© Rev. Lance Carrithers, all rights reserved.  Permission required to copy any portion of this message by any means. Email for permission: lance@firstchurchdc.com

Setting the Stage for the Nativity

"Point of View"

Matthew 1:1, 1:18 and Luke 1:1-4

               Advent, we’ve decided, is a time to prepare for the telling of the compelling story of the birth of Jesus, just as one might prepare for the telling of any compelling story on stage.   So we are setting the stage for the Nativity, and while we introduced the major players last week and cast our story, it is the story itself that we are most concerned with this week.   How will we find a suitable script for telling our story?   We know the general outline, but we need a final script to block out and mount onstage.   One that serves the best interest of the story we have to tell…one that utilizes all the characters we met last week…. Mary, Joseph, the baby, the innkeeper, the angels, the shepherds and the Wisemen… 

          But wait.  Some of you know, but others of you might be surprised to learn that wise men and shepherds don’t mingle, and didn’t arrive together at the manger, no matter what Hollywood or our little Nativity Crèche’s might suggest.   No—Matthew’s Wisemen don’t fit neatly into the story with Luke’s shepherds.

           In short, Matthew’s holy couple live in Bethlehem, apparently have a home there that Matthew mentions, and it is to this house that the star of Bethlehem points the Wisemen to that they might bring their gifts and pay homage to the child some time after his birth, perhaps as much as two years.

          However, Luke tells us that Joe and Mary are just wandering travelers to Bethlehem, they make their home in Nazareth, and are out in the cold forced to deliver their child in a cattle stall.  That’s where the Shepherds arrive to find him, wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. 

          But Matthew doesn’t have shepherds, and Luke doesn’t have Magi from the east.  The differences go deeper than that, and I would suggest, provide a specific point of view as to who this child is and what His purpose might be.

          (An aside—you probably already know that neither Mark nor John even talk about the birth of Jesus—they don’t have anything at all to say about how or why this event occurred.)

          But as we work to a compelling script for our own telling of the story, we will no doubt decide, as Hollywood’s “The Nativity” and hundreds of years’ worth of crafts folk have decided, to bring the two stories together.  Shepherds and Wisemen, co-mingling at the manger.   But, as we do, I think it would help if we knew what we were proclaiming when we do that.   To figure that out, we should probably look at each gospel storyteller separately before we combine them together.   By doing so, we will look at differences in the two Gospels in an attempt to discern the point-of-view of each.  Just what is so important to know about this child born to Mary and Joseph from Matthew’s point of view and from Luke’s?

         Both Matthew and Luke include a genealogy of Jesus—to tell us how he is related to Abraham.  Matthew starts there—Luke won’t give us Jesus’ ancestry until the third chapter following Jesus’ baptism at some 30 years of age. 

          Matthew begins with an assumption in the very first sentence of his gospel.   Jesus is (1) Messiah, (2) Son of David, and (3) Son of Abraham.  Then the family tree is sketched out to show how he arrives at this conclusion.  Using the number 14, which in numerology symbolizes the name of “David,” the greatest king of Israel, Matthew sets out the geneology in three sets of 14 generations.   From Abraham to David, there are fourteen generations. Then from David to the Babylonian Captivity is another fourteen generations. Finally, from the captivity to Jesus is the final, or third set of fourteen generations.  To set His ancestry out in such a way, it is believed that Matthew wants to demonstrate that Jesus is the ultimate descendent of David as the anointed King of the Jews, the Messiah.  Make no mistake!  This child is born to be king to sit on the throne of David. 

          In fact, throughout his gospel of Matthew, the reader is constantly reminded of Jesus’ royalty.  Herod the present king wants Jesus dead, because he might well challenge Herod’s kingship.  This only occurs in Matthew, mind you.  No mention of Herod or his desire to kill the baby king in Luke. 

          Continuing with his royalty theme, Matthew introduces us instead to wise envoys from the Gentile regions east of Judea who have come to pay homage to this child who is born to be king.   They arrive in 2.11 to find Jesus as a child in a house in Bethlehem.  We usually depict three wise men because they bring three gifts, but the truth is, we don’t know how many there were.  Matthew doesn’t tell us.  There might have been a large number of magi with hundreds in their entourage. Nobility probably would have traveled great distances in large caravans for protection

          They have discerned that a star rising in the east is the sign of the king’s birth. Associating this star with royal messianic expectations was not uncommon in this period of time.

          Of course, Herod attempt to do away with Jesus, and slaughters all the children of Bethlehem two years of age or under.  Only Matthew includes this terrible event.  Joseph takes his wife and child and having been warned in a dream to flee to Egypt, leaves in the night.  This is linked by Matthew to prophecy from Hosea 11, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.”

          Throughout Matthew’s birth narrative, there are strong indications that Jesus is born for the purpose to be the king, the Messiah of Israel—heir to David’s throne.  The Magi from the eastern regions suggest that this Messiah will unite the region and reign over an extended time of peace, and the continuous emphasis on prophecy locate this child and this event squarely within Scripture. 

          When we proclaim Jesus as King, the one who reigns on the throne of God forever and ever…we are telling Matthew’s story.   But its not the only story…let’s look at the other one.

          The author of Luke, on the other hand, paints a picture of Jesus’ relationship to all of humanity, not just the Jews.  Luke doesn’t so much suggest Jesus is the king for Israel, as perhaps the Savior sent by God for all people, especially the poor and downtrodden.  I n his genealogy of Jesus, Luke traces Jesus’ heritage in a more comprehensive way, through seventy seven generations—reaching all the way back to God and his creation of Adam and humankind.  Yes, Jesus is the son of David, the son of Abraham, but also the son of Adam and the son of God.  The stage is already much larger in Luke’s telling of the story. 

          Luke’s description of Jesus’ birth differs in nearly every detail from Matthew’s.    Luke’s Holy Family live in Nazareth, and must travel to Bethlehem as a circumstance of the Roman occupation of Judea.  From the very beginning, these parents of Jesus are put upon—the subjects of a foreign governance.  Though she was heavy with child and shouldn’t be traveling surely suggests that the Romans have little regard for the well-being of these poor Jews.

          Of course, the reader of Luke has already learned that this mother is no ordinary mother.  Visited by Angels, she recognizes immediately that this is God’s work—and offers herself as an instrument of God’s desire—singing how God is to bring down the powerful from their thrones and lift up the lowly—according to His promises.

          The birth occurs not in a home, but in a manger, for there is no room for this poor couple.  This isn’t a king.  This…is a travesty.  But the birth is heralded by a host of angels who visit an anonymous group of local sheep herders.

          Sheep herders.  Not a word about kingly visitors.  Only shepherds will know there is a baby.   These lowly shepherds have no gifts to bring;  Luke’s child in a manger will receive no gold, no frankincense, no myrrh.  The shepherds arrive at the stable simply to witness the baby’s birth.  To see. And to behold.  There is no supernatural sign of a star rising in the east in Luke.  In fact, this common-looking baby wrapped in cloths, lying in an animal feeding trough is the sign.   That’s what the angel had told them.  “This will be sign for you, you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.”  The angels also had told them in certain terms:  “This good news is for all the people.  All the people.  A Savior, Christ the Lord.”

          Joseph and Mary offer the sacrifice of the poor for the birth of their child--two birds no doubt because they could not afford the customary lamb.  

           One more thing worth noting:  In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus’ birth doesn’t even get center-stage.  He shares the stage with the birth of his cousin, John the Baptist—who will have a God-given role of his own to play.

          The differences between Matthew and Luke are obvious. Matthew is trumpeting a King Messiah of the Jews to whom even foreign dignitaries come and pay their respect to, while Luke is advocating a Savior for the world over, where the lowest common denominator of humankind is invited to come and see.  Both gospels offer a different side of Jesus, almost as different as a wise man is from a shepherd.

          When we proclaim Jesus, Savior, born in a manger for all the world, we are telling Luke’s story.

          I have some friends who are quite certain that it’s a sin to mix wise men with shepherds.  Purists at heart, they glean the kingly figures out of their nativity sets, and faithfully keep the manger squarely in the Lukan tradition.  Some might relent and put out their ceramic wisemen the day after Christmas, moving them and their camels inch by inch toward the Christ child to arrive on Ephiphany—January 6^th, the day the church celebrates the “Light of Christ.”

          But…as we prepare for the telling of the story on Christmas eve this year, are we going to be forced to choose between Luke’s shepherds and manger and Matthew’s wisemen and their gifts?  We know what we intuitively want to do—don’t we?   We want them both!   We want shepherds and wise men. 

          Well…I suppose there are worse things we could do.  Here’s why I say that.

          Historically, is there any one of us ready to defend that we know for a certainty what literally transpired on the night of our Savior’s birth some 2010 years ago?  Especially when two of our gospels ignore the subject altogether and the other two give us vastly differing accounts?  Okay—let’s begin by agreeing that we cannot prove the authentic historicity of either story.   

          We’re left then with why these two stories were written, and why they are so different.   One was written to proclaim Jesus as king of the Jews, to which other rulers either subject themselves, as did the Magi or try to destroy, as did Herod.   The other story was written to proclaim Jesus as Savior of the World, with a special bent toward helping the poor and the lowly, or as Dick Wilke suggests, the “least the last and the lost.”    Two points of view.

          And I don’t want to leave either one of these points of view out of the telling of the Christmas story.  Jesus, son of God, born to reign on the throne of God for ever and ever.   AND, Jesus, Son of God, born to set the world free from all that enslaves it.   I want them both.   Both stories.  Shepherds AND Wisemen.   Manger AND gifts.   Singing Angels heralding the birth of Jesus, AND Herod trying his evil best to do him in.

          That’s been my journey through my years of Bible Study, after all.   Not one or, but both and.  Not exclusive truth—but inclusive truth.   The truth of God’s story, which we continue to prepare to tell this Christmas.  A story we continue to prepare to hear.  

          Next week, we will experience part of the inspiring score that lodges this story into our hearts.   Our choir will sing their Christmas Cantata next Sunday at 8:30 and again at 10:55, and at 9:45, our worship band will lead us in a round of familiar carols in the worship center.  Why not plan to attend both?

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