The Birth Narratives
(Reflection based on Marcus Borg & John Dominic Crossan’s The First Christmas)
Every year at Christmas we hear the stories of the birth of Jesus and watch enchanted as the children act out the familiar roles and events: angels sing to shepherds, Joseph & Mary journey to Bethlehem, the baby “wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger,” the wise men coming at the end with their gifts. This popular pageant is a combination of the two separate stories found at the beginning of the books of Matthew and Luke, the wise men from Matthew’s birth narrative tacked on to the end of the story of the shepherds from Luke. Every year we hear and enjoy the story of Jesus’s birth, but we never spend time talking about the meaning of the stories; we present the story to children, but fail to discuss them as adults.
The stories of the birth of Jesus are filled with even more meaning beyond the often overlooked political dimension outlined here: a story about hope (because all babies are about hope for the future); a story for ordinary people (because the angels appeared to shepherds); a story about a star (symbol of light in a dark world); a story about wise men (and the search for wisdom); a story about love (Mary and Joseph’s love for their baby born in dubious and uncertain times); and a story, above all, about peace and goodwill on Earth. We all need to hear the story with our hearts and minds and respond with our lives.
Now there is actually a third birth narrative, and it helps us understand the other two: this third reading is from the book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible, written by John of Patmos at the end of the first century of the Common Era:
Chapter 12 A great portent appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. 2 She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pangs, in the agony of giving birth. 3 Then another portent appeared in heaven: a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. 4 His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth.
Then the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, so that he might devour her child as soon as it was born. 5 And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. But her child was snatched away and taken to God and to his throne; 6 and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, so that there she can be nourished for one thousand two hundred sixty days.
The tale is plainly mythological; it describes a woman about to give birth to a child “who is to rule all the nations.” A dragon waits to devour the child, but mother and child are rescued. The baby is clearly Jesus, and the dragon, the beast, is obviously Rome, the evil empire of that era, for later in the book of Revelation this same beast is described as a city built on seven hills that rules the world; in the first century, that could only mean Rome. Everyone knows the number of the beast, 666, and in numerology 666 stands for Caesar Nero, the emperor Nero, the first ruler of the Roman empire who actively persecuted the followers of Jesus.
This birth narrative by John of Patmos directly challenges Roman imperial theology, because the story mimics and subverts the story of the birth of Apollo, narrated in the myth of Apollo and Python. Apollo and his mother are threatened by the serpent Python but are rescued by Zeus; Apollo grows up and kills Python, thereby bringing light, order and reason to the world. The author of the Book of Revelation knows and echoes this story, but applies it to Jesus. In Roman theology, Apollo was the father of Caesar; all the Caesars of Rome are called “son of God” through Apollo. Nero, the beast, 666, sometimes even played dress-up as Apollo. John’s meaning is clear: Rome and its emperor are not Apollo, the bringer of light, but are Python, the ancient beast that seeks to destroy the light and to throw the world into darkness and chaos. The author of Revelation asserts instead that Jesus is the true light of the world. Jesus is Apollo—Rome and its emperor are not.
This political challenge to the authorities of Rome is actually developed in the familiar birth narratives from Matthew and Luke, but is lost to us unless we educate ourselves in the Biblical and historical context of the storytellers. The political conflict at the heart of Matthew’s birth narrative is the primary plot and theme: the magi, kings, wise men from the East, follow the star and ask Herod, the actual King of the Jews, the birthplace of a child who is to become King of the Jews; Herod tries to protect his own power and seeks to kill the child. Sound familiar? Matthew’s story presents a conflict between two kingdoms: the earthly secular one, ruled by Herod, the puppet king of Rome, and the kingdom of God, represented by a helpless, powerless baby, the son of a lowly carpenter; that the child survives Herod’s slaughter of all Jewish male infants under the age of two, the slaughter of the innocents—an incident not found in history—suggests hope for the birth of a kingdom based on justice and righteousness, a kingdom of peace and goodwill.
The political conflict of Matthew’s story should alert us to that same theme in Luke’s version; Luke’s birth narrative is the more familiar, popular version of the birth of Jesus, probably because it doesn’t seem to be, on the surface, about politics—it focuses on angels and shepherds, not kings. But Luke’s story is actually even more subversive than Matthew in its political references. All of the titles applied to the baby Jesus in Luke’s birth narrative: Divine, Son of God, God, God from God, Lord, Redeemer, Saviour of the World, all of these names at the time the story was written near the end of the first century were applied by Roman imperial theology to the emperor of Rome, Caesar. Caesar, descended from a god, from Apollo, was to bring peace to the world, but the Pax Romana, the peace of Rome, was brought about through violence: those Roman roads, some of which you can still see today across Europe, were the infrastructure that allowed Rome to dispatch its legions quickly anywhere in the empire where they were needed to quell revolt and to impose Roman rule. It was a vicious rule of violence: if the legions came to town, they killed all the men, raped and enslaved the women and children, destroyed the crops and the town completely. The peace of Rome was peaceful only for the victors, the Romans; for its victims it was cruel, harsh oppression.
To present the Christ child as superior to Rome’s divine emperor, as is done in all three birth stories, was considered utter treason in this Roman ruled world: the nativity stories assert that Jesus is the Son of God, and the emperor is not; Jesus is the saviour of the world, and the emperor is not; Jesus is Lord and the emperor is not; Jesus is the way to peace on earth and the emperor is not. That’s why Jesus died on the cross on Good Friday and why all his disciples were executed and why Rome killed so many followers of Jesus in the coliseum: Christ and Christians threatened the power of Rome and in particular, the ruler of Rome, the divine son of a god himself, Caesar.
Jesus is presented in these three birth narratives as light shining in the darkness. Do the Herods and Caesars of this world seek to extinguish that light? Yes. Does the light still shine in the darkness? Yes. Archbishop Oscar Romero, a twentieth-century Christian martyr killed in 1980 by the powers that ruled El Salvador, once said that we are called to be Easter Christians in a Good Friday World, in a world still ruled by the descendants of Herod and Caesar. So, also, we are called to be Christmas Christians in a world that still descends into darkness. But Good Friday and the descent of darkness do not have the final word—unless we let them. Jesus is the light in the darkness for those who follow his way of peace and justice.
As we enjoy these stories each Christmas, and tell them to our children, the drama and the imagery work on our imaginations as all great literature does. It is important that both adults and children reflect on their themes. The stories of the birth of Jesus are filled with even more meaning beyond the often overlooked political dimension outlined here: a story about hope (because all babies are about hope for the future); a story for ordinary people (because the angels appeared to shepherds); a story about a star (symbol of light in a dark world); a story about wise men (and the search for wisdom); a story about love (Mary and Joseph’s love for their baby born in dubious and uncertain times); and a story, above all, about peace and goodwill on Earth. We all need to hear the story with our hearts and minds and respond with our lives.