"THE BIRTH OF THE MESSIAH"

A sermon by the Rev. Bruce Clear

December 18, 2005

All Souls Unitarian Church

Indianapolis, Indiana

There is an on-going debate today about interpreting the U.S. Constitution. The debate intensifies whenever a Supreme Court Justice is nominated. Some would argue that Constitution must be interpreted according to the “original intent” of those who wrote it. Others suggest that those who wrote the Constitution intentionally used language that was flexible and open to interpretation. They felt that future generations should be able to adapt the language and principles to their own needs and not be locked into the 18^th century world.

When I hear these debates, I am impressed by how much our Constitution seems to be treated as Holy Scripture. Debates over biblical interpretations are familiar, and often they revolve around trying to prove what the original writers meant in some specific passage. How much flexibility did the authors allow in order to be relevant to today’s world?

Today, a week before Christmas, I want to look at the biblical narratives of Jesus’ birth. I examine these “birth stories” as we would look at the Constitution. What was the “intent” of the original authors, and to what extent is that intent relevant to us today?

The story of Jesus' birth is a major part of living in this culture. In the next week, you will not be able to enter a store or turn on the TV or read a popular magazine, without encountering some part of that story. I believe it is important to examine that story for its historical meaning.

After looking at the historical meaning, I will then try to identify some of the universal symbolism it offers that is still meaningful today.

I should say at the outset that much of what I am about to say is based on a book by Raymond E. Brown with the same title as my sermon, The Birth of the Messiah. Father Brown, who died just a few years ago, was a Catholic priest, professor of Biblical Studies, and one of the world’s most respected biblical scholars. Though much of what I am about to say may sound a bit like “debunking” the Bible stories, it is instructive that this devout Christian scholar believes it is important to understand why the Bible was written as it was in order to have it be meaningful today – even if the original meaning is not what we imagine it to have been.

The story of the birth of Jesus is actually two stories. One is found in the first two chapters of the Gospel of Matthew and another in the first two chapters of the Gospel of Luke. There is no mention of Jesus’ birth in the other Gospels, or for that matter in any other part of the Bible.

Matthew and Luke present two very different stories. If you pick up a Bible and read Matthew’s story, you'll swear that important parts are missing. If you read the Luke story, you'll be equally perplexed. Our Christmas story is a mixture of two profoundly different stories. About the only details Matthew and Luke have in common are these: that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, that his parents were named Joseph and Mary, that he was descended from Abraham and David, that he was born during the reign of King Herod, and that an angel announced his birth. Virtually every thing else is different.

The genealogies at the beginning of each book (the “begats”) that establish Jesus in the House of David are substantially different genealogies, with little in common other than the key figures of Abraham, David and Jesus. Luke tells us that Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth, and went to Bethlehem because of the Roman census, "to be enrolled." He tells us that it was on that trip to Bethlehem that Jesus was born in a manger. But Matthew implies that Mary and Joseph lived in Bethlehem, and Jesus was born at home. No Roman census is mentioned, no trip to an inn and manger. In Luke, the baby Jesus was visited by shepherds but no wise men and no star are mentioned; in Matthew the wise men followed a star, and no shepherds are mentioned coming to pay homage to the infant Jesus.

The main character in Luke's story is Mary, and the angels appear to her to announce Jesus' coming. The main character of Matthew's story is Joseph, and the angels appear to him to announce the miraculous birth. According to Matthew, King Herod planned a massacre of young boys in Bethlehem, so Joseph took Mary and the baby and fled to Egypt after the birth. Luke makes no mention of either Herod's massacre of infants, or the family's trip to Egypt, but says, rather, that after the birth, the family returned back to their home in Nazareth.

Not only are these stories different from each other, but both stories together are very different from the rest of the New Testament stories. No details from either of these stories are ever mentioned again, either in the books of Matthew and Luke themselves or in any other N.T. book. The star is never again mentioned; the assertion of Jesus being born of a virgin is found nowhere else in the New Testament.

In fact, the rest of the Bible always refers to Jesus as being either from Nazareth or Galilee, but never from Bethlehem. In the Gospel of John, there is an interesting dialog that seems to indicate John never heard about the birth stories. John reports that people who doubted Jesus as the Messiah did so, in part, because Jesus was from Galilee, and not from Bethlehem as the Jewish prophets predicted. John does not seem at all to suspect that Jesus was born in Bethlehem.

So the birth stories seem to be very separate from, and unrelated to, the rest of the Bible. Most biblical scholars believe this is so because the birth stories derive from separate sources, and were written separately from the rest of Matthew and Luke. As separate stories, they were probably appended to the beginning of the books, as additions, and not as integral parts of the larger story of the life of Jesus.

There are four books in the New Testament that tell the story of Jesus' life: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John -- the Gospels. The earliest of these books to be written was the Gospel of Mark, and Mark begins his story of the life of Jesus with Jesus' baptism. There is no account of miraculous birth (or any birth, for that matter), no mention of angels foretelling the arrival of the Messiah. It would seem that Mark was unaware of the astounding story of the Nativity.

Why could the two birth stories be so different? The answer is that, like any book, each one reflects the thinking of a different author, writing for a different audience, and for different purposes.

So far, all of this may seem incidental to the central question: what was the purpose of these stories? What was the “original intent” of the authors? The fact that the birth stories were appended, separate from, the rest of the Bible, implies that there must have been a reason for adding them.

Mark, as I say, wrote first, and doesn't mention Jesus' birth at all. At that time the small Christian sect was expecting Jesus to return any day and take his followers back to heaven with him. There was little need to think about developing a "tradition," or little need to care about what the Romans thought about them, because the world, as they understood it, would end soon anyway.

But it didn't end, and Jesus didn't return. By the time Matthew and Luke did their writing, this fact had to be dealt with. Suddenly, it became important to think seriously about tradition – both the Christian traditions that they were creating, and the Jewish tradition from which they came.

Also, they became concerned about what the Romans thought of them. With Jesus' return delayed indefinitely, they realized they needed to get along with the Roman rulers, and had already experienced some persecution. Furthermore, Judaism itself was somewhat in shambles. In the decade of the 60s, Jews mounted a revolt against the Roman rulers, and the Jews lost. This resulted in both persecution against the Jews, culminating in the destruction of their sacred Temple in Jerusalem, as well as a crackdown by Jews against heretics, which included this new Christian church that was largely seen as a heretical Jewish sect.

So Matthew and Luke were writing during a time when the political climate was quite delicate for Christians. As the church grew, it was gaining converts from both Jews and Gentiles (mostly Greeks), so it needed to present itself favorably to both.

And that political task was reflected by Matthew and Luke, including, most conspicuously, in their stories about Jesus' birth. It also helps explains why their stories were so different.

Matthew was Jewish, and his book was directed mostly toward a Jewish audience. He wanted to assure Jewish Christians that they are in fact still Jews, and true to their Jewish tradition. And, on the other hand, he wanted to assure Jews that Christians are not traitors to the tradition, but are actually fulfilling Jewish history. He wanted to say that Jesus, rather than betraying Judaism, was the Messiah anticipated by the ancient Jewish prophets.

Luke wrote from within the Gentile Christian community, and his book is directed mostly to non‑ Jews. He wanted to assure the Christian community that Jesus came to save all people, not just Jews, and he wanted to assure the Gentile world that Christianity was more than just a Jewish sect. He also wanted reassure the non-Jewish authorities that Christianity was no threat to their power,

Both writers are sensitive to both themes: that Jewish Christians are authentically Jewish, and that Christianity is acceptable to Gentiles as well as Jews. But the emphasis varies from one author to the other.

The purpose of their writings, including the purpose of the stories about Jesus' birth, was to present the Gospel in the best possible light to their particular audience. Today, we call it public relations, or “spin.” People tell a story just a little bit differently, depending upon to whom they are speaking.

It is no wonder that the stories of Luke and Matthew can be so different. I'll tell these stories separately, and comment on their symbolism.

Matthew's strongest emphasis was on legitimizing Christianity to the Jewish community; that is, to establish that Jesus, as the Messiah, was the fulfillment of the Jewish scriptures. To do so, he filled his story with quotations and images from the Jewish scriptures, the Old Testament.

Perhaps the most direct Old Testament detail is the claim that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. And even though the rest of the Bible presents Jesus as being from either Galilee or Nazareth (even Matthew and Luke both say so later in their Gospels), when it comes to the story of Jesus' birth, it is said to have happened in Bethlehem. Matthew quotes the O.T. book of Micah (5:1): "And you, oh Bethlehem, in the land of Judah... from you shall come a ruler who will govern my people Israel."

Mary and Joseph are also allusions to O.T. stories. In the case of Mary, Matthew directly quotes Isaiah (7:14) in saying, "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel, God with us."

Joseph seems to be an allusion to an Old Testament story. For Matthew, Joseph is a more prominent character than Mary. Our culture tends to accept Luke's version of the story in which the angels appear to Mary to calm her fears about being mysteriously pregnant, and to announce the coming of Jesus. But Matthew instead has the angel appear to Joseph, during a dream. In the book of Genesis, there is the story of another Joseph, and his main skill was as an interpreter of dreams.

One of the most significant ways in which Matthew seems to connect the birth story to the Jewish scriptures is the startling tale of Herod's slaughter of infant boys in Bethlehem. According to Matthew, Herod was visited by three wise men who were in search of Jesus, and they told Herod that the King of the Jews was to be born in Bethlehem. Herod, then, chose to kill all young male children in Bethlehem. Jesus escaped that fate only because an angel, in a dream, told Joseph to go to Egypt.

This story is easily recognizable. It is about Moses. Remember "Moses and the bullrushes?" The Pharaoh of Egypt ordered that all male Hebrew children be cast into the Nile and drowned. Moses was saved, however, when his mother put him in a basket, set him in the river, only later to be found by the Pharaoh's daughter. This Bible story about Moses is augmented by Jewish midrash tradition, that is, non‑scriptural but well known folk legends. According to the Midrash, the Pharaoh was told by his wise men, known as "magi," that a Hebrew would soon be born who would threaten all of Egypt. And from this arose the Pharaoh's plan to kill newborn Hebrew boys.

Matthew's story of Herod's slaughter of innocents was addressed to a Jewish community familiar with the Moses story, and who could readily recognize the parallels.

But just in case the audience didn't quite get the connection, Matthew made it a bit more explicit. When he wrote about Jesus' family fleeing to Egypt, he said this, "This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, 'Out of Egypt have I called my son.'" ("Out of Egypt have I called my son" is a quotation from the book of Hosea.) The reason Jesus fled to Egypt was not just to avoid Herod's sword, but more importantly, to fulfill prophesy and show that he is the Jewish Messiah. Again, this dramatic story is found only in Matthew, not in Luke.

Matthew’s primary mission was to portray Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. In a very readable book about the "History of the Bible," Fred Gladstone Bratton wrote,

“Matthew was a man of motive and method. His chief interest was to demonstrate to Jewish readers that Jesus was the Messiah and the fulfillment of the Old Testament Messianic hope. That was his theme, and he really worked it for more than it was worth."

He goes on to illustrate how Matthew sometimes took the Old Testament language completely out of context in order to shore up his thesis of Jesus as the Messiah.

But the parallel purpose of Matthew and Luke was to present Christians as acceptable to Gentiles, and Gentiles as acceptable to Christians. And Luke, being part of a Gentile Christian community, was more of a master at this.

Take for example the opening of the story that we are all familiar with, that says, "In those days a decree when out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled," that is, taxed. This is Luke's opening to tell about Mary and Joseph traveling to Bethlehem to obey the Emperor's decree, a story that Matthew not only omits, but contradicts.

Historians suggest that this event was very unlikely. Why would Luke include it but Matthew didn’t? The main purpose, biblical scholars suggest, is to portray the Roman Empire as playing an important part in the birth of Jesus. Raymond Brown, a well respected Catholic Bible scholar, says about Luke's narrative, "Ironically, the Roman emperor, the mightiest figure in the world, is (shown as) serving God's plan by issuing an edict for the census of the whole world. He is providing the appropriate setting (that is, Bethlehem) for the birth of Jesus, the Savior of all those people who are being enrolled."

But Brown makes this point even stronger. Luke has subtlely attempted to compare Jesus to the Emperor himself. Let me use Brown to tell this story:

"About the same time the Greek cities of Asia Minor (not far form where Luke was writing) adopted September 23rd, the birthday of Augustus, as the first day of the new year, calling him 'savior'; indeed, an inscription at Halicarnassus calls him, 'savior of the whole world.' It can scarcely be accidental that Luke's description of the birth of Jesus presents an implicit challenge to this imperial propaganda, not by denying the imperial ideals, but by claiming that the real peace of the world was brought by Jesus. (In the city of Priene) the inscription of Augustus read, 'The birthday of the god has marked the beginning of the good news for the world.' (Luke has) reinterpreted this by having an angel of the Lord declare: 'I announce to you good news of a great joy which will be for the whole world.'"

But there seems to be another, even more subtle, message from the story of the census enrollment. I have already mentioned that Luke wrote after a period in which the Jews had failed in a rebellion against the Roman occupation. The Jews, it seemed, had "bad press" as a result. And the Christians were seen by Rome as just another Jewish sect. Throughout Luke's Gospel, he makes a great effort to show that Jesus was not a rebel against Rome. For example, just before the crucifixion, when Jesus faced a trial before Pontius Pilate, Luke has Pilate declare three times that Jesus was innocent of the crime of rebellion against Rome.

So some commentators have suggested that the story of the census is a message from Luke that Mary and Joseph were loyal and obedient to Rome, and that Rome has nothing to fear, therefore, from Christians.

Luke tells of the shepherds visiting the baby Jesus and Matthew tells of the three magi paying homage. The "magi" actually refers to oriental magicians or probably astrologers, though later they've been described as "the three Kings." This probably refers back to Psalm 72 which says, "May the kings of Tarshish and of the isles render him tribute. May the kings of Sheba and Seba bring gifts! May all kings fall down before him, all nations serve him."

Whatever its source, Matthew shows the baby Jesus being honored by the rich, the wise and the powerful. But Luke's shepherds present a more gentle scene, certainly less threatening to Rome than a baby who has power over the powerful. In Matthew's story, Jesus is called "the King of the Jews." In Luke's story, Jesus is a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger – a child who will bring "good news of great joy to all people." Rome need not fear.

There are good reasons, then, why the two Biblical Christmas stories are different from one another. Matthew and Luke had somewhat different agendas when they were writing their stories. Their purpose was not primarily to tell what happened or to recount history. Their purpose was to tell a story that would be deeply meaningful to those who heard it, whether Jew or Gentile. It is clear from history that it did have meaning, and it has been effective.

Biblical scholarship has gone a long way toward uncovering the “original intent” of the Gospel writers buried under 2,000 years of history. The birth stories of Matthew and Luke are key examples of what they can find.

But I don't want just to leave it there. Exploring the original intent of the telling of the nativity story is not important just for its own sake. I hope this account hasn’t come across as merely "debunking," for it's not intended that way. On the contrary, the reason for exploring these meanings, many of which have been lost over the centuries, is to understand better how such a story can have multiple meanings.

A literary classic can be known by this: that the story it tells carries a message to people across many generations of time, even if the original meaning of the story is no longer relevant. Such is the case with the story of the birth of Jesus. The Bible stories of Jesus' birth are filled with symbolism that had specific purposes for the time it was written. What is interesting is that the purposes of the original writing have faded, but the meanings of the story of survived.

But the original intent is does not necessarily identify the true or lasting meaning of a story. Rather, meanings change over time, but as long as people are listening to it, we know the story is saying something significant. And people are still listening to the Christmas story, even if they hear something very different from what Matthew and Luke thought they were saying. Both Gospels are filled with words and stories declaring joy and declaring hope, not just to a single religious community, but hope for everyone, joy “to the whole world.”

It seems to me the underlying message of this story for both Matthew and Luke was that Jesus’ teachings are universal – that they are relevant to all. In their world the categories of Jew and Gentile encompassed the known world. Our world is astoundingly bigger. Its diversity would be inconceivable to their time and place. The symbolism embedded in the birth narratives point to the universality of the legacy of Jesus.

In this sense, theirs was a Universalist message, and one that is still vital today. That they shaped this message to address the specific political and religious landscape of their time does not diminish the larger message. The birth of Jesus was symbolically a birth of hope. That is their message. That is the message of Christmas, down through the ages.