Cave Man

          Are your first thoughts when you think of cave man something like the above image or perhaps a Fred Flintstone  type of character?  If so, you are pretty normal.  And would the following characteristics pretty well describe such a character?

boorish

overbearing

sort of dumb and basic

perhaps self centered

prelude to a modern day thug

 

           What might your reaction be to the statement "Jesus was a cave man?"  Would you think it was crazy, ignorant, ridiculous, or maybe even sacrilegious or blasphemous?  Would it get your blood riled up?  Clearly, Jesus possessed none of the characteristics used to describe the cave man of our thoughts above.  Yet, let me submit that Jesus was, in fact a cave man.  Hear me out before you send the goons to lynch me:

•  In the times of Jesus' birth there were two classes of people.  The haves and the have nots.
• the haves were royalty, high priests and rulers
• the have nots were everyone else.  There was no middle class.
• Mary and Joseph were have nots
• shepherds were have nots, hired help
• The available "list" of places where the have nots could stay the night was limited to places that would make a resting place 6 grades lower than a Motel 6 in an abandoned town look good.
• good decent places were strictly for the haves
• The geological make up of the area in which Jesus was born was rocky, hilly, and barren.
• it can be assumed, with good reason, that the shepherds used caves as stables.
• they didn't have money, or even perhaps materials if they did have money, to build barns and stables as we know them today.
• caves offered but a single point of entry, and thus a single point from which to protect the animals from predators and thieves, as well as inclement weather.
• When Mary and Joseph needed a place to stay, it was the shepherds who obliged them.

 

           Thus, I think it can be reasonably assumed historically that Jesus was born in a stable--a cave.  And thus, I don't think it is blasphemous at all to think of Jesus as a cave man.  He was born in a cave, buried in a cave, and He arose from a cave.  And being the cave man that He was, we all have the opportunity of being saved, being guaranteed our place in heaven.  And that is something that Fred Flintstone could never, ever, accomplish.