Christmas and Easter.

I believe that Jesus had a normal birth.

I don't believe that Mary or Joseph knew he was to be the tutelary spirit of the Age of Pisces.

I don't believe that Jesus himself knew until his ministry began.

There may have been wise men who studied the stars and predicted the birth of such a spirit but it is unlikely that they were present shortly after his birth.

There is Biblical evidence for this belief:

"When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, 'He has gone out of his mind.'"  Mark 3:21 (NRSV)

Why would Mary and Jesus' brothers and sisters try to restrain him if they knew he was the Messiah?

They would not believe that he had "'gone out of his mind.'"
They would have encouraged him.
So Mary and Jesus brothers and sisters could not have known that Jesus was the tutelary spirit of the age.

This throws a different light on the whole of Jesus' life.
He was not a perfect human being.
He was not God incarnate.
He was a normal human being who made contact with God.
And as such he became a teacher.

His death was not a ransom for the sins of the world.
It was a tragedy that saw the light leave the world.
For no one after Jesus had the same level of contact with God.

The crucifixion itself was triggered when Jesus became a threat to the established powers - the Pharisees and the occupying Roman forces.

It was not an act of God at all.


[Scripture quotations (marked NRSV) are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and are used by permission.  All rights reserved.]