Three kings came bearing gifts for the Christ or Messiah child. Who were they and where did these people come from anyway?

Was it really Him, the Messiah of all humanity, the reason for their coming? What was this thing in the heavens that they were following? Is this just a nice little story of not only the “Magi” but Jesus himself ?

After all, does not the secular humanist/atheist want to scrub the name of Jesus from all young minds and attempt to remove you from saying Merry Christmas?!

Well, well my friends. Merry Christmas from your “overtly Christian local contributor to this newspaper.” I am very grateful to The Times Record for printing my annual Christmas letter. I cannot say the same for other newspapers in Maine.

It was world renowned archaeologist Dr. Nelson Glueck that said, “There has never been an archaeological discovery that has controverted a biblical reference.”

Dr. Glueck, Dr. William F. Albright and other wellqualified people in their fields have said many things that confirm the Bible’s accuracy; too many to list here. However, after studying the scriptures for well over 20 years, I have come to the conclusion that especially the Gospel writers are just being plain honest about what they saw in front of them. John, the longest living Gospel writer said so.

In his first letter, he said, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled the Word of life.” “Word” is capitalized in the scripture.

From the Greek language (the language that the New Testament was written in) it means intelligence or divine utterance; word uttered from a living voice. John saw Jesus “transfigured into what we might call another dimension, the supernatural. John saw Jesus raise people from the dead. John and many others saw Jesus after he was brutally murdered, in His resurrected state. He says at the end of his gospel that there was much more to tell, but books could not contain what we saw while Jesus was here.

That is the New Testament. What is more awe striking is what God foretold of His Son through the prophet Isaiah in the 53rd chapter. This occurred some 750 years before Jesus was physically on the planet. It is accurate to the letter of his being rejected by man. He was then and he is now. It tells of his being beaten beyond recognition for our sins, however our healing, eternal salvation and peace are accomplished. As a side note, I boldly proclaim that no other religious writing in all of history is able to tell of anything that is outside of our time and space continuum as the Biblical scriptures do.

Both old and New Testament foretell events that have taken place and have yet to take place. Jesus fulfilled in the ball park of 200 prophecies, a very conservative number. Josh McDowell, a well-known Christian author/apologist said that the chances of Jesus fulfilling just eight prophecies is 1 in 100 trillion. This figure is based on a study done at Massachusetts Institute of technology, and written about in his book, “Evidence That Demands A Verdict.”

I also boldly proclaim that Jesus was, and is, the creator of the cosmos that Albert Einstein, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawking and many other academics have seen in the laws of nature. The problem for them is that God will not allow the most intelligent among us to put Him in their explicable test tube.

They, while saying that science can explain everything, have no clue as to life’s origins. The primordial soup story is exactly that, a story.

The chief message of Christmas my friends is that Jesus loves you with a love that is beyond human comprehension; but we must turn to Him. He not only guarantees a place with Him after death, but He will make your paths straight here on earth now. I know, because were it not for His intervention into my life, I would be dead and I may have taken others with me in my self-centered sinful “lifestyle.”

So, just who was in the caravan that came to Jerusalem roughly 2,000 years ago seeking a young child? Were there three kings or three gifts? Why were they packing gold, frankincense and myrrh? Bible scholars surmise they were probably from Baghdad or that area. How did they know to show up when they did?

Try a little homework this Christmas! I think you’ll find this interesting, and if anybody would like to know more about Jesus Christ, please feel free to contact me eddietharp@aol.com.

Merry Christmas!

EDWARD THARP is a graduate of the Calvary Chapel Bible College, located in Murrieta, Calif. He lives in Woolwich.