The Nativity

This post is unrelated to on-going analysis of Gospels, but rather a reaction to seeing the movie, The Nativity. Since it is the Christmas season, a post on this topic seems appropriate, especially since I almost feel that I want to do a book on the topic of the birth of Christ.

This recent movie version was rather slow and boring in parts. I felt that the writer missed all the drama inherent in the situation. It is the same problem that drives me to analyze Christ’s words in the Gospels. People have grown so familiar with the Christmas story we cannot really see how dramatic it is.

My wife saw an interview with the writer who said that he had to “pad” the story because there just wasn’t enough material. I was shocked at this statement, especially since his screenplay missed all of the drama inherent in the story. Since I am not really plugged into Christian literature, I guess I assumed the incredible drama of the Nativity was well-understood, despite the way the story is told for children at Christmas time. After seeing this movie, it occurs to me that many people just don’t understand what the Christmas story is really about.

The Nativity could have been a Shakespearean play. It is perhaps the most easily understood dramatic aspect of Christ’s life. Unlike the rest of the Christ story, the nativity is a human story. In it, normal human beings come in contact with the divine. This is the essence of human drama, putting ordinary people into extraordinary circumstances.

Mary was more than just a young girl. She was the best girl that ever lived. How does such a person get treated by those around her? In the beatitudes, Christ’s talks about how “lucky” people are who are “hounded for their perfection” (mistranslated as “persecuted for their righteousness”). This luck is a mixed blessing and his mother, Mary, was history’s best example.
Mary was devout, loving, and obedient. She was just the kind of kid that all parents throw in the faces of their their own kids as a good example. The most common refrain the other kids growing up in Nazareth heard was “why can’t you be more like Mary?”

So, how did the other kids react to this? Some of those kids grew up being jealous and resenting Mary, especially those kids who were competitive, insecure, and wanted more recognition for themselves. Her friends loved Mary, but many more felt they were competing with her. The more popular and attractive those other kids were, the more problems they had with Mary.

Was Mary beautiful? It doesn’t matter. She was incredibly nice. The younger kids, the less disadvantaged kids would have all benefited from her goodness. They would looked up to her and wished their own brothers and sisters were more like her. And this hero-worship of Mary by some of her generation created even more resentment.

A lot of what Mary does is irritating. When she does something well, she makes little of it. She sees faults in herself that no one else sees. She apologizes for not doing better when she does better than everyone else.

Remember, these kids are growing up. They are becoming teenagers. They live in a very religious community and a small town. Kids are testing boundaries. Much of this is innocent, but there are good girls and boys and there are not so good girls and boys. The fact is that very few kids get through puberty completely good. Maybe only Mary. Some of the older boys are paying attention to the younger girls, trying to get them alone. Some of the kids are secretly getting into the wine. Some are curious about pagan rituals and music. Some kids are tempting the others, trying to prove how “grown up” they are.

How does Mary feel about this situation? What does she say to the less-than-good girls? Nothing that they want to hear. Does Mary tell the parents when she finds out their kids are misbehaving? She is conflicted. She doesn’t want her contemporaries to hate her. She is good, but she is human. She doesn’t want to be a snitch and a goody-two-shoes, but she cannot help it. She doesn’t want kids to hurt themselves of endanger others. So she has to make tough decisions.

These are the decisions that every kid today has to make and most of us chicken out. What does Mary do when she hears some kids are leading others astray? She has to speak out. However, she isn’t self-righteous about it. She doesn’t like having kids she’s know her whole life mad at her. She doesn’t want to be an outsider. As her generation ages, she find them excluding her more and more.

The younger kids and other outcastes still love her, but the cool kids shun her. As her peer group ages and those peer relationships become more and more important, she make the tough choice to do what is right rather than what is popular. She is isolated, perhaps a little lonely, but she chooses God and family over her peers.

Then what happens? She is engaged to an older man, not to some attractive guy a little older, but to a man a lot older, with children from an earlier marriage. This was not a love match.

Joseph was a widower with kids to raise (James and the other brothers and sisters mentioned in the Gospels as Christ’s siblings). Joseph was a distant relative of Mary’s, both coming from the House of David. He needed a wife for the sake of the children.

It is completely consistent with Mary’s goodness, self-sacrifice, and family devotion that she would become his wife rather than pursue her own, more adolescent instincts. The marriage was arranged within the family. As a girl, Mary was likely seen as an economic drain on the family. It was her duty to marry. In this case, in agreeing to marry a man with children, she was completely dutiful, a young girl, stepping directly into the shoes of a full-grown woman.

The girls in her generation that loved Mary probably felt sorry for her. The girls that resented Mary probably made fun at her for marrying someone so much older, someone whose first wife had died. Certainly Joseph wouldn’t have been seen as a lucky mate. There would have been family complications. Joseph’s first wife’s relatives would have been involved and critical. Perhaps Joseph had a surviving mother-in-law who considered the marriage to Mary as something more or less like hiring a servant.

This is all very dramatic, human stuff. Mary has been blessed in many ways because she is so good, intelligent, kind and loving, but she has also been cursed with unpopularity, resentment, and the prospect of a loveless marriage of convenience. How did she feel at all of this? Think about it.

And then, the story gets really interesting and really scary. Mary has a vision. The messenger in the vision tells her that she has been chosen by God and, if she accepts, she will become pregnant as a virgin.

Now, all the stories gloss over what a huge, terrifying prospect this was. Mary lived in a society that literally killed loose women. She was not only unmarried, but she was betrothed to someone with whom she didn’t have a romantic relationship. What does it mean to get pregnant under those circumstances?

For any girl, it meant embarrassment and social ostracism, not only for the girl, but for her family. For a goody-two-shoes like Mary, it was a something we can barely imagine. Can you imagine the glee of all her enemies, all those less-than-perfect peers, when they found out she was pregnant before her marriage? They would all be thinking that she was loose. Some would be calling her a whore.

She would not only have to face her peers and those who were jealous of her. She would have to face her family and all those who loved her. Everyone would consider her a complete hypocrite, pretending to be so good and devout, while being as bad as she could be. Everyone would feel betrayed by her, her mother, her father, her siblings, everyone.

Wouldn’t a normal kid have asked the angel, “Why can’t this wait until I am married and pregnancy is expected? Why does God want to humiliate me, my family, my husband and my child?”

But what could the angel have explained to a young girl? Could the angel have explained the prophecies, the need for this particular miracle? Would the angel have explained that future generations must see that her Son was something more than a child of a man?

For both Mary and the angel, explanations were impossible and unnecessary. Mary would do God’s will. She did not question. She understood the cost (even if we do not), but she accepted her sacrifice as God’s will. Perhaps the summary of the first part of Mary's story should be, "I was the perfect girl that everyone hates until God asked me if I was willing to become the one they would all call a little whore."

If the greatest thing a man can do is sacrifice his life for his friends, perhaps the greatest thing a woman can do is sacrifice her reputation. This is what Mary agreed to do, without even really understanding why.

And that was just the beginning of the Nativity story. It gets even better from there.

Mat 21:33 Hear another parable: There was a certain landowner who planted a vineyard, and put a fence around it, and dug a winepress in it, and built a watch tower, and rented it out to growers, and went into a far country:

Here we have another analogy where God is caste as a landowner dealing with workers. Notice that the landowner improves his property, making it productive. Here, God is like an entreprenuer, creating a new business from nothing. He eventually turns that business over to others, letting them run it.

The planting is a spiritual improvement. Seeds are Christ's symbol for the spirit. Spirit is the information giving rise to form. The fencing and watchtower are physical improvements. Trees, plants, and sight are Christ's symbol for the material realm. Digging the winepress is a mental improvement. Wine is Christ's liquid symbol for the mental realm. All of these improvements lead to a specific relationship: leasing the land to those who will work it.

Fiunally, the landowner goes on a journey abroad. In other words, God hides himself. The spirit is always hidden. The information is tucked away inside of the physical, mental, or emotional thing where it cannot be directly perceived. Here, what is hidden is the landowner's investment and ownership of the land, which he has improved.

"Planted" is from phuteuô, which means "to plant," "to produce," "to set-up," and specifically, "to plant with trees."

"Put a fence" is from phragmos, which means "to fence" and "to hedge."

"Rented" is from ekdidomi, which means literally, "to give out."

Mat 21:31 Which of these two did the will of [his] father? Tryly I tell you that the tax-collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you.

Mat 21:32 For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him: but the tax-collectors and the prostitutes believed him: and you, when you had seen did not repent afterward that you might believe him.

Again, the topic is how one thing follows another, the first and the last, but you cannot tell this from the English. Here, because they believed John the Baptist, tax-collectors and prostitutes, "lead the way," literally, go first. Christ contracts the son who finally does his father 's bidding with the priests who do not do God's bidding. They deny God, but they do not feel guilty about it, so they do not do what is needed, in this case, believe in John.

Christ sets out the order of things: words before actions, the feeling of regret before acting correctly. Those who society looks down on are more likely to feel regret and therefore more likely to reform their behavior and become better people. Those who society praises are less likely to feel regret and are therefore more likely to become worse people.

"Tax-collectors" is from telônês, translated as "tax collector" or "publican." These tax-collectors were independent business people charged with collecting rents, tolls, and other fees from the general public. Historically, these tax-collectors or rent collectors were notoriously corrupt. As middlemen and managers, the rulers trusted them to know who should pay what, but these tax-collectors readily took bribes from farmer for setting the appropriate rents on property.

"Go before" is from the Greek proagô, which means "lead onward," "lead forward," "increase," "advance," "go before," and "lead the way."

"Kingdom of God" is from basileia (kingdom, rule, reign) theos (God). Note, this is not the term "kingdom of heaven" (basileia ouranous).

"Repent" is from metamelomai (metamellomai), which means "to feel repentance," "to repent a thing," "to change one's purpose or conduct," and "to feel regret." This term is the same used to describe the feelings of the first so who does rightly after speaking wrongly.