Word to the Wise
Friday, December 20, 2024 - December 20
[Isa 7:10-14 and Luke 1:26-38,1368]"Listen, O house of David! Is it not enough for you to weary men, must you also weary my God? Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign: the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel." [Isaiah] "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his Kingdom there will be no end." [Luke]
The evangelists Matthew and Luke composed their gospels for different audiences at the time. Matthew wrote for a community of Jewish converts to Christianity, Luke wrote for a mixed community of Jewish and Gentile converts, a more "missionary" community. Both infancy narratives have annunciation scenes, but in Matthew, the annunciation is made to Joseph, not to Mary. In Luke, Mary gets the message. There is no mention of John the Baptist in Matthew's infancy narrative, but much of Luke's narrative is concerned with showing how Jesus' conception is predicted by and more important than that of John the Baptist! In Matthew, the visitors are Magi. In Luke, they are shepherds.
In other words, our nativity scenes are often a summary of the two narratives. John the Baptist gets mentioned earlier in Advent in the liturgical scriptures, but after today, he will disappear until the end of the Christmas/Epiphany season when we celebrate the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist - the beginning of Jesus' public ministry. But the shepherds and the magi are featured in most nativity scenes. We bring both narratives together in our own times with our own needs. What ARE those needs? What DOES that scene say to us? AMEN