A symbol for our hopes

Elaine Miles considers two stories about the birth of Jesus

Jesus was born at Bethlehem in Judea during the reign of Herod

So says Matthew’s Gospel (chapter two, verse one), and Luke’s Gospel (chapter two) agrees on that, but their accounts are very different otherwise.

Luke came from Asia Minor and is only known to have been in Palestine when Jesus was an adult and preaching in Jerusalem. He seems to have started as a newswriter and developed to be something of a poet and a vivid recorder of Paul’s missionary work. Here, his story is magical, like a fairy story. What a wonderful picture of the shepherds in the hills near Bethlehem grazing their flocks! It could have been anywhere in Palestine, or perhaps even further afield. Luke’s story represents the hope of the Jews that one day there would be a Messiah who would deliver their nation from their almost continuous subjection to other races; he would be a descendant of David, their great king, and would be born in Bethlehem, David’s city, of humble parents. ‘There is great joy coming to the whole people,’ so the prophecy said. Mary clearly knew that traditional story, and her husband Joseph was a descendant of David, so she might very well have hoped that her son would be the Messiah. There is some doubt, however, whether Luke’s account is historically accurate, for the census that he mentions did not occur in the year of Jesus’s birth.

Matthew, however, was himself a Galilean and Jewish to the core. He would have had opportunities to question the local people living in Nazareth as to what they remembered about Mary and Joseph, and Mary’s cousin Elizabeth who lived in Judea, and his account in chapter two is plausible in every detail that we can check. Firstly, the Magi did exist. They were nomadic priests from Media who probably travelled up and down the Silk Road collecting news that was of concern to their country. They were sufficiently well-informed that they had correctly prophesied where Alexander the Great would die, so would be trusted and consulted much like the Oracle at Delphi, and thought of as ‘Wise Men’. Since Media was as yet not under Roman rule, but only feeling the threat, it was important enough for them to deviate from their normal route to find out about a baby who was prophesied to be a deliverer of the Jews from Rome. As foreigners, like Herod Antipas, they would not have known that the tradition said the baby would be born in Bethlehem – such a small place; they would have been carrying spices to cover their hospitality. All this is consistent with Matthew’s account. Finally, as priests, they would not have worshipped, but paid homage to the future king – as the New English Bible correctly translates it.

Of course, in a way both Luke’s and Matthew’s accounts are fairy stories, for Israel was not delivered from Rome in the first century. It was to be centuries before the Jews had a home of their own, and Jesus was never the military leader that they longed for. But, at this time of year, either or both passages can be a symbol of our hopes for the future of our world, and all who live in it.

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