Saturday, 9 March
Luke 2:1-20
Written by Dr Graham Leo. ©2019.
Once again, Luke grounds his story in history. He gives a time and a place. Some people reading this reflection will know that the census that Luke alludes to has been hotly debated by historians. Those quick to find holes in the biblical record argue that Luke got his facts wrong. I'm not going to enter that debate here, other than to say that people who argued that the Bible was wrong have very often had to eat their words. I'm happy to think that Luke was such a careful researcher, he could not possibly have got such an easily-provable fact wrong.
Very early Christian writers, such as Justin Martyr, also were happy to accept Luke’s record, and they were close enough to know if he got it wrong. Justin, in his First Apologetic, written around 150 AD, took the availability of the census documents in the Bethlehem Town Hall (or wherever they might have been kept!) as a demonstrable proof of the birth of Jesus.
Luke casually mentions a number of things which go to support his ongoing insistence that the coming of Jesus, as Messiah, was simply the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy. Here are a few:
He was to be of David’s family line: 2 Sam. 7:12-16; Ps. 89:3-4; 132:11; Isaiah 9:6-7 and 11:1-2.
He would be born of a virgin: Isaiah 7:14
He would be born in Bethlehem: Micah 5:2
It’s hard to distance our minds from decades of Christmas cards and stories and read the story that Luke and Matthew actually tell in their Gospels.
Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem because that was Joseph’s ancestral town. Given the nature of ancient villages, he would have been related to, or known by, almost every household. Hospitality and honour for guests were paramount virtues in this society. It beggars the imagination that no-one would have offered a mother about to give birth a place to stay in their house, when she was a close relation by marriage.
The Greek word translated as ‘inn’ is kataluma. It has multiple meanings, including an inn, but also an ‘upper room’. The only other time it is used in the NT is in Luke 22:11 and Mark 14:14, where it means the upper room where Jesus celebrated the Last Supper.
Houses in Jewish villages were small and contained lower areas for the farm animals to be brought under cover at night. There was one level for human living, probably all one room; the animals were in a lower level at one end of the house, perhaps a metre or so below the floor level, but all under the same roof.
Properly understood in the culture of first century village life, Luke describes exactly what we would have expected might happen. They probably knocked at the door of Uncle Reuben and Aunty Sarah, who put some food on the stove to warm up, and helped Mary onto a bed. When the baby was born, they put him in the warm straw of a manger because there was no space in the ‘upper room’.
But all this human stuff is as nothing to what was happening nearby, out in the fields.
Had God been ‘sensible enough’ to engage a proper marketing company to announce this Royal Birth, things might have been better advertised. But God apparently thought it sufficient to arrange a concert of angels for an audience of a few shepherds and some sheep.
Do you see the shining wonder of this? God organised the biggest concert in the history of the world, far bigger than anything U2 ever managed, and didn't bother with a marketing campaign. Now, 2000 years later, people who don't even believe in Jesus sell Christmas cards with pictures of the concert on them. Never, ever despise the size or social standing of your local congregation! God doesn't. And he doesn't need whizz-bang theatrics, coloured lights and artistic directors in skinny, fashionably-torn jeans.
If ever you wanted proof that this story is true, here it is, right here. This was the worst marketing exercise in the history of Royal Births. It reminds us of God’s manner of dealing with the resurrection. (Let the news be broken first to a small group of women, including one or two who had very poor reputations.)
Fancy vestments, gold chalices, grand processions and even concert-hall-church-auditoriums all have their place, I suppose, in the grand scheme of things. But it is always good for Christians to remember that when Jesus was born, it was only the poor and lowly who were in the audience.
Alcoholics, rejoice! Drug-takers, rejoice! Separated parents, abandoned children, rejoice! You poverty-stricken and homeless, you sad and depressed – all of you rejoice! Because your King has been born, and he knows you by name.
As for the wealthy and famous, the renowned inhabitants of the Social and Political Who’s Who – your King is born, too. But you might need to find a window in your diary and a space in your social calendar to make sure you recognise the fact.
Christianity has become respectable, after twenty centuries of Western civilisation. As it becomes less and less so, in this rapidly-decelerating Christian culture, we might find ourselves becoming more authentic, more true to our roots.
Mary stored these things up in her heart – because she had been given words, nine months ago, and she needed to process them. Not to doubt them – just to think them through. Perhaps she might be a good role model for all of us, here.
The shepherds just went home rejoicing. Luke tells us why: Because all the things that they had heard and seen ‘were just as they had been told’.
There’s that reliable voice again. Luke’s stubborn. He is not going to let this bone go. Trust the Word, he keeps on saying. Even if you're just a grubby shepherd.
Prayer: My Jesus, I can't help but worship you at this story of your birth. How marvellous! How wonderful! I will always sing your song, the song of the angels. How wonderful is your love for me! Please help me to be always humble enough to accept it. And not too much of a clever-clogs to find reasons to doubt parts of it. Amen.
