The Wrong End of the Telescope - Reflections on Luke 2:1-20, Christmas, Year C
by John Holbert on Sunday, December 1, 2024
It would be hard to imagine a Christmas without some sort of reading of Luke 2. For those of us of a certain age—that is to say old!—we always watched on one of the three channels available to us “A Charlie Brown Christmas” with its Vince Giraldi piano music, and Linus (I think—I told you I was old) reciting the KJV version of this timeless text on that school stage. At least that is what I remember, rather than that pathetically heart-warming Charlie Brown tree. In any case, this deceptively simple narrative has called forth oceans of ink and many terabytes of commentary. Much of that is well known, I assume.
Still, there are several observations that bear repetition. For the strict historians among us, Luke is a decided failure. The dates of the various persons he mentions in order to ground his tale in at least a semblance of historical accuracy are plainly in error. Luke is intent to fix the birth of Jesus into the wider world of the Roman Empire. From the very center of that vast conglomeration of peoples and cultures, stretching from modern England to the borders of modern India, the mighty Caesar Augustus (27 BCE to 14 CE) issues a decree that sets the entire empire (Luke uses the Greek oikoumene to delineate the empire) on the move, a decree that insists that all persons must return to their birth place to be registered, apparently in order for an accurate record be recorded for the purposes of taxation. Luke then adds another historical figure, about whom we know very little, the better to set the history straight. Unfortunately, Quirinius, the governor of Syria, served that post from 6-7CE. And because we know Herod the Great, who will play a significant role in the tale Luke tells about Jesus, in fact died in 4BCE. Hence, Herod is dead before Quirinius is governor, and the history cannot be made to fit the dates.
For those of us who are not fixated on historical accuracy in ancient texts, this is just not a problem. Luke is not an historian, but a teller of theological tales, and this tale has clearly lasted through all the time since its telling, despite the quibbles of pedants. The literary point for Luke is that Joseph, Jesus’s earthly father, is required by the decree of Caesar to go to his home town for registration. Thus, he “goes up” from Nazareth to Bethlehem, from Galilee to Judea, for registration with his pregnant betrothed Mary. We ought also remember that to be “betrothed” was as serious a committment as marriage (see Deuteronomy 22:24-25). Those references to some sort of “scandal” of the pregnant Mary may be misplaced; she is for all intents married to Joseph.
No sooner have they arrived in Bethlehem than Mary goes into labor and gives birth to Jesus, “her first-born son.” She wraps him in “cloth strips” (“swaddling clothes” in KJV is a powerful memory, is it not?), places him in a “manger, because they had no place in the lodging area,” which could be an inn (KJV) but is more likely simply a place where poor travelers bed down for the night. The picture here is of homeless, poor folks who have to make do with what they have in a strange place.
But now the scene opens out, and the stage is filled with “heavenly host,” first a single angel, speaking to the shepherds in the field, joined by, more accurately, “the armies of heaven,” a phrase borrowed from the Hebrew Bible which speaks often of YHWH sebaoth, the latter having a military context. The shepherds are quite rightly “terrified,” but are told by the angel, “do not be afraid. Today in the city of David a savior is born for you. He is Lord Messiah” (Luke 2:11). The sign is the detail of his birth and disposition, the strips of cloth, the manger, and the lack of covering. Of course, any who have gone to modern Bethlehem has visited the church of the nativity where far from a manger place, one finds a cave-like spot with a silver star surrounding a hole in the floor, the supposed genuine spot of Jesus’ birth. Still, manger has a nice ring to it, being either an open feeding place or an animal trough; the idea of animals attending the birth comes perhaps from an early Christian appropriation of Isaiah 1:3.
Once the angels go back to heaven, the shepherds rush to the place where they find Mary and Joseph and Jesus lying in his manger. After that, they “spoke publicly concerning the word that had been spoken to them about this little child” (Luke 2:17); they are for Luke very early evangelists. Everyone who heard these shepherds were “astonished,” while “Mary preserved all these words, pondering them in her heart” (Luke 2:19). The scene ends with the shepherds now “glorifying and praising God for everything they had heard and seen..” (Luke 2:20).
One of the more striking creations on Luke’s part is to be found at the very beginning of the passage. Once we get beyond Luke’s clumsy historical sense, we can appreciate his literary skill. He begins with the great Caesar, emperor of the empire of Rome, but we hear only the mention of his name. We then read of Quirinius, a lesser official to be sure, but nonetheless a governor of a large Roman province. Again, we hear nothing of him beyond his name. And finally we come to Joseph and Mary, a homeless couple, who must travel at the whims of Rome for tax registration in Bethlehem, the city of David and hereafter the city of Jesus. From this unknown and easily overlooked poor couple arises nothing less than the savior of the world. Luke looks through the wrong end of the telescope to focus on the tiny couple in the midst of earthshaking historical persons. Rather than Caesar’s front-page news, and Quirinius’ second section mention, we see people who are never given notice in any sort of newspaper at all. Luke has offered to us the greatest surprise of all; the Messiah is born far away from the palaces and mansions of the day. And that may be the most important bit of news that we can see, as we do every Christmas. Merry Christmas indeed!