Matthew's Tale: the strange birth of the Messiah

When we think of the Biblical account of Christmas, we love the stories so much that we collapse them together. Of the four Gospels, only two, Matthew and Luke, make any mention at all of the birth of the Messiah. Luke’s tale has much of the imagery that forms innumerable manger scenes and Church School pageants: animals including the patient donkey that carried Mary on her tiring journey, shepherds from the fields, and angels who announce the holy birth and sing “Gloria” in the winter night. Mary figures strongly in the story, and has voice, especially in the wondrous song called by tradition “Magnificat.”

Matthew tells a different tale.

If Luke is Mary’s story, Matthew is Joseph’s. Joseph, named for Joseph the dreamer of dreams, the loved younger son of the Biblical patriarch Jacob, also dreams that he is to do amazing things that challenge him to the depths of his soul. An angel comes to him, not to sing “Gloria”, but to tell Joseph to accept and marry his fiancé Mary who is already “with child by the Holy Spirit.” The angel names the child Jesus, actually in Hebrew “Ye’Shua”, “Joshua”, the same name as the Biblical hero who led Israel from the desert into the Promised Land. But just as Joshua himself had many battles to fight in the new land, Joseph must contend with a cruel and powerful king. Herod is known today as a deeply clever and politically successful ruler, builder of some of the most magnificent structures that archaeologists are still uncovering. He was also a notably cruel and, later in life, paranoid king who dealt ruthlessly and violently with threats to his power, even from members of his own family.

The angel sends the new Joseph into exile in Egypt with the new Joshua, the new liberator of the people. He may have been honored by Gentile scholars and magicians, the “Magi” of Christmas tales, but the Magi took a detour out of fear of savage Herod and the new Joshua must flee also.

Gospels are not told as “biographies of Jesus” according to how we understand such works. Gospels are how living churches, living communities, told the story of Jesus in a way that gave them faith and strength and hope for their own journeys. In this tale of Matthew, then, we are asked many questions and given much strength. When have we been asked to do something outrageous in response to God? How have we been asked to revise or even reverse our sense of the “way things are” as was Joseph? What are the threats to our living a life of faith and of hope? When have we “gone into exile”? And how and when are we called to return? If these questions speak to us on any level, know that the Christ, the anointed one, came into the world and walked in these ways. He knows our path, even when it lies hidden from us.