Christmas pageants tend to follow a fairly set narrative
outline, including most, if not all, of the following details: Joseph and Mary
travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem for the Roman census. When they arrive, there
is no place for them in the inn, so they spend the night in a stable.
Meanwhile, three gift-bearing wise men, who have been following a star, visit
Herod the Great and inform him of the impending birth of the Messiah. Herod,
not so keen on the idea of a new king in town, asks these wise men to find out
where this so-called Messiah is, so he too can pay a visit. After Jesus’ birth,
shepherds receive an angelic announcement, and they, along with the travelling
wise men, come to visit baby Jesus, wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a
manger. After receiving their own angelic messages, the wise men decide not to
return to Herod with information about Jesus’ birth while Mary and Joseph
hightail it to Egypt after hearing that Herod, fearing the loss of his throne,
has ordered the execution of all Jewish boys under the age of two. End scene.
If you read through Luke 2:1–20, you’ll notice that about
half of the narrative elements listed above are missing. That’s because the
story of the wise men, Herod’s “massacre of the innocents,” and the flight to
Egypt appear only in Matthew’s Gospel. Conversely, if you only read Matthew
1–2, you miss the Roman census, the trip to Bethlehem, the inn with the “No
Vacancy” sign, and the shepherds.
While Christmas pageants tend to conflate the
Gospel stories, Matthew and Luke offer distinctive accounts of the birth of
Jesus, and as is so often the case, they do this because they are addressing
different audiences. Matthew, writing to a predominantly Jewish audience
portrays Jesus as one like the prophet Moses, who was born in Egypt under a
hostile Pharaoh seeking the death of all of the Hebrew boys. Luke, on the other
hand, is addressing a predominantly Gentile audience with a message for the
whole world, and so he sets the scene in the Roman context with Emperor
Augustus’s decree that “all the world should be registered.”
These differing accounts have left some readers scratching
their heads and wondering what to do with these texts. Do we awkwardly try to
harmonize them as Christmas pageant directors so often do? Do we conclude that
one is more historically accurate than the other? Or do we take some
alternative approach?
As you consider these questions, I would encourage you to
read Luke 2:1–20 in the context of Luke’s overarching narrative and to be on
the look out for themes and motifs that are typical of Luke’s Gospel. |
