A Christmas Commentary
Luke 2:1-4 Some
questions have been raised about the historicity of these verses. Bear in mind that everything about Jesus Christ the Incarnate Son of God can be troublesome if your heart is not prepared to receive him. While the King James Version translates the
Greek word apographo (apografw) as “to be taxed”, the literal rendering is “to write off, or to register,
i.e. in public records. What the text is
referring to is a census. Acts 5:37
refers to the second census also mentioned by Josephus. Papyri dated back to A.D. 20 have shown that
there was a periodic fourteen-year census.
That would make the first census mentioned in Luke 2:1-2 around 6 B.C.
which coincides with the actual birth of Christ, bearing in mind that our
calendar is four to six years off. What
these two verses do is establish the birth of Christ in human history.
Luke’s historical reference would have been
quite clear to his contemporaries. (v.
3-4) The custom was that the head of each household was to go to the town where
his family register was kept. Bethlehem
was the city of the ancestors of David as David himself testifies, “And Saul
said to him, "Whose son are you, young man?" And David answered,
"I am the son of your servant Jesse the Bethlehemite” (1 Samuel 17:58).
Joseph journeys from Nazareth in Galilee to the Bethlehem, the city of David. That would focus a clear light on the
ancestry of Jesus and the words of Gabriel, “The Lord God will give him the
throne of his father David” (Luke 1:32), and fulfill the prophetic word of
Micah, “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the
clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in
Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days” (Micah 5:2 ESV).
Luke (v.4-7) does not tell us how Joseph and Mary
traveled, but just that “they went up from Galilee.” Tradition, imagination, and modern common
sense provide the donkey as a means of transportation. A twelfth century carol provides a voice for
the donkey, 2. "I," said the donkey, shaggy and brown, "I
carried His mother up hill and down; I carried her safely to Bethlehem town.
"I," said the donkey, shaggy and brown” (the Latin song
"Orientis Partibus" first appeared in France. The tune came from “The Donkey’s Festival”
and a chorus line was provided, “‘Hail, Sir donkey, hail’” The reality may have been different, being
poor they probably could not afford a donkey, and probably, like Jesus later
during his ministry , traveled on foot carrying their household goods and
Joseph’s all important carpenter tools.
Again, popular imagery suggests that Mary gave birth the evening they arrived. Luke simply says, “while they were there, the
days were fulfilled for her to give birth.”
The text does tell us that there was no room in the inn, and that
the new-born child was laid in a manger.
That simple detail tells us as least that Joseph and Mary had very
recently arrived in Bethlehem. Our
imagery of a wooden manger surrounded by the humble joyful animals is provided
by no less than St. Francis in the thirteenth century. The stable was probably in a small cave
behind the local inn, and the manger, like others still to be seen in
archeological sights like Megiddo today, is a trough chiseled out of stone and
used to feed animals.
Verse 7, as sparse
at it is, gives us some information that satisfies our curiosity and provides
an important theological detail. Luke
tells us that Mary gave birth to her “firstborn son.” The word for is “firstborn” is protokos (protokos), not “only born” (monogenh,j ~ monogenes). The door is left wide open for Jesus to have
younger brothers and sisters. So Mark
records, “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of
James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with
us?" (Mark 6:3). Roman Catholic
translators provide the word “cousins” instead of brothers, but the word for brothers
is avdelfo,j (adelphos), and the word for cousins is avneyio,j ~ (anepsios). Luke tells us
that Jesus is the firstborn, not the only born, and there is nothing in the
text to prevent Mary and Joseph from having more children.
Mary gives birth to her firstborn son, and wraps him in
swaddling cloths. Swaddling cloths were
a large square of cloth and two or more strips of cloth used as ties. The child was laid diagonally on the cloth
with one corner of the cloth under the child’s head, the other corners are
folded over the feet and body of the child, and the cloth strips are used to
tie things together. Swaddling is coming
back into fashion because it limits the startle reflex and makes the baby feel
secure, and it prevents the child from sleeping on the stomach and reduces
instances of SIDS deaths by helping the baby remain on its back. 20% of American parents place their babies on
their stomach after two months of age because they appear more comfortable, but
this may not be advisable (Article from Washington University School of
Medicine, in Pediatrics, November, 2002).
Luke
2:7 “She bore her firstborn Son and swaddled him, and laid him in a feed
trough, because there was no place for them in the inn. The inn was often a square building with a
central courtyard surround by an open gallery on four sides. The conditions were often filthy. The stable by contrast would have had some
privacy and actually would have been more suitable for a birth. That Jesus was laid in a manger, or food
trough, was perhaps better than what may have been available in the in
itself. Inns in those days did not
provide bedding or blankets, and barely provided anything else but shelter from
the elements. What the bare bones
account misses is the wonder of it all.
I am reminded of Anselm’s remarks in a Sermon at Bec: “Justice
and mercy were arguing in heaven as they looked down upon the fallen world in
the year 1 B.C. Justice insisted that it
should be destroyed, for how else should his position be maintained? Mercy replied that, in that case, how could
his position stand? They were joined by
the divine Logos who, embracing them, said “leave it to me and I will satisfy
you both” (Martin Thornton, English
Spirituality, (Boston: Cowley, New
Edition, p. 163). The theology of the
event is not complete without reference to John 1:18, and Hebrews 1:1-4.
