliyahu to come. The forerunner arrives at the appointed time.
The Birth of Yehoshua: The Word Tabernacled Among Us
Since we have established that Yochannan was born at Pesach, the first month, and Yehoshua was conceived at Chanukah, Kislev 25, add nine months. Kislev plus nine months brings us to Tishrei. And what occurs in Tishrei? Sukkoth, the Feast of Tabernacles, Booths, Ingathering. The early Gentile translators made a critical error which created a two-thousand-year myth. Let me show you.
We are told Yousef brought Miryam from Natzeret to Beit-Lechem for a Roman census and found no room in the inn. But the decree gave a full year to register. There was no mad rush. Why would Yousef drag a woman nine months pregnant on a 90-mile journey for taxes? He would not. He went because Torah commands it: “Three times a year you shall keep a feast to Me.” Exodus 23:14. Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkoth. Every male was to appear in Yirushalayim.
During Sukkoth, the population of Yirushalayim swelled from 120,000 to over two million souls, as Josephus records. Every inn and every upper room was full. But this was not a problem. It was provision. During Sukkoth, every family builds a Sukkoth, a temporary booth of palm and bamboo, to remember our wandering in the wilderness. By tradition, those Sukkoth were made available to pilgrims for lodging, stocked with food on a food tray fixed to the wall, to keep it off the damp ground.
Beit-Lechem, House of Bread, is but four miles from Yirushalayim, a suburb, a small village. Yousef and Miryam came for Sukkoth, and when there was no room in the inns, a righteous brother offered his Sukkoth. It was not a stable. It was not a cave for animals.
When the child was born, they laid Him not in a feeding trough for cattle, but on the food tray in the Sukkoth, the very place prepared to feed travelers. The King James translators, good men but ignorant of Ivrim culture, thinking only of medieval England, translated that word as “manger.” And so the Bread of Life was placed on the bread shelf in Beit-Lechem, House of Bread, on Sukkoth. Do you see it?
The shepherds confirm it. Luke 2:8 says, “There were shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.” This can never be December. The climate of Israel is like central California. Ralph Woodrow rightly noted that shepherds in Israel bring their flocks in from the fields no later than October 15th. In December the fields are cold and empty.
Yehoshua was born six months after Yochannan: Yochannan at Pesach in spring, Yehoshua at Sukkoth in the fall. Our calculations place it on the 3rd day of Tishrei, 3761, which is September 13, 6 BCE, a leap year. The first day of Sukkoth that year was a High Shabbat. Yousef would have arrived hours before sunset the evening prior, for travel is forbidden on the High Shabbat.
The Brit Milah: Birth Completed on the Eighth Day
To the Gentile mind, circumcision seems a minor detail. To the Hebrew mind, it is everything. A Jewish boy’s birth is not considered complete until the eighth day, his Brit Milah, his entry into the covenant.
Yehoshua was born on the first day of Sukkoth, a holy Shabbat. He was circumcised and presented in the Temple on the eighth day, the final High Shabbat of Sukkoth, Shemini Atzeret. His birth spanned the entire eight days of the feast. The Word that became flesh and tabernacled among us, Yochannan 1:14, the Greek skenoo literally means “to pitch His tent, to tabernacle,” fulfilled Sukkoth from first day to eighth.
Notice the seeming perfection of Elohim’s pattern: He gave us two feasts that last eight days, Pesach and Unleavened Bread in the first month, and Sukkoth in the seventh month. Yochannan, the forerunner, was born and circumcised during the eight days of the first feast. Yehoshua, the Anointed One who came in truth, was born and circumcised during the eight days of the seventh feast. The first and the seventh, the beginning and the completion.
This is why Zechariah 14:16-17 prophesies that in the coming Kingdom, all nations, even Gentiles, will be required to come up to Yirushalayim to keep Sukkoth. Why? Because it is the birthday of the Redeemer of the world. The greatest miracle, Elohim’s Word made flesh, who was murdered for our sins in Christ Movement tradition, happened on that day.
He is the Bread of Life, laid on the food tray, in the House of Bread, during the feast when we dwell in booths, so that He could tabernacle among us. Chag Sukkot Sameach, for unto us a Child was born.
Pastor Mark
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