In birth a resurrection foretold

In birth a resurrection foretold

I have a friend who every Christmas sets up two Nativity scenes under her family tree. One is a stable with the new-born Jesus lying in a feed trough; Mary, Joseph, animals and shepherd gather round the baby while angels hover overhead. 

The other is a house with a large picture window through which one can see the infant Jesus asleep in his crib; Joseph and Mary are busy with household chores, oblivious both to the magi approaching their front door and an exceptionally bright star situated above their roof. The first scene is from Luke; the second, from Matthew.

Most of us know about Jesus' birth not by reading the two contradictory narratives describing the event, but by remembering the Christmas plays and pageants in which we were involved as children, plays and pageants which combined both Matthew and Luke's narratives into a third, non-biblical account.

Our Gospel stories are different because Matthew and Luke's implications of Jesus' death and resurrection are different. Christian faith begins not with Jesus' birth, but with His death and resurrection. 

Delayed party 
It was at least three centuries before anyone even celebrated Christmas. Yet we presume Easter was commemorated the first year after Jesus' resurrection.

In tonight's Gospel (Luke 2:1-14), we hear two of the evangelist's theological themes: journey and reaching out to the "disenfranchised." Faith is always a journey for Luke, a journey along which we experience dying and rising with Jesus in our personal, day-by-day lives. 

So it's no surprise that Joseph and Mary begin their faith experience with a trek from Nazareth to Bethlehem. And since Luke constantly reminds his readers that their dying and rising frequently revolves around reaching out to those on the fringes of society, neither should we be surprised that the first people who are told about Jesus' birth and actually show up at the stable are shepherds.

Pregnant birth
What Luke was convinced the historical Jesus brought about at the end of His earthly life, Luke presumed could already be discovered at the beginning of that life.

This same conviction also prompted Jesus' first followers to reinterpret the Hebrew Scriptures. References and titles originally applied to King Hezekiah in tonight's Isaiah passage were later attached to Jesus (Isaiah 9:1-6). He's now the one who leads us out of darkness to light; He's become for us "God-Hero, Father-Forever, Prince of Peace." Our experience of becoming one with the dying/rising Jesus has forced us to reinterpret everything.

Writing late in the 1st century CE, the un-known author of the letter to Titus has had a long time to reflect on the significance of Jesus' risen presence in our lives (Titus 2:11-14). "For the grace of God has appeared, saving all and training us to reject godless ways...To cleanse for Himself a people as His own, eager to do what is good."

Christmas lesson
Those who get lost in the details of Jesus' birth tonight are missing the point of our sacred authors. Scholars remind us that the infancy narratives were the last Gospel traditions to take shape. The earliest were the passion/resurrection narratives. 

If during our celebration of Jesus' birth we don't find ways in which we can die by giving ourselves to others, we've not listened to the three readings. Our lives are different only because Jesus' dying and rising has made them different.

(12/18/08)