Timothy W. Whitaker is a Retired United Methodist Church bishop who served the Florida Area.
The festival of Christmas would not be the same if the Gospel according to St. Luke did not include its infancy narrative (1:5-2:52). Indeed, it is unlikely that the church would have ever instituted the festival of Christmas if Luke had not written his account of the birth of Jesus. The festival of Epiphany, which celebrates Jesus’ manifestation of the glory of God, is older than Advent and Christmas. During Epiphany the church did remember the birth of Jesus as well as his baptism and his first miracle at Cana of Galilee, and the western church also read during Epiphany the story of the visit of the Magi to the Christ-Child in the infancy narrative of the Gospel according to St. Matthew. Luke’s infancy narrative is so elaborate and beautiful that it would seem that the church needed another festival to celebrate the birth of Jesus in order that the people might hear what Luke had written and to rejoice in what they heard.
A brief overview of the infancy narrative of the Gospel according to St. Luke
The announcement of the birth of John the Baptist
Luke’s infancy narrative begins with the story of the announcement of the birth of John the Baptist to Zechariah (1:5-25). Zechariah was a priest whose “course” or unit of priests was available to serve in the temple twice a year. Out of his group Zechariah was chosen by lot to clean the altar of incense and to offer fresh incense in the holy place of the temple in Jerusalem. While he was performing his priestly duties, an angel of the Lord named Gabriel appeared to him. Gabriel’s name means “God is my warrior.” Martin Luther described Gabriel as “the commander in chief of the heavenly host, the keeper of the sword, the marshal of the divine Majesty.” Gabriel’s appearance to Zechariah to announce that Zechariah’s wife Elizabeth would conceive John, and also his appearance later to the virgin Mary to announce that she would conceive Jesus, signify that the coming of both John and Jesus inaugurates a new age in which God would wage spiritual warfare against sin and evil. John’s purpose would be to make preparations for the restoration of Israel as the people of God (1:16-17). Because Zechariah questioned how he and his wife who was beyond normal child-bearing age could become parents of a child, he was struck deaf and dumb.
The announcement of the birth of Jesus
Following the story of the announcement of John’s birth, Luke narrates the story of Gabriel’s announcement of the birth of Jesus to Mary (1:26-38). While Gabriel had declared that John would be “great in the sight of the Lord” (1:15), just as there had been former prophets and saints in Israel, he declares to Mary that her human son would be “great” (1:32) just as the God of Israel is great: “Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; his greatness is unsearchable” (Psalm 145:3). Jesus would share in divine greatness because he will be called “the Son of the Most High” (1:32). While Gabriel promised that John would prepare for the restoration of Israel, he now promises that Jesus would be the Messiah of Israel who would rule over the restored people of God forever (1:32-33).
The visit of the mother of Jesus to the mother of John
Next Luke tells of the visit of Mary with Elizabeth before the prophet and the Messiah were born (1:39-56). Elizabeth recognizes Mary as “the mother of my Lord” (1:43), and Mary sings the Magnificat, a canticle of praise to God for his favor toward her and to all of Israel by remembering the promises that he had made to his people (1:46-55).
The birth and circumcision of John
Then Luke narrates the story of John’s birth and circumcision (1:57-80). At John’s circumcision, Zechariah was cured of his deafness and dumbness that had been brought about by his trauma in hearing the angelic announcement of John’s birth, and to the astonishment of the people present, he began to speak again. Zechariah sings the Benedictus, praising the God of Israel for what God had done in raising up a prophet to prepare the way for the Savior whose advent will be the breaking of “the Dawn from on high” (1:78)–the coming of the Messiah from God in the highest heaven, which will mean that “the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings,” as promised to the prophet Malachi (Malachi 4:2; cf. 3).
The birth of Jesus
The heart of the infancy narrative is the account of the birth of Jesus (2:1-20). In the midst of control of the people of Israel by a pagan government under the spell of lust for world domination, the God of Israel acts to fulfill the promises of the scriptures when the Messiah is born to the virginal mother Mary and her betrothed husband Joseph. When the child is born, his mother lovingly swaddles him and lays him in a manger, which would have been in the main space on the first floor of the house (presumably the ancestral home of Joseph’s family) since the guest room upstairs was either already occupied or unsuitable. The holy family would be astonished by the visit of shepherds to whom an angel of the Lord had revealed the birth of the child and his identity. The angel’s message constitutes the message of the gospel, the news from God to Israel and to all humankind that brings salvation: “Do not be afraid, for see–I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord” (2:10-11). The angel’s message was accompanied by a song from all the angels who are described in the Greek as a “heavenly army,” presumably being the powers commanded by Gabriel for spiritual warfare against sin and evil. The angels sing praise for the grace of God being given in the birth of this child: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among them whom he favors!” (2:14). In his Anchor Bible commentary, Joseph A. Fitzmyer observes how the angels’ song is similar to a beautiful ancient Ugaritic text: “Pour out peace over the earth, loving consideration over the field.”
The circumcision and presentation of Jesus in the temple
Because, like John, the infant Jesus must be incorporated into God’s own people Israel in accordance with the law of Moses, Jesus’ parents carried him to the temple in Jerusalem for his circumcision and then for his presentation to the Lord, which most Jews who did not reside in Jerusalem would have accomplished at the time when the mother of the child was required to receive ritual purification after giving birth (2:21-40). The remarkable thing that happened during the presentation of Jesus in the temple was the testimony given by two elderly devout Jews, a man named Simeon and a woman named Anna, who together represent the whole of Israel, the Jews in the promised land and the tribes of Israel in the diaspora. Simeon represents the native Jews of Jerusalem looking for “the consolation of Israel” (1:25; cf. Isaiah 40:1-2, 52:9), and Anna, a member of the northern tribe of Asher who had settled in Jerusalem, represents the Jews of the diaspora “looking for the redemption of Jerusalem” that would include the regathering of all the tribes of Israel that were living in exile from Jerusalem and the holy land (1:38; cf. Isaiah 11:10-12, 52:9). Simeon sings the Nunc Dimittis, praising God for letting him be dismissed from this life by seeing the Messiah of Israel who will bring “glory to your people Israel” and also be “a light for revelation to the Gentiles” (1:29-32; cf. Isaiah 49:6). Simeon also gave Mary the solemn warning that her son was “destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel,” meaning that there would be separation between those who would oppose the Messiah and those who would believe in him. Indeed, Simeon told Mary, “and a sword will pierce your own soul too,” meaning that even she, the mother of the Lord, would be tested in her own faith in his messianic destiny. Simeon’s warning to Mary fits with Luke’s comments in his infancy narrative (2:19; 2:50-51) that Mary “treasured” and “pondered” in her heart all the things that happened in the early life of Jesus, indicating not only that Mary was a contemplative person but also that from the beginning even the mother of the Lord was challenged to comprehend and to accept the identity and vocation of her son as the Son of God.
The young Jesus in the temple
The infancy narrative of Luke concludes with an anecdote about Jesus’ adolescence which provides a transition from the story of his birth to the story of his public career (2:41-52). The scene is the temple in Jerusalem, the same place where Luke’s infancy narrative began and the place where Luke’s story of the church in the Acts of the Apostles would begin. Mary and Joseph lose track of their son following their visit to Jerusalem for Passover. After a day of traveling in their caravan and discovering that Jesus was not with other pilgrims, they returned to Jerusalem where they found Jesus “sitting among the teachers, listening to them, and asking questions” (2:46). When Mary rebuked him for causing his parents so much anxiety, the twelve-year-old Jesus replied, “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (2:49). In this one scene, Luke portrays the challenge Mary faced in accepting her son’s identity and vocation and Jesus’ precociousness and his own developing sense of his Sonship in his relation to the God of Israel which prepared him for his career that would startle all of Israel like a brilliant comet coursing across the sky.
Christmas as interpreted by the infancy narrative
It is likely that the very presence of the infancy narrative in the third Gospel made it feasible for the church to create the liturgical celebration that is Christmas whatever else may have also motivated the church to do so. Christmas is the church’s festival, but since the church chose to celebrate it at the time of the winter solstice, from the beginning the Christian celebration of Christmas has been surrounded by customs of observing the solstice that have been a part of societies in the northern hemisphere for many centuries. In North America, Europe, and many other regions these customs may distract Christians from keeping our own distinctive season of celebration unless we are intentional. What do Christians learn about observing Christmas from the infancy narrative itself?
The infancy narrative tells a story, and for Christians, Christmas is a season for attending to this story.
More than any other of the four evangelists, Luke demonstrates a serious aim of writing history in his Gospel and Acts. The prologue to the Gospel (1:1-4), which also probably applies to the Acts of the Apostles as well, shows that Luke used the methods of an ancient historian in writing his volumes. He relied upon reliable sources, both written and oral, which came directly or indirectly from eyewitnesses, and he carefully investigated what witnesses said. He opens his account of Jesus’ public career with a sonorous sentence that formally identifies the times and places of the public activity of John the Baptist, the immediate forerunner of Jesus (3:1-2). Critical scholars may be reluctant to acknowledge that the infancy narrative is also the product of Luke’s historical investigation, but this part of the third Gospel identifies the times and places when events took place (1:5; 2:1-2), and many scholars think that Luke may well have used a written source that described the beginning of the life of John, collected Jewish-Christian hymns sung in the churches of Judea for his canticles in the infancy narrative, and obtained information about Jesus’ beginning from the family of Jesus. It is likely that Luke interviewed Christians who had been disciples of John and also James and other brothers of Jesus. It is not impossible that he may have met Mary and visited with her. Luke’s travels in Palestine as a companion of Paul, as the “we passages” in Acts indicate (e.g. Acts 21:17-18), afforded him an opportunity to conduct some of his investigations. His genealogy of Jesus (Luke 3:23-38) is widely believed to be a family genealogy which Luke obtained from relatives of Jesus.
While Luke was a serious historian, he was not writing the kind of history that other ancient historians were writing. The infancy narrative is completely based upon the style of the Greek translation of the Jewish scriptures, the Septaugint, and Luke was writing the kind of history that is contained in the Old Testament. The story that Luke was telling is the story of God’s action in human history. His aim was to tell a new story that had not been written in the scriptures, but that was the fulfillment of those scriptures. This is the story of the new era for God’s people that was inaugurated by the appearance on the scene of John the Baptist and the One for whom John prepared the way, Jesus of Nazareth. The apostle Paul called this new story of God’s action which fulfilled the scriptures the “gospel” (euangelion), and the church has continued to follow his example.
It is often said that the infancy narrative contains information about Jesus’ identity and vocation that his disciples did not come to fully comprehend until following his resurrection from the dead and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. It is clear that Luke has the advantage of being a narrator who already knows more than the characters in his story knew or could understand at the time the events unfolded. For instance, Luke is able to represent the angel Gabriel’s announcements of the birth of John the Baptist and of Jesus in light of what became clearer and clearer to Jesus’ disciples about the identities and vocations of John and Jesus over the course of time and experience. After all, Luke is writing for the benefit of his readers, and the readers of all written stories always understand what is happening better than the characters within a story. Yet Luke is careful to couch things in the context of the times of the events, and to indicate that the unfolding of events came as a surprise to the participants. Gabriel’s announcement to Mary about Jesus’ messianic identity fits with Jewish expectations before the coming of Jesus, and Mary’s reaction to Gabriel, the shepherds’ visit, Simeon’s words to her, and Jesus’ behavior in the temple indicate that she was very challenged to comprehend what it all meant at the time. Luke leaves it to his readers to imagine how overwhelmed Mary had been and how much that she heard and experienced did not make sense to her except eventually through her own journey of being Jesus’ mother throughout his life and career and his death and resurrection. The portents of who Jesus would be and what he would accomplish in the infancy narrative could not be fully comprehended before his work was completed any more than the prophecies of the Old Testament could be understood.
We readers have the advantage of knowing the full significance of the birth of Jesus, and so we may rightly receive the message of the angel of the Lord to the shepherds, which is the climax of the whole infancy narrative because it is the truth of the gospel of God: “Do not be afraid; for see–I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord” (2:10-11; cf. Romans 1:1-6).
There is more to the infancy narrative than sober history and the revelation of the gospel. The narrative also discloses how we may listen to this story and hear the gospel by believing in what God has done for us. The characters in the infancy narrative teach us that God intends us to believe the gospel story of what God has done for us and to rejoice in it. I think this is the main reason that Luke inserted the Jewish-Christian hymns of the earliest church into his narrative. Mary’s Magnificat, Zechariah’s Benedictus, Simeon’s Nunc Dimittis demonstrate how each of us should respond to the good news of what God has done for us in the divine visitation that is Christmas. And, the song of the angelic army is also our song when we believe the gospel: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors.”
In one of his Christmas sermons, Martin Luther says that, when the angel tells the shepherds that “to you” Christ is born, it means “to us” Christ is born: “For our sakes he has taken flesh and blood from a woman, that his birth might become our birth…. This is the way to observe this feast–that Christ be formed in us. It is not enough that we should hear his story if the heart be closed. I must listen, not to a history, but to a gift.”
No comments yet
