My (Belated) Christmas Message

Almost every culture has a belief that they are not alone in the universe. I’d argue that many atheists have a certain sense of wonder at the scope and expanse of the universe, as well as a belief that there is more life out there than just us down here. Stories of God’s and heroes fill many books and oral tales through the ages but something that is important to the followers of Christ is the strong sense of history. Jesus isn’t merely a divine figure that lives in some mystical time before history, whose adventures and dealings with other God's and monsters are told to explain the world in which we live. Jesus was a flesh and blood figure who walked the dusty roads of 1^st century Palestine and who's blood relations still walk the earth today. And we find the importance of the when, where and when of Jesus in the first chapter of Luke's gospel, within the Christmas story.

The When: Circa 6 BC

Luke’s gospel makes it clear that Christ’s entrance into our world happened at a point in time when things were changing.

Augustus Caesar, nephew and adopted son of Julius Caesar had just become the first Emperor of Rome and he was beginning to take stock of his empire. Censuses were going on around the empire and Rome's power was on the rise. Even the King of Judah, King Herod the Great, ruled the country on behalf of the Roman Empire. He was not descended from the great King David but came from a line of rulers that had taken control...

The setting Luke gives us is a bit like saying ‘In the days of JFK there was a great space race and Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. The Quirinius mentioned was governor a decade after the birth of Jesus and his census was well recorded in history. The events that lead to Jesus’ family heading to Bethlehem must have been a part of what would be remembered as the census that Quirinius finalised many years later. Archaeology may yet turn up more information.

Jesus entered history at a time when Rome ruled supreme and even probed the lives of individuals living in far off Judah. God’s chosen people, were intended to be ruled over by the right hand of their God Jehovah, King David and his descendants. Instead, they were under the rule of a half Jewish puppet King and an empire that sought to count and catalogue them for its own purposes. God's people were at a low place, a small province, under the dominion of a growing superpower.

The Where: Bethlehem, Judah

The Gospel of Luke also tells us where Jesus was born. Bethlehem. Because of the census, Joseph had to return to his home town of Bethlehem. Bethlehem was a tiny town in the days of Jesus, famous for being the birthplace of King David and the burial place of Rachel the wife of Jacob. It was also famous as the place where the Messiah would be born. The prophet Micah said’ But you o Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days…and he shall be the one of peace.'. The birthplace of King David would also be the birthplace of the great king to come, the ancient one, the one of peace.

The next where is the place of the birth. Traditionally presented as a stable of an inn, it is thought that at the time of Jesus’ birth, Bethlehem was too small to have had an inn. The word translated as inn can also mean living space. Houses in this time often kept the animals on the lower floors of the home, with the upper areas for living and sleeping. Sometimes these houses would be built over caves, giving the animals greater space to move. Here we can imagine a busy house, full of family visiting for the census. When a baby is suddenly born, the stable area is the most appropriate place for the delivery to take place, with feed trough acting as a makeshift crib. This scene of a newborn baby wrapped up and placed in a feed trough becomes the sign the shepherds are required to look for.

The Who: The Son of the Unseen God.

The who is the greatest part of the story. On the face of it, the baby is the child of a builder and his wife from Nazareth. They've come to town for the census just as the child was due. They had no choice but as law-abiding citizens, they were doing the right thing. But, they were fulfilling the ancient prophecy.

‘But you O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days…and he shall be the one of peace.’ The baby was a descendant of King David, one of Israel’s greatest kings and one whose families reign was said to be eternal. He was born in David’s home town of Bethlehem and God had made it clear to his parents, and relatives, prophets, shepherds, wise men and angels that he was the promised king that had been foretold. But this child was more than just an earthly king. The Davidic Kings had sat on the throne as God's right hand, his representative on earth. They were called his sons (Psalm 2: 7) and were given royal titles like 'Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9: 6).' They were called Messiahs or ‘anointed ones’ because God had anointed them to rule over his people. But this child was something more. All the promises of the kings were to be fulfilled in this Son of David. Not merely another earthly King, this child of David was something more, he was the unseen God in human flesh. He was the fulfilment of all that the ancient kings pointed to and his kingdom was a heavenly one and not of earth. Just as the swaddling bands wrapped his newborn body that had left the darkness of the womb, the very words of God had left the unseen world of God the Father and were wrapped in flesh and blood. God was now amongst us. God had come to bring us peace with him and each other.

The Massacre of the Holy Innocents: Humanities Guilt

Amongst all the joy and celebrations of the Christmas season, a tragic story lurks amongst the tales of wise men, angels and shepherds that goes unknown by many both with in and outside the church. The Massacre of the Holy Innocents is a story found in the Gospel of St Matthew (80-90 AD), squeezed in between the flight of the holy family to Egypt and their return to Judea after the death of King Herod the Great. The King James Version puts it thus,

'Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men.  Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying,  In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not (Matthew 2: 16-17).

 Here we come face to face with a ancient despot who would rather kill a group of babies based on the stargazing and ancient oracles of mystics just in case one of them in the future may challenge him for his throne. Even worse, here was a man who would do so to thwart the plans of the Judah's own God, in case those plans didn't feature him. Such a terrible act was never forgotten by the church. These infants were counted among the first Christian martyrs who died for Christ unknowingly. In the Western Church their deaths have been commemorated on the 28th of December, on the day known as Childermas. However in the modern Christmas, which tends to focus on the more child friendly elements of the season, the Massacre of these Holy Innocents is over looked. and one of the deeper meanings of the celebration is lost,

As in much of his account of the birth of Christ, Matthew gives us few details out side of the bare bones of the story. We are not told who the slaughtered children were or how many were killed. This had to be left to the fertile imagination of the early church to fill in the details. The remains of two child saints, St Sicarius of Bethlehem and St Memorius, are still venerated as victims of the massacre how ever the authenticity of such claims doesn't go unquestioned today, with the likelihood of such remains surviving intact until the time of the early church's interest in relics being extremely unlikely.  According to  Wikipedia, that font of all knowledge, numbers such as 14,000, 64,000 and 144,000 were given by different church traditions, the later of which seems to be derived from John's vision in Rev 7: 4, suggesting that these numbers are more likely theological than actual. However given the size of the Bethlehem population at the time, approx 1000, according to William Barclay, the amount of children two and under may have been anything from twenty to thirty babies. Other  sources suggest that archaeological excavation of ancient Bethlehem shows that the population may have been a low as 300, suggesting a figure closer to six children in the age range of two and under (Gordan Franz, biblicalarcheology.org). Still the massacre of six children is a terrible event, just as the loss of one can shatter the world of a parent. 

The next mention of the Massacre of the Holy Innocents is found in a book with the long winded title of The Protoevangelium of James. Written about 140 AD, this book, which begins with an account of Mary's infancy and childhood, draws its version of the birth of Christ from the canonical gospels. Here it is not just the life of Christ that is in danger but the life of John the Baptist as well. Included in the killing is John's father, Zechariah, who is slain  in the forecourt of the Jerusalem Temple after refusing to reveal the location of his infant son. 

It wasn't until around 400 AD that a mention of the slaughter appears in a non-Christian source. The historian Macrobius in his Saturnalia says, "when Augustus had heard, that among the children within two years of age, which Herod king of the Jews commanded to be slain in Syria, his own son had been killed, he said: 'It is better to be Herod's hog than his son.' (Macrobius, Saturnalia 2.f.11). However this passage seems to confuse the massacre with Herod's murder of his own son which was a separate event with an identical motive. 

It would seem that with such support from ancient texts that Massacre of the Holy Innocents would be generally accepted as an historical fact, however this is far from the case. Although it would seem that the Protoevangelium of James is an early second source for an account of the massacre, it is heavily dependant on the Gospel of St Matthew and therefore is not an independent account of the incident. Even the seemingly independent account of Macrobius and its mention of the broader area of Syria and not specifically Bethlehem, cannot be considered a reliable evidence for the event. The confusion of the whole account and the four centuries between the events described and Macrobius' work, render this passage an unreliable source. Although a non-Christian, it is not inconceivable that Macrobius had become familiar with the story of the massacre through accounts told by the  adherents of the popular Christian religion and that had it had entered the popular consciousness. 

The main point that leaves many historians sceptical is that, besides The Gospel of St Matthew, no other contemporary witnesses mention the massacre in Bethlehem and it surrounds. This leads them to speculate that maybe the whole event was a sacred creation, a bit of parable writing, to try and compare Jesus with Moses, another survivor of a fearful kings infanticidal intentions. Despite such a act being totally in line with Herod's other brutal acts to protect his kingship, with only Matthew's word to go by and no other contemporary independent sources to back the story up, some want to place it in the category of story created to teach theological thought rather than historical reality.

There is a tragic twist to all this speculation. Some suggest that in a world where children's rights were virtually non-existent and a king could slaughter six infant peasant subjects with out impunity, such an event would probably go unrecorded. This was a world where children were property and infant mortality was not uncommon. A Roman father was entitled to let his new born child die if unwanted and the Greeks in Sparta regularly practised infanticide as birth control (Franz). In such a world, why would the death of a handful of children warrant a mention in the annals of Roman Imperial history. 

If anything the ambiguity around the historicity of the event is probably the most poignant element of the whole affair. Whether or not the event happened will never be answered for secular historians because in the bigger scheme of things it didn't matter. The account serves as a reminder of all the atrocities that have been visited on the helpless and powerless in fear by those welding power. It is fitting that we find it told in the birth story of the one who called for a new way of seeing things, where the powerless are kings and the tyrants are in last place. In the kingdom of Jesus the slaughtered babes of Bethlehem and all other times, sit in the places of honour and look down on us, calling us each to make a difference so the vision of Christ's kingdom of love can become a reality where ever we find ourselves.

“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”

Revelation 21:4 KJV