Picture this...

A small, rural Palestinean farming village, basking under the noonday sun, 2000 years ago.

Ok, well perhaps this is harder than it sounds; do you know much of 1st century Palestine? Maybe not...

For those of you reading who need more in the way of background info, lets build the picture a little...

Palestine, the Roman province, conquered by the Empire and made to submit to all the Imperial taxes, laws and decrees enforced by the Roman Legions.

The Holy Land was aways a difficult territory to control for the Romans; the very core of the Jewish faith is that the descendants of Abraham and Israel are God's chosen people, set apart for Him out of the whole earth. To be enslaved by an alien nation was something that only ever happened to the Hebrews when they had seriously gone astray from God, blackened themselves in sin, and God removed His protecting presence from them.

The Israelites had known slavery before; to the Pharoah's of ancient Egypt,  to the Babylonians, the Persians... Always God had restored the Jews to Jerusalem after they had repented and cried out to Him. The prevalent attitude amongst the people of Israel in the time of Yeheshuwah was that God would do the same; the zealous Jewish extremists, the strict disciplines of the Pharisee and Sadducee sects, and the stubborn traditions of the Mosaic Law and Torah, all combined to give the Jewish people a strong independance, and a persistance to endure until the Lord Almighty once more delivered them from the Imperial oppressors, and restored them to liberty.

God had something far more miraculous planned. He was to visit His people in person, through His incarnation into the Son; the "Word made flesh". It was an event that had been prophesied for centuries; the long anticipated coming of the Messiah, who would end the darkness of the Satanic powers, and bring in the glorious Kingdom of Heaven, along with the Glory of the King of Kings Himself...