When Was Jesus Born? Late Night, or Early Morning?

Sorry I didn't blog last night. I was invited to a Christmas party that went later than I expected. I tried to blog afterwards, but I couldn't put it together. In hindsight, I definitely should have blogged in the morning. I should always try to blog in the morning. I once had a seminary teacher who insisted that many important gospel-related events had happened, or would happen, in the morning. This makes me wonder what the exact time of Jesus' birth was. Was it early enough that it was still late at night, or was it late enough that I was early the next morning? Several of the songs and stories establish the birth of Jesus as being either at night or in the morning, but they're hardly a reliable source, especially since some of them say that He was born in December, and I'm pretty sure He wasn't.

The scripture don't shed much more light on the subject than the songs and stories do. Of course, there is the mention of "shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night" (Luke 2: 8). However, when the angel told them about the birth of Jesus, he said "For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord" (Luke 2: 11). So was He born during the day, or at night? The shepherds were told about the birth at night, but depending on how much distance they'd have to travel to get to Bethlehem, it might have taken them several hours to get there. It's possible that their journey took all night, possibly placing their arrival in Bethlehem some time in the morning. However, by the time they got there, Jesus had already been born, wrapped, and laid down in the manger, implying that the shepherds arrived somewhere between several minutes and a few hours after Christ was born. The scriptures don't really seem to tell us whether Christ was born late at night or early in the morning.

This inconclusiveness seems to me to suggest that it isn't really important whether Jesus was born early in the morning or late at night. It might have been interesting to know whether it was morning or night, for symbolic reasons, but the exact timing of His birth doesn't seem to be nearly as important as the reality of His birth. What's important isn't when He was born, but that He was born. For example, many people believe that Jesus was born in April, yet we all celebrate His birth in December, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that we recognize and commemorate His birth by welcoming Him into our hearts, no matter when the recognition, the welcoming, or even the birth itself, took place.