The word caveman brings up a mental image of Fred Flintstone doesn’t it? A synonymous word is Neanderthal, and descriptors would certainly include such things as boorish, dumb, crude and rude, and clumsy. Perhaps cavemen were the precursors to today’s thugs, or maybe habitual beer swilling sweaty permanently unclean men wearing dago tees sitting on their favorite barstool every day to ogle the women.
Before you send the goons out to lynch me for blasphemy for connecting Jesus to cavemen, please hear me out. Truly, Jesus exhibited none of the above characteristics or behavior during His time on earth. To think that He did would certainly be grounds for being correctly labeled as ridiculous, sacrilegious, ignorant, or just plain crazy.
The fact of the matter is, is that Jesus was indeed a caveman, though not of the Fred Flintstone variety. Allow me to share my thoughts.
At the time 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 well defined “middle class” as such. Mary and Joseph were typical have-nots. Shepherds were have-nots–they were hired help. The “list” of available places where the have-nots could stay for a night or two was limited to places that would make today’s flea bag hotels seem like five-star hotels. Good, decent places were strictly for the haves.
The geographical make up of the area in which Jesus was born was rocky, hilly, and barren. It can be assumed, therefore, that the shepherds used caves as stables for their flocks of sheep, particularly at night. They logically offered a place of safety from both weather and harm by predators and thieves because of their single point of entry. They were have-nots, so it can logically be assumed that they didn’t have funds with which to build barns and stables for their flocks–and thus the caves.
It’s very well documented that it was shepherds who ultimately provided some space for Mary and Joseph on the night Jesus was born. Thus the sound assumption that when Jesus was born in the stable, the stable was actually a cave.
I think God’s perfect plan was especially perfect since Jesus was born in a cave. He was actually a three in one caveman. He was born in a cave. He was buried in a cave. And He arose from the dead in a cave that we might be saved. He was a cave man all the way. And now the kicker–we, too, are cavemen. Had Jesus not arisen from the dead in a cave, we would have had no opportunity to come out of our caves of darkness to see the Light, and thus have salvation.
I have no problem claiming Jesus as a caveman. You?
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