I have just come back from stewarding at the final session of private prayer at church and because Ian spent the hour playing Christmas carols on the organ I decide to read the two nativity stories on my phone while he was playing. This was a very atmospheric and straight forward thing to do, as the story is only in two gospels, with a short version in Matthew and a longer narrative in Luke. What struck me reading them straight through one after the other was just how different they are.
The Matthew narrative is all
about men. Joseph, Herod and the wise men - no wise women then! Where is the
journey on a donkey to Bethlehem, the actual birth, the angels and the
shepherds? The killing of the children is a grim rerun of the Exodus story that
Erna’s house group is studying. Can you imagine how the conversation between
Mary and Joseph went about Mary being pregnant. “Well dear, I have got
something to tell you…………!” Matthew tells us about Mary’s home birth, in
Bethlehem, in a house, before they flee to Egypt and then to Nazareth. I had
forgotten about that travel schedule which was necessary to escape Herod and
his son. Quiz question – how many wise men were there?
So thank goodness we have the
Luke story. Here come the girls, with Elizabeth, Mary and Anna centre stage and
with a mute Zechariah and an invisible Joseph.
Then there is all that beautiful poetry/songs, the Benedictus (ok that’s
Zechariah), the Magnificat, the Nunc Dimittis and the chorus of angels singing
to the shepherds. Nativity plays romanticise the journey to Bethlehem, the
donkey, the manger, the shepherds and the angels. But why not – I will leave
the serious message for Ian and Erna to address. Then Luke has the travel
schedule that I do remember, from Nazareth to Bethlehem and back to Nazareth.
So thank goodness for
Matthew’s narrative, because that is why we give (and get) Christmas presents and
where would the Christmas card designers be without the Luke story.
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