This week’s reflection is adapted from a Christmas homily, given some years ago by Fr. Richard Rohr, an old acquaintance and collaborator, a well-known writer on spirituality, and the founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
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“And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.” – John 1:14
I know because it is Christmas you are hoping for some very special meditation. I do not think I have one, because there is really only one message. We just have to keep saying it until finally we are open enough to hear it and to believe it. There is no separation between God and creation. That is the message…
And so, this Word, this Eternal Word of God that we read about in the prologue to John’s Gospel, took its abiding place on Earth, to heal every bit of separation that we experience. That separation is the sadness of humanity.
When we feel separate, when we feel disconnected, when we feel split from our selfs, from family, from reality, we can become depressed people. We know we were not created for that separateness. We were created for union.
So, God sent into the world the one who would personify that union—who would put human and divine together, who would put spirit and matter together. That is what we spend our whole life trying to believe: that this ordinary earthly sojourn means something.
Sometimes we wake up in the morning wondering, what does it all mean? What’s it all for? What was I put here for? Where is it all heading?
I believe it is all a school. And it is all a school of love. And everything is a lesson — everything. Every day, every moment, every visit to the grocery store, every moment of our so-ordinary life is meant to reveal: I am a daughter of God. I am a son of the Lord. I am a sibling of Christ. It is all okay. I am already home free. There is no place I have to go. I am already here.
“And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.”
My very best wishes for Christmas and the New Year.
And sincere thanks to all who contributed to my annual appeal.
I will return to Another Voice on January 8, 2025.
This week, a post a day earlier than usual. Too many things going on right now with my pre-Christmas classes.
The Infancy Narratives are not strictly historical, but creative images to convey theological understandings.
The Scriptures are primarily about understanding our faith. They are not primarily a history book. I resonate with the observation by the Irish-American biblical scholar John Dominic Crossan (born 1934): “My point, once again, is not that those ancient people told literal stories and we are now smart enough to take them symbolically, but that they told them symbolically and we are now dumb enough to take them literally.”
Our Sacred Scriptures have a variety of literary forms by which the truths of our faith are expressed and communicated. We find poetry, drama, symbolism, metaphors, imaginative recreations of past events, and varying degrees of historical narration.
Most people today ignore the differences found in Jesus’ birth accounts in Matthew and Luke. They simply combine the accounts without noticing the differences. Very importantly they do not know or realize that folkloric legends that arose centuries after Jesus’ birth get thrown into the mix.
In Matthew we do find: the visit of the wise men, the star, and Herod’s plot to kill Jesus. These are not found in Luke however.
In Luke on the other hand we find: the birth of John the Baptist, the shepherds, and the presentation of Jesus at the Temple. But these are not found in Matthew.
The differences between Matthew and Luke are nearly impossible to reconcile, although they do share some similarities.
The U.S. American biblical scholar and Catholic priest, John Meier (1942 – 2022), often stressed that Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem is not to be taken as an historical fact. Meier describes it as a “theological affirmation put into the form of an apparently historical narrative.” In other words, the belief that Jesus was a descendant of King David led to the development of a story about his birth in Bethlehem, because King David (c. 1010 – c. 970 BCE) was born and raised in Bethlehem.
The Bethlehem Church of the Nativity, built in the fourth century CE and located in the West Bank, Palestine, is built over a cave where supposedly Mary gave birth to Jesus. The church was originally commissioned by Constantine the Great (c. 272 – 337 CE) a short time after his mother Helena’s visit to Jerusalem and Bethlehem in 325–326 CE.
Helena (c.248 – 330) had been instructed by her son to find important Christian places and artifacts, since Christianity was becoming the dominant religion of the Roman Empire. She hired “helpful” tour guides.
Helena paid her tour guides very well, and they came up with creative “discoveries” for her that greatly pleased her son Constantine. Helena’s tour guides found a bunch of old bones called the “relics of the Magi.” They were kept first in Constantinople; but then moved to Milan. Eight centuries later, in 1164, the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa took the “relics of the Magi” and gave them to the Archbishop of Cologne. Whatever they really are – and there has been great debate about that since 1864 when the remains were examined — the relics are still in Cologne Cathedral, which over the years I have visited many times.
[Helena’s tour guides also found for her: three pieces of wood said to be actual pieces of the “True Cross,” two thorns, said to be from Jesus’ crown of thorns, a piece of a bronze nail, said to be from the crucifixion itself. And finally, they found a piece of wood said to be from the sign Pontius Pilate was said to have erected over Jesus when he was crucified.]
Some differences in Infancy Narratives: Unlike the infancy narrative in Luke, Matthew mentions nothing about a census, nothing about a journey to Bethlehem, and nothing about Jesus’ birth in a stable. In Matthew, after Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, the Wise Men from the east visit Baby Jesus at Joseph and Mary’s house in Bethlehem. They were led there by a star, to fulfill the Hebrew Scriptures prophecy of Micah 5:2, that a ruler for Israel would come from Bethlehem.
Most contemporary scholars do not consider Matthew’s story about a star leading the Wise Men to Jesus to have been an historical event. The ancients believed that astronomical phenomena were connected to terrestrial events. Linking a birth to the first appearance of a star was consistent with a popular belief that each person’s life was linked to a particular star.
According to Luke, a census was called for throughout the Roman Empire. It meant that Joseph and a very pregnant Mary – probably between 12 and 16 years old — had to go to Bethlehem, since Joseph was of the “house of David.” When they got there, there was “no room for them in the inn,” and so Jesus was born and put in the stable’s manger. (Some people really don’t know that a manger is a feeding trough for animals. The English word comes from the Old French word mangier — meaning “to eat” — from the Latin mandere, meaning “to chew.”)
Difficulties in Luke: There are major difficulties in accepting Luke’s Roman census account. First it could not have happened in the days of King Herod, who had died in 4 BCE. Luke refers to a worldwide census under Caesar Augustus when Quirinius was governor of Syria. But Publius Sulpicius Quirinius was not appointed as the governor of Syria until 6 CE, when Herod had already been dead for ten years. In addition, according to the annals of ancient Roman history, no such census under Caesar Augustus ever took place. In fact, there was no single census of the entire Roman Empire under Augustus. More importantly, no Roman census ever required people to travel from their own homes to those of distant ancestors. A census of Judaea, therefore, would not have affected Joseph and his family, living in Galilee.
Luke clearly followed the models of historical narrative which were current in his day. He needed an explanation for bringing Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem, in order to have Jesus born there. Let’s call the journey to Bethlehem an example of Luke’s “creative historical imagination.”
In Luke, we have no Wise Men, as we saw in Matthew, but angels appear to lowly shepherds, telling them to visit Baby Jesus. The angels then sing out the famous words of the Gloria: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, and good will toward all people.”
Jesus was circumcised eight days after his birth. Then forty days after his birth, Mary and Joseph took the infant Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem to complete Mary’s ritual purification after childbirth. Mary and Joseph simply followed the regulations in Leviticus 12:1-8. The holy family then returned to their home in Nazareth. (Notice that Luke makes no mention of a trip to Egypt.)
Luke’s Infancy Narrative concludes with a creative story of the very bright twelve-year-old Jesus. While on a trip to Jerusalem, Mary and Joseph lose Jesus. They later find him in the temple astounding the temple teachers with his understanding. This story echoes Roman heroic leaders like Augustus (16 BCE – 14 CE). At the age of 12, Augustus delivered the funeral speech for his grandmother Julia Caesaris, much to the amazement of all present.
Today of course – more than two thousand years later – we too are astounded and encouraged not just by Jesus’ understanding but by his vision and his spirit that truly animates us and gives us hope for today and tomorrow.
The date of the birth of Jesus is not stated in the Gospels or in any historical sources. Most biblical scholars and ancient historians believe that Jesus was born between 4 and 6 BCE.
Early Christians did not focus on Jesus’ birth. The key Jesus-event for them was Easter. They rejoiced in their belief that Jesus was raised from the dead and entered a new form of life: promising new life for all who believed and followed him. Christians were and are Easter people.
A brief explanation about our dating system: Our dating system was devised in 525 by Dionysius Exiguus (475 – 544) but was not widely used until the 9th century. Exiguus was a monk and a Roman theologian, mathematician, and astronomer. He used the terms anno Domini (AD) and before Christ (BC), because he mistakenly thought Jesus was born in the year 1. The term anno Domini in Latin means “in the year of the Lord.” Today scholars increasingly use the terms Common Era (abbreviated as CE), with the preceding years referred to as Before the Common Era (BCE).
It was not really until around 200 CE that Christians began to commemorate an actual ceremonial Jesus birth day. Not at first on December 25 but on January 6. The earliest source for setting December 25 as the date for celebrating Jesus’ birth is a document written by Hippolytus of Rome (c. 170 – c. 235). Hippolytus was an important second-third century Christian theologian. Early Christians connected Jesus to solar Sun imagery using such phrases as his being the “Sun of righteousness.” They Christianized and took over the Roman celebration of the winter solstice which was held on December 25.
The early Christian writer Lactantius (c. 250 – c. 325), who was an advisor to the Roman Emperor Constantine (c. 272 – 337), wrote “the east is attached to God because God is the source of light and the illuminator of the world and God makes us rise toward eternal life”. It is for this reason that the early Christians set up their posture for prayer as being eastward, towards the rising sun.
A late fourth-century sermon by Augustine the Bishop of Hippo (354 – 430) explains why the winter solstice was a fitting day to celebrate Jesus’s birth: “Hence it is that he was born on the day which is the shortest in our earthly reckoning and from which later days begin to increase in length. He, therefore, who bent low and lifted us up chose the shortest day, yet the one whence light begins to increase.”
The Christian leadership in Rome began officially celebrating Jesus’ birth date on December 25 in 336, during the reign of Emperor Constantine (272 – 337). Since Constantine had made Christianity the effective religion of the Roman Empire, choosing this date had the political motive of weakening the earlier established pagan celebrations.
New Testament accounts of the birth and early life of Jesus – the “Infancy Narratives” — are found only in Matthew 1:1 – 2:23 and Luke 1:5 – 2:52. More about these narratives next week.
Most of our contemporary imagery about Jesus’ birth however comes from the Catholic friar St. Francis of Assisi (c.1181 – 1226). Francis created the Christmas Creche tradition. That tradition originated in Greccio, Italy, where Francis had visited a community to celebrate Christmas.
Francis had wanted to create a scene that would be symbolic of Jesus’ birth and that would have an everlasting impact on those in attendance. He therefore collected hay and prepared a manger, which was a feeding trough for farm animals. He even brought an ox and donkey to location where he prepared the altar, on which placed a statue of baby Jesus. The scenery had clearly symbolized the poverty and simplicity that was associated with Jesus’ birth into the world.
Three kings? Neither Matthew nor Luke mentions “three kings.” Matthew mentions “wise men,” magoi in Greek, from which we get the English word “magi.” Although the “magi” are now called “kings,” there is nothing in Matthew that implies that they were rulers of any kind. In addition, nowhere in the New Testament do we find them called “Balthasar, Melchior, and Casper.” Those names are creations from the 8th century CE.
Next week more historical-critical observations about the “Infancy Narratives.”
Jack
Dr. John A. Dick – Historical Theologian
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