(prayer)
For many people Christmas
is the highlight of the church year. It
is certainly the church festival that garners the most attention beyond people
who are regularly active in Christian churches.
//
This is delightfully ironic
given the fact that Christmas was an afterthought to the early church.
Celebrating the start of
Jesus' life by remembering and telling the Christmas stories was not
a common activity for early Christians.
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//
This is something we can
infer based on the contents of the New Testament.
Four distinct compositions
about the life and teachings of Jesus were collected and deemed scripture by
the Christian Church - the church preaches one gospel - good news known in
Jesus, but our Bibles contain for versions of that gospel - the Gospels according
to Matthew, Mark, Luke and
John.
//
Biblical Scholars believe
that each gospel was written for a specific context - for a particular
community of early Christians. There
were similarities but also unique aspects to these communities that affected
the style and emphases of each book.
The generally accepted
scholarly theory is that (although each gospel is a unique composition) some of
the content in the various books rely on common sources.
I won't go into the reasons
[today] why, but it is surmised that Mark was the first gospel to be written...
sometime in the early 70s of the first century - that's 40 years after Jesus' crucifixion, so the stories of Jesus' life
had been percolating for four decades before Mark takes written form.
Matthew and Luke came along
a few years later and built on Mark's gospel - which they both had access to
evidenced by the fact that they copied some sections verbatim. Now, scholars do not believe that Luke and
Matthew did not know about each other... they were both (independently)
expanding what Mark had laid out.
The theory goes on to state
that there was another common source to Matthew and Luke apart from Mark - a
fifth gospel that did not survive on its own, but is only preserved in passages
shared by Luke and Matthew, but not found in Mark. Google "Q
Source Bible" to learn more.
John's gospel doesn't come
for a couple more decades at least and was probably written by someone who had
access to the other three gospels, but chooses to write a very different type
of gospel - focused more on who Christ was for the church in the late
first century, rather than who Jesus was in the early fourth decade of that
century.
//
In summary, the biblical
gospels were written in this order:
·
Mark
- early 70s
·
Luke
and Matthew - mid 70s
·
John
- 90s or later.
and when we take tnat into account, we
can see how the place of Jesus' birth evolved within the biblical tradition.
//
//
In the oldest gospel, Mark,
the story of Jesus begins with his baptism at about age 30.
Christmas was not important
to Mark. At one point, Jesus is referred
to as the son of Mary. Mark makes no mention of Joseph.
//
Luke and Matthew
(independently) viewed this as a shortcoming of the earliest gospel. They both expanded Mark's material to share
stories of the start of Jesus life.
But they drew on different
traditions. If you have compared Matthew
and Luke, you know that although there is a
little overlap in some of the Christmas details, but Matthew's and Luke's
Christmas stories are not the same:
·
Luke
is the stuff of Christmas pageants - pregnant Mary going with Joseph to
Bethlehem for a census, where they find no room at the inn. Jesus' first cradle is an animal's
manger. Luke has local shepherds (guided
by singing angels) visit Jesus on the day he was born. After about a month the birth, the family
goes back to Nazareth. No hint of
controversy.
·
Matthew
- on the other hand - describes a celestial event (a star) which was
interpreted by foreign scholars as signaling the birth of a new Jewish
king. They decide to travel and bring
gifts of tribute to this new king. These
"magi" understandably assumed that the child king would be known to
the current King of the Jews, Herod [the Great], who reigned from 40 BCE to
4BC. The magi discovered that Herod knew
nothing about this new king, but was interested in learning more - like how
long ago the child was born (i.e. when did the star first appear) and where he
was now. Herod asked the wisemen to let
him know where the child was (when they found him) under the guise of wanting
to go and pay tribute to him as well.
The magi eventually found Jesus (with his parents in a house in Bethlehem) where they offer him
gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh (note: the bible says "three
gifts", not three wisemen, although magi
is plural so there was more than one) -
Matthew doesn't tell us anything about the circumstances of Jesus' actual birth
or that Mary and Joseph had come from Nazareth originally. If all we had was Matthew, we would have to
conclude that Joseph and Mary likely lived
in Bethlehem before Jesus came along.
Matthew's "Christmas" story ends with Herod (upset that the
magi never returned with the child's whereabouts) chosing to eliminate Jesus,
by systematically killing all of the young boys (under 2 years old). Jesus was spared because the family had fled
the country before the death squads arrived at their home. After Herod died, the family did return, but
they chose not to go back to Bethlehem, instead re-locating to Nazareth.
In summary:
·
Luke
- temporary census travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem, shepherds and a manger -
no room in the inn;
·
Matthew
- living in a Bethlehem house, a guiding star, Wiseman and Herod's
jealousy.
Both gospels agree that
Jesus was born in Bethlehem and later grew up in Nazareth, but nowhere in the
bible will you find magi and a star at a manger.
//
Recap...
Mark: Jesus' story starts
with baptism.
Matthew-Luke: Jesus' story
starts with his birth (although, they told quite different birth narratives).
Now...
John: The story of Jesus
begins "In the beginning...".
The fourth gospel intentionally echoes Genesis chapter one - to see the
earthly Jesus as the human embodiment of the scared Word of God, which precedes
the farthest and reaches of the past and continues to exist for all
eternity. The 33 or so years of Jesus'
walk on this globe was the Word become flesh and dwelling among us.
John worries not about
Christmas details.
//
//
We can see the reverse
evolution of the gospels origins: from start of the practice of ministry to
first breath to pre-existing word; from worthy of attention when he began to
teach and heal to worthy of attention as a baby to always been worthy.
//
//
The expansion of gospel
details as the first century unfolded makes perfect sense... the longer the
Jesus Movement existed, the greater the desire to delve deeper into its
meaning... the more the sacred texts (Old Testament) were searched for support
and justification for what the church had come to believe (not only about the
life of Jesus) but what it meant to believe that the Risen Christ was a present
reality for the members of the earth church.
//
//
The centre of the Christian
Bible (old and new testaments) is the Biblical Christ... and the centre of the
Biblical Christ is the Historical Jesus.
Followers of this Jesus (of
every era of the church) are the ones who care about what Jesus (historically)
cared about.
//
The anonymous letter to
"The Hebrews" claimed (metaphorically) that Jesus was God's worthy and
rightful heir: as a first born son was seen as the rightful heir in a human
family in the ancient near east of the late first century.
John told us this morning
that - in human form and as everlasting Word, that Jesus is the "light of
life for all people".
I said earlier that John's
gospel has an intentionally different style than the others. It was written much later (20+ years after
M,M,L. It was written for new
generations of followers who had no one to tell them of first hand contact with
Jesus. John's gospel invites people to
believe without seeing. It is John who
tells the doubting Thomas story.
The believing theme begins in chapter one... believing in Jesus allows
us to recognize that we are Children of
God... that we are creatures of spirit as well as flesh.
As Children of God, we can
shine the light of God's Word. We are heirs of the light which Jesus shined,
when the word was flesh for a while.
//
//
Whether we count - as
beginning - Jesus' baptism, or his birth, or even the Spirit of God hovering
over the face of the deep, what matters is how we choose to hold the Light in
our lives right now.
The world around us is
already to move beyond Christmas. I was
in the dollar store yesterday afternoon and valentine day stuff was out.
Our Christmas challenge is
this...
·
See
through Jesus' eyes.
·
Feel
with Jesus' heart.
·
Gently
touch with Jesus' hands.
·
Humbly
walk this created world of God with Jesus' feel.
·
Shine
the light of God, so all can know their worth!
//
//
Let us pray:
We offer you a new song, God. It is a song of thanksgiving, a song of
passion, a song of praise, and a song of hope and promise. We will live lives worthy of Jesus’
legacy. Amen.
#69VU “Away in a Manger”
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