Posted on 12/24/2017 9:39:00 PM PST by Oshkalaboomboom
A Christmastime reflection
It was impossible. Mary may have lived in a time before science, before the polite and clinical agents of reason had scrubbed the angels and demons and desert spirits away from all but the dark outer edges of our minds, but she was a woman — she knew where babies came from and how they got made. She knew that she was a virgin and that she had not become a wife to the man to whom she was engaged. She also knew what being pregnant and unmarried was likely to mean to her — socially, religiously, economically, physically — in first-century Palestine.
She’d probably witnessed her share of stonings.
Religious people sometimes get a pat on the head from their non-believing friends, who say things like, “All that stuff must be very comforting. I wish I could believe it.” But why would Mary have wished to believe it when the angel Gabriel visited her with that joyous and terrible announcement — “You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus; He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High” — when it would have been so much more comforting to believe that she’d simply had a strange dream? “Mary was greatly troubled at his words,” Luke’s gospel says.
“Do not be afraid,” the angel said. Easy for you to say, Gabriel.
Joseph at first took a more conventional understanding of his situation. Because he “was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.” (The quiet divorce is something that many of us have looked to as a solution to our domestic tribulations.) Another angel, another command attached to an inconceivable promise: “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a Son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins.”
There had been signs. Maybe that helped. Mary’s cousin, Elizabeth, had just conceived a child in spite of her advanced age. Still, it must have been a lot to take, and the unlikely claims kept piling up. When Mary met Elizabeth, Elizabeth had more astounding news: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.” They’d wanted to call him “Zachariah” after his father, but his name was “John” and that was that. The angels were always very specific about names. The encounter between Elizabeth and Mary happened at Hebron, the place where Abram’s name had been changed to Abraham.
Like Elizabeth, Abraham’s wife became pregnant in her later years. Like Mary, Abraham received three holy visitors who brought to him news about his son. But Mary’s story was in some way’s Abraham’s inverted: Abraham provided gifts for his visitors, whereas Mary received them on her Son’s behalf. Those gifts were heavy with symbolism: gold for the child who was hailed as a king, frankincense in honor of his priestly mission, and myrrh, which was used in funereal preparations. That last must have startled Mary, who knew the story of Abraham and his son Isaac, willingly offered up as a human sacrifice at the demand of a God with a sense of justice that at times seems radically at odds with our own. Even now, that story commands our attention, and we still sing songs about it: “You who build these altars now / To sacrifice these children / You must not do it anymore.”
(“All that stuff must be very comforting. I wish I could believe it.”)
The news continued coming in from all sides. The magi, journeying from the east, asking: “Where is the Child who has been born King of the Jews? For we observed His star at its rising, and have come to pay Him homage.” The shepherds, having heard strange tales of a newborn king, found their way to Bethlehem and “made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this Child.” Naturally, the lords of this world understood that their position was threatened: “When King Herod heard this, he was frightened and all Jerusalem with him.”
Which is to say: Herod, believed, too. He was an early believer, in his way. Pontius Pilate, too: “What I have written, I have written.”
But step away for a moment from the manger scene at the Christmas pageant, which surely does not smell like a real barn smells, and dwell for a moment in the world of real people: the terrified young woman, her uncertain husband-to-be, the worried politician, the simple shepherds and great holy men alike wondering in the backs of their minds if they were maybe kidding themselves, if they might possibly have it all wrong, if they’d misunderstood something along the way. “Be not afraid.” Maybe they could endure the terror of the night and the cold, the rigors and dangers of travel, even the threat of Herod’s sword — but what of that other fear, the fear that they’d made a mistake, that this was all a bizarre misunderstanding or the work of credulous fanatics? A manger is a feed-trough for livestock. “Feed my sheep,” He would later say, to confused and fearful people still not quite getting the point.
“Well, they had faith,” we tell ourselves. “They believed.” As though these little words put together in that order would be enough to exorcise doubt, terror, and the unbearable loneliness at the heart of this story. (“All that stuff must be very comforting. I wish I could believe it.”) Try to imagine the physical facts of birth in that setting, the rigors of the long road to Bethlehem and the long road home.
“Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.” She must have, and even as her mind turned to a thousand other things related to the difficulties of staying alive in the savage time during which she lived, the impossibility of it all must have weighed on her and on her humble little family with the strange precocious boy who did not have any obviously kingly attributes. She must have thought about Elizabeth and her odd son, John, and about Hebron, and about Abraham: “He himself carried the fire and the knife.” I imagine Mary and Joseph, catching one another’s eyes across the room, and remaining resolutely silent. They “pondered these things in their hearts,” which is another way of saying: “Let’s not talk about it.” Isaac was spared at the last second. But this story does not end that way. The manger has to be full because the grave has to be empty. The gold, frankincense, and myrrh all come together — there’s no picking and choosing among them.
Some things are easy to believe: Children love presents and Christmas trees, fresh snow is beautiful, and it is wonderful to sing carols and to be with our families. It is better to be warm inside than out in the cold, but the promise of a kindly fire imparts a certain charm to the winter weather. It is better to be fed than to be hungry, even if the turkey doesn’t turn out well. It is better to have a home full of misbehaving children than a silent house. Those things are easy to believe.
Some things are hard to believe. (And harder to know.) “All that stuff must be very comforting. I wish I could believe it.”
I wonder if that’s really true.
Isaac wonders, too.
So do I! Wonderful article. Thanks for posting it.
Merry Christmas y’all!
Thank you. Merry Christmas. May the Lord bless us all. May the Lord protect, comfort and guide us, the POTUS, his family, the military, first responders and all others who serve God in these difficult days.
This right there is Science. Science means knowledge. So I don't know.
For my part, I might say that I believe in Everything and Nothing.
I certainly believe in Christmas, so Merry Christmas! And may God bless us every one.
... You know just on that subject, of Christmas that is, I was kind of shocked to realize that my grandchildren had no idea whatsoever of the idea of the thing. I dug up a "snow globe" Nativity scene, that I bought some years ago, out of sentimentality, you see.
I showed it to my grandson, and he was baffled and confused by the idea of the "baby Jesus" being the center of attention. I have to admit that I backed off at that point.
Well, again, Merry Christmas to All!
“All that stuff must be very comforting. I wish I could believe it.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
When one suffers pain for years and prays for relief, and the answer is a stroke and one ends up with a broken mind and no relief of pain, it is hard to believe in a merciful God.
If one believes in a cruel and vengeful God instead, the miseries in this world become more believable and acceptable. That is why any divine messenger always starts his conversation with the words: “ Be not afraid.” What else could he say?
Very beautiful! Thanks for posting it. I’m in France right now, where we had to go through serious security to get into Midnight Mass and where there are soldiers patrolling through the most innocent Christmas events, such as the Christmas fairs. Everywhere there is fear. Yet the interesting thing is that it seems, if anything, to be making the French really think about what was supposedly their religion, Christianity, which they had just allowed to coast along for many years, and make a real decision in favor of faith. A decision to trust it, I guess the article writer might say. So fear certainly can be what gets us to make that decision.
Very beautiful - Merry Christmas!
“in first-century Palestine.”
Wrong.
L
I had the same experience a couple of weeks ago. The day after I had put up the Christmas decorations, I babysat my 3 year old Grandson. As he stood in wide-eye awe of the manger set up on the table in the foyer. He took in the 14 inch high wise men and shepherds, and really loved the huge camel behind them. Then his eyes fell on the Baby lying in the straw in the manger. He stood there a long while trying to work it all out just what He was doing lying there, and I just waited for him to ponder it all. Then he said, "is that the mommy and daddy? So I told him the simplest version of the story I could and just said that their baby had to be born in the barn because they were on a trip and the town was so crowded that all the rooms were full and a nice man let them sleep in the barn. That sounded reasonable to him apparently because then he asked if he could pick up the Baby and I nodded yes. He just gently held the Baby and I could tell that he got the idea that this was a special Baby because we had talked about the shepherds who were kneeling around the manger and the wise men who had brought gifts. I told him that we would have a birthday party for the Baby soon and there would be gifts for everyone there. That's when the inspiration hit me..... the music room where I practice is right next to the foyer and I said that we could play a song for the Baby Jesus as our gift to him..... so we practiced for a couple of hours, Silas learned to do the pa-rum-pum-pum-pum's on my bodhran drum while I did the melody on my dulcimer. Silas IS "the little drummer boy" and he has practiced off and on for two weeks now and is excited to do his song later today for the whole family as a surprise and as his little gift to the "new born King". It's a first step, but I am hoping that he is beginning to get the idea of this whole wonderful thing.
We're in Spain and they aren't the least bit afraid. In Malaga the entire town is full of Christmas displays (I posted about it Here) and in my home town they march through the streets at Midnight, have services all day and a big parade a few days later honoring the Kings bearing gifts.
Excellent story, thank you for sharing it.
Merry Christmas.
The Annunciation is of course a common subject in Christian art with many wonderful examples. My two favorite portrayals, although they could hardly be more different from one another, are those by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Simone Martini. Rossetti’s is cramped and crowded, and the psychology of the painting shows Mary’s initial discomfort and disquiet as Gabriel fills the tiny chamber with a very youthful Mary huddling against the wall. For me it speaks to how God can ask things of us that push us out of our comfort zone and alter the course of our lives in a matter of moments to fill a higher purpose...Thy will be done.
The Annunciation depicted in Martini’s Siena altarpiece is simply a thing of amazing beauty with an eastern feel to it. It is part of a huge triptych, but despite its size has a most precious, intimate feel to it in the exchange of gazes between Gabriel and Mary.
Good Morning and Merry Christmas!
First of all, in the Gospels we see a transition from the OT to the NT. The events of the nativity shows that.
My favorite Annununciation painting is one that was done by an African-American painter which is displayed in the art museum in in the city of brotherly love.l will look for the painter’s name.
Henry Oswana Tanner.
Correction: I.
You did a great job! God bless you!
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