I am suggesting reading the Gospel nativity stories each day
of the Twelve Days of Christmas paying attention only to what Matthew 1:18-25
and Luke 2:1-20 purposely dismissing the distracting accretions that have
attached themselves to these accounts over the centuries. Today, pay attention
to the people actually in the Gospels.
Any number of imaginary characters have found their way to
the infant Jesus’ manger, though they are not in the Gospels. We know that
there were no drummer boys (or girls), as much as we like or dislike their
song. Though midwives were very common in those days, neither of the Gospels
mentions one. However, an innkeeper crops up in popular imagination again and
again. He is often the one holding the lantern in nativity sets, whether to give
light to whomever was delivering the baby or to illuminate the newborn Jesus in
the darkness. But you will search the Gospels in vain for any hint of an
innkeeper. Nor will you find an innkeeper’s wife who came to the aid of a young
woman giving birth for the first time.
Despite the Three Wise Men traditions, perhaps suggested by
three gifts, Matthew does not specify a number, though being plural at least
two must have come. Some scholars have speculated on a large number, which
might be possible, though too many would have had a hard time escaping Herod’s
soldiers, especially if they did have camels (which are definitely not
mentioned). One fascinating if
distracting note here is that in a time of the flourishing of painting in
Europe, masters would sometimes have their apprentices paint a nude camel
handler in the inconspicuous background of a painting of the Visit of the Magi.
This was as a learning exercise and had nothing to do with the portrayal of the
event. The traditional names for the Magi are not in Matthew (Balthasar, Melchior, Gaspar), nor the
implication that they represented three racial identities. There have been cute
stories of “the other wise man” who missed Jesus but helped a needy person. The
opera Amahl and the
Night Visitors imagines a
young boy meeting them. Some of these creative additions teach wonderful moral
lessons, but they are not part of Matthew’s telling of the birth of Jesus.
If you pay attention only to the people whose presence is
recorded by Matthew and Luke, whom do you meet?
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