The first word in Mark's Gospel is "beginning". So why doesn't Mark tell us the Christmas story? Each of the Gospels has its own purpose, its own angle. For Mark one question was: why can we with hindsight recognize Jesus as the Christ, but in his own time, why did so few people realize this? "Beginning" could be better translated as "summary", or "first fruits" even. Mark tells us in the first three verses who Jesus was, but his Good News is about what Jesus did, about his ministry.
John's Gospel too starts "In the beginning". But John's beginning goes way back beyond Bethlehem, to before the creation of the world. John does not always describe the events themselves. He reflects on them. Just as much of John's Gospel is a commentary on the Last Supper, so the events of Bethlehem (although mentioned in passing, John 7:42) are crystallized into one short phrase: "And the Word was made flesh, and lived among us."
Bethlehem was the beginning of Jesus' earthly life. But both Matthew and Luke, who tell us the stories of Jesus' birth, are clear that the real beginning lay long before. Matthew starts his narrative with a genealogy in the style of an Old Testament history, dividing past times into spans of fourteen generations, from Abraham to David, from David to the Exile, from the Exile to his own time. The beginning lay in God's promises of blessing to Abraham, God's promises to David, God's promises never to forsake the people in Exile.
Matthew's account of the events in Bethlehem is brief. But it is enough to set Jesus' birth in context. Old Testament prophecy has been fulfilled: the virgin has conceived and borne a son, a ruler has indeed come from Bethlehem who will shepherd God's people. And not only Old Testament prophecy, but the hopes and expectations of the whole world - for this is why the Magi come from far away with their gifts of gold, of frankincense and myrrh. And this is God's doing. The angel who appears to Joseph clearly knows far more about Mary's pregnancy than he actually tells!
For Luke, also, the beginning comes before Gabriel's announcement to Mary. Luke's introduction is taken up with the story of John the Baptist's birth. Again the theme is of expectation - things are moving towards their completion. Only in verse 26 does Gabriel come to Nazareth with the message that she will bear a child, who will be called Son of the Most High. And only after 86 verses do we learn how Mary "gave birth to her firstborn son, and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger."
Luke goes out of his way to stress Jesus' simple, yet divine, origins. Angels are everywhere, appearing to Zechariah, to Mary, to the shepherds. Yet Zechariah was a childless old man, Mary was so poor that she had to give birth in a stable (and could not afford the offering of a lamb prescribed in Lev. 12:6 at the birth of her son), and Jesus is worshipped not by Magi but by shepherds, in social status almost the sans-papiers of their time, but recalling nevertheless that he who was born was to be the Good Shepherd, who would in due course lay down his life for us, his sheep.
This Christmas time let us rejoice with the angels at God's glory manifested in the baby in the manger. But let us not forget that the Word who became flesh also died and rose, and lives in us today. Christmas is rightly a time of joy, but not just of joy at the events of Bethlehem. "Jesus" means "The Lord saves", and "Emmanuel" means "God is with us". Not just that a baby was born, but that our liberator, our saviour, was born - here is our true source of joy.
HD