Nature in awe to him
Had
doffed her gaudy trim
As the November
adverts for the secular festival of Christmas move into top gear, I am reminded
of the urge to make the nativity story – when it isn’t banned altogether –
somewhat more inclusive. Joseph and Mary
as Eastern European immigrants. Or
whatever other new twist the ingenious human imagination, floating free of the
constraints of history, can come up with.
In
this I am reminded of Christ’s words about the lilies: exceeding Solomon in all
his glory. Attempts to gild the lily
are as doomed to failure as they are unnecessary. So are efforts to update the Nativity
Story. Social Inclusion may be a worthy
objective, but it in terms of inclusion it is hardly possible to improve upon
the original.
Matthew’s Gospel
begins with a table of the descent of Jesus Christ on his mother’s side. The list is unusual: it includes women. And some of them disreputable. Rahab: the prostitute; Ruth the
foreigner. Solomon’s mother who, as
Matthew makes a point of stressing, had been the wife of Uriah. And stolen from him by King David. Not only women, then, but some of dubious pedigree. And all of them adding to the penultimate end
product, Mary; and the ultimate, Christ.
Luke comments that when Elizabeth,
mother of John the Baptist, hears Mary’s greeting, the child stirs in her
womb. The stirring child and the moving
star: Nature herself is responding to the event. Christ is laid in a manger: the animal world
is included. Whether or not sheep were
present, shepherds are certainly involved.
The shepherds were at the bottom of the social pile, and yet it is to
them that the angels bring the good news.
At the other end of the social scale are the Magi: who are also
foreigners, and adherents of an alien religion.
They are not the only foreigners in
the story. The Roman Emperor requires a
census, precipitating quite unwittingly the movement to Bethlehem
The old. When Christ is presented in the temple,
Simeon is there: the one who had been told he would not see death until he had
seen the Lord’s Messiah. And not a
privilege reserved for men: Anna, the prophetess, is there as well.
You can – like
Richard Dawkins – dismiss it all as ancient scribblings. You can – like a theologian dulled by
proximity to the text - see it as fiction manufactured after the event. You can – as I do – see it as authentic
research by the careful and reputable historian, Luke. (Luke
is generally regarded as being by Luke: even by those who struggle with the
idea of Matthew or John).
Whichever view you take, you would
be hard put to find a birth story more all-encompassing than this one.
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