By Neil Earle
Behind the clanging of cash registers and the decking of trees with tinsel there really is a great story trying to get out to the world at Christmas time, perhaps the greatest story ever. But we have to see it in all its dimensions. The Bible’s account is still the best place to start.
The Gospel writer, Luke, who is described as “the beloved physician,” was a doctor. He had a professional as well as a historian’s interest in painting the origin story of Christmas in rich and lively detail.
His personalities take on life very quickly.
We begin with an obscure Jewish priest named Zacharias fulfilling his priestly round in the Jewish temple near the end of the reign of Herod the Great (37-4BC). An angel appears telling Zacharias that he and his wife – well past child-bearing age – will have a son and they are to call him John (Luke 1:5-17).
Gospel Inconvenience Number One – Zacharias doesn’t believe and throws up ordinary human objections (verse 18). According to the popular accounts, this is not the way angelic visitations are supposed to go. “And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their proper time” (Luke 1:20).
This happens. Pardon my digression but you see Luke is a most believable source. As the New Testament authority F. F. Bruce explains:
“Names of note in the Jewish and gentile world of his day appear in Luke’s pages; in addition to the emperors we meet the Roman governors Quirinius, Pilate, Sergius Paulus, Gallio, Felix and Festus; Herod the Great and some of his descendants – Herod Antipas the tetrarch of Galilee; the vassal-kings Herod Agrippa I and II, Berenice and Drusilla; leading members of the Jewish priestly caste such as Annas, Caiaphas, and Annanias; Gamaliel, the greatest contemporary Rabbi and Pharisaic leader. A writer who thus relates his story to the wider context of world history is courting trouble if he is not careful; he affords his critical readers many opportunities for testing his accuracy.
Luke takes this risk and stands the test admirable” (The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable, pages 81-82).
Back to the story. John is born and he will become famous as John the Baptizer and poor old Zechariah gets his speech back again after nine months of dumbness.
Next the scene switches to Nazareth where the angel Gabriel is about to unleash Gospel Inconvenience Number Two. A young lass named Mary is being asked to take on a pre-marital pregnancy in order to give birth to the mother of the Lord. Astonishingly Mary accepts without resistance – part of Luke’s way of pushing women forward in his account. Good early Gospel terminology crowds around the angel’s greeting to Mary: “Greetings you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you” (Luke 1:28).
“The Lord is with you” is close to the title Israel’s Redeemer-Savior was to bear – “Immanuel”, God with us (Isaiah 7:14). “Highly favored’ is linked to “chaire” in verse 3 – “you have found favor with God.” This “chaire” is from “charis” for grace, a Gospel word if ever there is one. Christians know, it all begins and ends with grace. Pastor William Brownson puts Mary’s glorious burden in context for us:
“For a betrothed woman to be found pregnant before her marriage could mean divorce, ostracism and even death…It was not a small thing for her to say, ‘Let it be to me according to your word.’
“Mary, too, in accepting God’s plan, faced the possible loss of Joseph, her betrothed. The same faith was to lead later to a still more costly sacrifice…Mary had to go through the agony of seeing her son crucified before her eyes.”
The inconveniences and burden pile up in Mary’s case. As Brownson elaborates:
“It means Christ in our hearts, but also a cross on our back…Mary had no visible evidence to cling to and no precedent to fall back on. There was neither community which could reinforce her faith nor any dramatic sign from heaven to confirm it. All she had was God’s word of promise and she believed it…Maybe this is the light in which we should have seen the Virgin Mary all along. We may well honor and follow her – not as a kind of counter-Christ, but as the first Christian” (Distinctive Lessons from Luke, pages 18-20).
Inconvenience Number Three falls on the just man named Joseph, Mary’s intended husband. Mary is pregnant. The town must be talking. There is a Roman army base only four miles way in Sepphoris and the town knows what soldiers are like on the prowl. “Could Mary have....? Can I put her away discreetly?” The poor man is musing when an angel appears giving him the straight scoop: “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:20).
This is from another Gospel writer named Matthew but the theme of burden and glory comes across here as well. Joseph does the socially unthinkable – he will take Mary as his wife, just as he planned, pregnant or not. But before he can do that …other events intervene. The scene shifts back to Luke and the capital of the mighty Roman Empire.
“In these days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world…and everyone went to his town to register.”
Trouble was Joseph is from Bethlehem, a long 90 mile trek by donkey down to the area south of Jerusalem. They get there by hugging the east side of the Jordan to avoid the unclean Samaritans. You can almost hear the town gossip. “Joseph, is taking Mary on that journey – you know, Mary, the girl who got pregnant – taking her all the way to Bethlehem and her in that condition.”
“Well, what can he do the Romans have spoken.”
The Romans have indeed spoken but they are only pawns in a game that ahs been playing long before Rome was born. Down they go to Bethlehem, Joseph having to take Mary from the donkey very carefully and very often in her state. This is Inconvenience Number Four and it leads straight to Inconvenience Number Five: there is no room for them at the Bethlehem Inn.
Luke tells the story very succinctly:”and she give birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them at the inn” (Luke 2:7).
This was obviously not the Marriott and we aren’t quite sure how it worked. But according to some experts, inns in the First Century had a central courtyard with small covered chalets with a fireplace for cooking installed around the edges. Perhaps Joseph and Mary had to occupy the central storage room that was the focus for the billeted caravans. However it worked out, this was no princely reception. Many Christmas carols try to capture the dynamics of this scene – Silent Night, Holy Night; O Little Town of Bethlehem; O Holy Night. We hope it wasn’t too cold and too uncomfortable but Mary and Joseph successfully carry out their mission.
Mission accomplished, indeed, but then another angelically-provoked surprise. An enthusiastic band of shepherds show up who are from the unruly lower class elements of the city. Shepherds had fallen in status from the days of King David and were even considered ceremonially unclean. They finally find the Inn and tell a most amazing tale about a visitation of mighty angels singing to them and telling them to head to Bethlehem looking for a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.
What are Joseph and Mary thinking at this juncture? You have to wonder.
Time passes. A rich caravan of mysterious travelers from the even more mysterious east zero in on Bethlehem to seek out “him born King of the Jews’ (Matthew 2:2). They find the Nazareth family. They offer expensive gifts to the young child, now living in a house. Soon after Joseph receives another angelic vision telling him King Herod is out to kill the young child. “Take the young boy and flee to Egypt.”
This is Inconvenience Number Six – at the age of two, Jesus becomes a refugee. Inconvenience Number Seven is the cruelest of all. Even as the three Nazarenes head out on a 200 mile trek west to Egypt, Herod order all baby boys two years and under to be executed (Matthew 2:16).
Here rises an inexplicable mystery attaching to the Christmas story. How could the birth of Jesus lead to the death of innocent children? We will never know this side of heaven and that dilemma concentrates the fact of the so-familiar Christmas story conjuring up notions of Burden and Glory. The glory of being involved with humanity's Redemption and yet the Burden being laid on all these in the story.
How to sum it all up?
Let’s think of three things.
First, we are told that it is only through much tribulation that we enter the Kingdom of God (Acts 14:21). We have been cautioned, given a spiritual travel advisory before we even set out on the Christian journey. There really is a cross in every Christian life. All the characters on the right side in the drama would tell us that but, guess what; they wouldn’t have changed a thing. Walking in God’s way will do that for you. It isn’t easy but it is the most rewarding thing ever. As one church leader said, It’s the hardest work you’ll ever love.
Second, God works in the most unlike places. He visits shepherd’s hitching their ponchos against the night’s cold, a timid priest going about his daily routine, a Capitol building in Rome where a scribe is copying a decree that will unwittingly change history, a perturbed carpenter, a young girl who has become grist for the town gossip mill, a surprised set of inn dwellers, a bevy of young mothers set upon by an execution squad, a retired priest and widow possibly thinking their best days were behind them (Luke 2:25-38). Those folks were not superheroes. They were people like us. God works not only in the most unlikely places but with the most unlikely people.
Thirdly, like our spiritual forbears we can still see – if we try – the miracle amid the mess. The way Christmas is kept today there is much to lament – rampant commercialism, greedy shoppers who would run you down on the way to a bargain, the sheer exhaustion of fighting the Christmas crowds, the lineups at the airports, the dangerous drunk drivers, etc etc. But there are also the Salvation Army kettles, the families who have made the effort to reunite, the sincere amateurism of the Christmas pageants, the warmly decorated churches, the minister opening the book and reading the words once again, “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.”
Christmas – a time for all of us to be reminded once again that the effort is all worth it even amid so much inconvenience and misunderstanding. Yeah. It’s like that. It really is.