Sharing the Christmas Story

Luke 2:1-7

 

How many times have you heard that old familiar story?

          For some it may be the first time and there is a magic

 and majesty to the story of Christ’s birth but

many of us grew up hearing the story

                                      And then reading the story to others.

          I remember when I was nine and my brother eight

                   We recited the story in a church service:

          In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus

                   That all the world should be enrolled.

                             This was the first enrollment when Quirinius

                                      Was the governor of Syria.

                   And all went to be enrolled, each to his own city…

                             And the time came for her to be delivered and

                               She gave birth to her first born son

                                  And wrapped him in swaddling clothes

       And laid him in a manger

Because there was no room in the inn.”

 

If that sound a little different from the translation

we read today, it is because Mark and I memorized

          the Revised Standard Version and today

                   we read the New Revised Translation.

I was outraged when I realized that the NRSV

          Had changed the translation from swaddling clothes

                   To bands of cloth- until I translated the Greek

                             Word esparganosen which means

                                      “wrapped in swaddling bands”

Both translations were right but it’s hard to change

          From something you grew up with

                   Even when it makes sense.

 

Then I met the middle east scholar Ken Bailey.

Ken is a Presbyterian Minister who lived most of his life

in the Middle East-Egypt, Lebanon, Jerusalem & Cyprus

and for 20 years was the head of the Biblical Division

          of Near East School of Theology in Beirut.

He knows the culture of the Middle East

          And he challenged me to look at the story

                   Of Jesus birth through the eyes of

                             The culture.

 

The first question he asked me was hospitality.

          If indeed Joseph was from the City of David, Bethlehem

                   How could it be that none of his relatives

                             Would be willing to take Joseph and Mary in.

          Now I’ve been to the Middle East myself only once

                   But Ken Bailey is exactly correct-

                             Hospitality is not optional,

it is required by the culture.

          And if Joseph’s relatives were unwilling to take them

                   Then surely Mary’s relatives Elizabeth and

                             Zechariah who lived in the surround area

                                      Bethany, would have.

 

But what about the “Inn” that is the focal point of

          So many Christmas plays around this time.

                   I remember 15 years ago doing a Christmas play

                             In Bensalem Presbyterian Church

                   Which focused on the Inn keeper, his wife

                             And his children.

          Don’t Mary and Joseph have to go to an inn.

                   The Bible says “she laid him in a manger because

                             There was no room in the inn.”

                   And how does that square with the incredible

                             Hospitality of the Middle Eastern people?

 

Bailey points out that the word we translate as inn is katalumati

The word is only used one other time in the New Testament

          In the Gospels of Mark and Matthew

                   And it is the word that describes the “guest room”

                             When Jesus and his disciples ate the

                                      Last Supper.

          The real word for Inn is the word pandocheion

                   Which appears once in the story of the

                             Good Samaritan taking the traveler

                                      To a pandocheion, an inn.

 

Simple Palestinian homes had really only one main room

          Where the family would eat and sleep and gather

                   Truly a “family room”.

          I experienced a small Palestinian home when

                   I went to Jerusalem.  We were there early

                             In the morning, uninvited but the people

                                      Invited up to have coffee outside

                                                While they cleaned up the bedding

                                                          To be able to invite us in-

                                                Real Middle Eastern hospitality.

 

          Now some families had a room upstairs for guests

                   Called the kataluma or guest room.

                             We know about guest rooms because we have a

                                      Full house this Christmas with 7 guests.

                   And luckily we have enough guest rooms

                             That noone has to sleep in the living room.

 

But what about the manger and the stable and the animals.

          Well, Bailey explains that in this Middle Eastern house,

                   The animals would not have been outside at night

but rather in the entry way or foyer of the house. 

          The animals would have been on the lower level

                   A step or two would have led up to the family room.

                            

And the animals would have had a manger with straw

     on the step top level which would have been

          At just the right level for animals to eat.

                  

When Jesus was born then in this family room

          He would have been laid in this manger

                   Inside the house.

Now we ask isn’t there mention of a stable in scripture- no.

          That was an invention of the west interpreters

                   Who just assumed that Middle Eastern animals

                             Like western animals would have been housed

                                      In a stable apart from the house.

          Priests in the 10th century wanted to help people imagine

                   The humble birth of Jesus and so they started

                             To reenact the birth scene as they imagined it

                                 According to Western tradition which says

                                      That if Jesus is laid in a manger that

 it must mean he was born in a stable,

          outside of the Inn.

 

The problem is that this interpretation (which we grew up with)

          Creates a problem of consistency w/ Matthew’s birth story.

                   In Matthew it tells of the Magi coming to visit Jesus:

          “When the Magi saw that the star had stopped,

 they were overwhelmed with joy.

On entering the house,

they saw the child with Mary his mother,

 and they knelt and paid him homage.”

 

We often portray this scene as happening at the stable

          And yet it clearly says in the text that the Magi

                   Visited Jesus and Mary in a house.

          We could imagine that after his birth in a stable that

                   They went to a house of relatives

                             But the text doesn’t say that.

And so we are left with the text which Bailey translates:

“While they were in Bethlehem, the time came for Mary

          to be delivered.  And she gave birth to her first born son

right in the middle of the family room,

and wrapped him in bands of cloth

and laid him in the manger that the animals

          in the entry way used to eat from

because there was no room in the guest room upstairs.”

 

Now in many ways this is harder to accept that

          The shift from “swaddling clothes” to “bands of cloth”.

                   I am not asking us to change all our manger scenes

                             From stables to houses

                                      But just to imagine what this interpretation

                                                means about God’s becoming one of us.

 

          It means that on that first Christmas God was born,

                   Not far away from humanity in a stable

                             Or even privately in a guest room.

          It means that the Son of God was born

right in the midst of a family,

surrounded by the house and lineage of David.

          It means that Jesus was born

like every little child was born in that day,

          surrounded by family who loved him.

          And in his birth, God revealed his love for us.

               God came where we were, in the midst of family

                   Just like God is in the midst of your family today

                             As you gather in family rooms, living rooms,

                                      And dining rooms around the world

                                                To celebrate his birth.

 

                                                          Amen and Amen