By and large people at the time of the incarnation were poor, bone-crushingly poor. There was no real middle class in the sense that we know the middle class. You were either very rich or very poor, there was no real buffer zone in between the two. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer, no doubt about it. People worked very hard for relatively little. There was little or no medical care, and very little entertainment, at least in terms of the way that we would evaluate entertainment. Then on top of that, there was exploitation by the rich. Exploitation in the sense that a rich person could lay hold of your property if you had any, and take it for his own. The Roman government at that time had instituted a policy whereby if they wanted someone’s land, they would raise the taxes so high on that land that the landowner had no choice but to sell to the government. He would then become a sharecropper on his own property. Only the very rich avoided that kind of exploitation. So it was a time when life was hard. It was a time when people were in great need, when they were looking for hope, they were looking for consolation. The Jewish nation was looking in particular to the promise which God had made, that one day he would send a redeemer and a deliverer.

read the rest: What Happened at Christmas: Dr. Don Garlington.