Journey with Jesus #1

Here is the summary of the first of our new "Journey with Jesus" Bible studies that took place on January 2nd. Tony has included a short introduction. Peace-Linda


This month we have begun a “Journey with Jesus,” a monthly pattern of prayer and meditation based around a concrete theme in Jesus’ life. The study is not so much about Jesus’ teaching or the theology of a distinct episode but related to some life circumstance which can help us grow closer to Jesus’ experience and person. The Jesus yoga will reflect the theme and meditation, and in the following week we will enter the circumstance more deeply looking at parallels in the Old Testament. Finally we will celebrate our present journey in communion with Jesus through the celebration of a eucharist.


Journey with Jesus – Nativity 01/02/09

Mark and John do not have Nativity narratives. Mark begins with Jesus’ adult ministry, John with his transcendent origins. Matthew and Luke both have infancy narratives but very different – one of the reasons that Biblical scholars do not think that Luke had access to Matthew as a source or vice versa. So why did they write the nativity/infancy narratives? One reason is natural curiosity about origins – people are always interested in who a person’s parents are and where they come from. This is especially true when that person is a great historical figure. In the case of Jesus here was someone who brought a decisive newness into the world through his word, life, death and resurrection. Fifty years later Matthew and Luke were looking for clues in his origins that would signal the radical newness they were experiencing.

Matthew was writing to a Jewish audience. He begins his Gospel with a genealogy (Mt 1:1-16). This idealized list of the ancestors of Jesus is comprised of three groups of fourteen. (Three is a holy number in the Bible and seven is associated with the divine work of creation. Fourteen signals the divine action of creation twice over). The final group does not quite fit – in that there are just thirteen male names – the final name being that of Mary, a woman. Some scholars think that Matthew might have miscounted, or intended that Jeconiah from the previous group was meant to be counted twice. The most natural reading of the text though is to include Mary as the fourteenth name – equal to the men, and a generatioin in her own right.

There are four other women listed in the Matthean genealogy. These are Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba . All four conceived their children in scandalous or at the least dubious circumstances. The text seems to underline this by naming Bathsheba as “the wife of Uriah” – another man’s wife. These four women, all heroines of the Old Testament, were therefore also women with questionable histories. Mary is framed in this way – numbered with the patriarchs but in the company of risqué women.

In MT 1:18 Mary is found to be with child “of the Holy Spirit”. Again in v. 20 Joseph is told by the angel not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife because the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. In the Greek this is more rightly translated as “what is conceived in her is from/out of the Holy Spirit”. The emphasis is on the Holy Spirit and God’s faithfulness rather than on a miracle of parthenogenesis (like that found in Luke). It brings to mind other stories from the Old Testament (for example the birth of Moses) in which God chooses to bring birth out of peril and danger. These stories would have been familiar to Matthew’s Jewish audience.

Luke, in contrast, stresses the miracle. He is writing to a Greek world familiar with stories of gods impregnating human women – for example Zeus in his disguise as a swan or a bull. The mythical/magical events surrounding the conception and birth of great figures was nothing new to the Greek world – Hercules was said to have strangled a snake in his crib dropped by an eagle passing overhead; Alexander the Great was believed to have been born of a woman impregnated by Zeus. In Lk 1:34 Mary makes explicit through her question “How can this be since I am a virgin?” the fact that we are dealing with a physical miracle. The words “the power of the Most High will overshadow you” have subtle echoes of those Greek gods sexual relations with human women. But in Acts (the continuation of Luke’s Gospel) the Holy Spirit is poured out on all flesh – which can be seen as taking the “overshadowed by the Holy Spirit” imagery and magnifying it exponentially.

Mark and John hint that Jesus’ status as a respectable Jew was not totally assured – that there was some irregularity in his background. In Jn 8: 40 the crowds respond to Jesus discussion about their erroneous claim to be Abraham’s children by saying “We were not born of fornication, we have one father, God himself”. Some scholars (e.g. Raymond Brown) suggest that this might be a slur on Jesus’ own parentage (“we, unlike you Jesus, are not illegitimate…”). In Mk 6:3 the people at the synagogue in Nazareth say “Is not this the carpenter the son of Mary?” This would have been an unusual way of stating his background because children were named as sons of their fathers not their mothers. It implies that his father was not known. Jesus does not claim the title “Son of David” for himself. He chooses instead the “Son of Man” appellation from the Book of Daniel. The father Jesus identified with and spoke about was his Father in heaven. It is his relationship with his heavenly father that defines him. If he was in fact illegitimate this would have had a profound impact on his own self-understanding and his relationship with God. It was not in spite of but because of his background that he was able to break free from cultural and religious constraints. Jesus affirmed those who were broken and excluded. He had mercy on the woman caught in adultery. In John’s Gospel Jesus invites us time and again to enter into the relationship he has with his Father.

Jesus’ nativity narratives teach us that God chose as his Messiah someone born in questionable if not disreputable circumstances. Perhaps it is only in these circumstances, when we are forced outside of our places of cultural/social safety, that the Holy Spirit can truly be free to move. Often we do not feel good or holy enough to enter into a relationship with God. Jesus teaches us that it is in fact when we feel the least worthy that we are closest to God and that it is in the times of crisis and scandal in our lives when the Holy Spirit is often most likely to act. Regardless of our own parentage, background or identity, we are all beloved children of the Father.