What a birth

We often seem to live in two different worlds; the world as it is and the world as we like to see it. When we look back to some earlier part of our life we see it through a filter that makes it seem rather attractive. We romanticise the past. We filter out the unpleasant aspects. Hence we say “Ah for the good old days” as we blot out memories of the cold rooms that preceded central heating. If we go away for a holiday we look at the way life is lived where we stay and we find ourselves wishing our life could be different. At Christmas time we sometimes look back at Christmases we have known in the past, perhaps in our childhood, and wish for a life that we see as being simpler and less pressurised. Often we wear the same selective spectacles when we think about the Christmas story.

The pictures on Christmas cards show romantic versions of the nativity. The nativity sets that we find in the shops are usually of a stylised nature. So we are provided with pictures of the birth of Jesus that encourage us to view the nativity in a certain way. We “see” the nativity how we would like to see. We know we might have an unrealistic picture but it is one that we like. It is traditional. We overlook anything that jars with our picture of the nativity. We ignore St Matthew’s version that tells us that the wise men visited Jesus and his mother in a house (Matthew Ch 2 vs. 9-11) and that it is only in St Luke’s gospel that we find a reference to the baby being placed in a manger (Luke Ch. 2 vs. 4-7). If we try to compare the two accounts we find that it is very difficult to reconcile them. But then we ask ourselves, “What is it in the story that is really important?”

Should we take more notice of the background? The setting is Palestine, a country that had become part of the Roman Empire. Under the Romans it was a time of relative peace and prosperity so the Roman emperor of the day was viewed as a deliverer from conflict and struggle. He was also acclaimed as a ‘divine saviour-king’. The baby’s father was a carpenter. Carpenters like other craftsmen at the time such as stonemasons, blacksmiths and potters were proud of their skills. Nazareth, where the boy grew up was known as a town of carpenters. Palestine was a meeting place for peoples from East and West. It was a Piccadilly Circus where trade routes crossed and so it was cosmopolitan in peoples, languages, ideas and religions. The baby’s family was firmly traditional in its approach to religion. But none of these circumstances indicate anything remarkable or unusual about the birth. It was when people looked back at the event after many years had passed that they saw things they hadn’t seen before. It was after the baby had become a man and had been executed as a traitor to the State, that they saw the significance of them.

It was when people found changes taking place in their lives that were due to the life of that man that they took an interest in his death and the origins of his life. Then they saw it all in a new light. The world, their world had changed. It was different and yet it wasn’t.

The furniture was all in the same place. Their circumstances had not changed and yet life was different and it all stemmed from the birth that had taken place in that tiny overrun country at the eastern end of the Mediterranean. Strangely enough, even now, 2000 years later, that man’s life and death is still having the same effect. We are still finding that the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth is changing the way that we look at life. Our circumstances remain unchanged but our view of them is different. We don’t need to view life through “spectacles” used for looking at the “good old days”. Now we can look at the realities of life, past and present, without the need to romanticise about it. His birth has brought about a death, the death of the despair and hopelessness that we often associate with reality. The death of our fear of reality. We have been given a new hope, a new vision of life. Now we can view life as a whole. We can live in one world. Surely there can be no better reason for celebrating again the birth of Jesus of Nazareth.

Eric