Not even the greatest angel, in all his glory, can say that he truly understands the meaning of Christmas. That's because Christmas is the celebration of the central mystery of Christianity, the birth of the God-man, Jesus the Savior, Christ the King, Yashua Bar-Joseph of Nazareth, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, Almighty God, utterly helpless newborn naked ape.

This union of God and humanity in the person of Jesus Christ is called the mystery of the hypostatic union by theologians. St. John took a stab at explaining it, but not even the greatest angel, in all his glory, can say that he understands it. That's why it's called a mystery. In all creation, person and nature are unique. I am a specific human being. You are another specific human being. Charlie is my son's dog. Barack Obama is President of the United States. The Wicked Witch is dead. The Battleship Arizona is still in commission. Each of us can perhaps imagine being a millionaire, or a motion picture actor, or a cowboy or a fireman or a nurse. We might even speculate about what it would be like to be an animal or an alien from outer space, or even an inanimate object, like a star or a stone. But no one can really understand what it would be like to be simultaneously an oyster and a diesel locomotive. Yet the difference between God and humanity is literally infinitely greater than that between an oyster and a locomotive. You can say the words, but you can't really think the thought. It just can't be done. Not by us, not by the theologians, not by even the greatest angel, in all his glory. Only by God.

When I was a child, we never saw Jesus in the bible movies. We saw the back of his head, or his hands, or perhaps his feet. I seem to remember seeing the crucified Christ from the other side of the cross, the side that always faces the wall. The reason for this was obvious when actors did begin to portray Jesus. They never got him right. He either came off as a self-satisfied wimp, whom no one would take seriously, or else as a dangerous psychopath, whom society was well and gladly rid of at the end of the story.

They don't seem to have nearly as much trouble just playing God. Not even the greatest angel, in all his glory, can say that he has done it, but many humans have. That role has been played by actors from George Burns to Alanis Morissette. (See "People Who Have Played God.") In my opinion, Burns was the best, but then he was the oldest, which gave him a natural edge. (He claimed that he did it without makeup!) Playing God straight is fairly easy, for every actor has a pretty good concept of what he imagines God to be, and playing someone you imagine is what acting is all about.

But playing someone is who is God and an itinerant preacher at the same time is tough. The whole idea is completely outside the actor's experience. So they look sad and mysterious and speak in parables a lot, or else they let everyone know straight out that they are the Ultimate Boss and it's best to keep on their good side. They can't play the man, because then the God doesn't show, and they can't play God without washing out the man. So they play a cripple, someone who isn't nearly God and is not quite human either, but something other, something usually not very believable.

That Jesus is God is an act of faith. Either you believe it or you don't. I do. My Muslim and Jewish (and some Christian) friends don't. They are good and holy people. They have their light and I have mine. Faith.

That Jesus was a human being is a well documented historical fact. While non-Christians may point out that there are gaping holes in the visitation narrative or what happened in the forty days after the baptism of Jesus or in the 30 or so years before that event, there can be little doubt that there was a well-known Jewish preacher from Galilee in Palestine at about the beginning of the Christian era, who was crucified by the Roman occupation forces after an indictment for blasphemy by the religious elders of Judea. Modern Christians call him "Jesus." Muslims call him "Isa." The actual pronunciation of his Aramaic name was probably more like, "Yoshua." But calling him "Joshua" gets him confused with Moses' lieutenant and the Biblical book. "Jesus" is probably OK.

A reading of the gospels gives us a great deal of information about this man. There is no doubt that he was in fact a man. We see Jesus alone, with his friends, with his enemies, with his family, and with cheering, as well as jeering, mobs of his fellow countrymen. In one situation he is exuberant, in another depressed. He praises acts of virtue; he weeps at the death of his friend. He chats with the women and children and rebukes the hypocrites. He is often concerned and sympathetic, but sometimes tired and cross. He is obviously delighted at some flash of insight and understanding of his teaching, angered at the abuses of the moneychangers in the temple, and frustrated at the stubbornness of the people of his boyhood home town when they refused to listen to him. A close look at certain events in his life, to remove the veneer of reverent and pious translators, will show that Jesus played a practical joke now and then to illustrate a difficult point or defuse an explosive situation. And in the garden of Gethsemene, when he knew he was about to be arrested, tortured and put to death, he was mortally afraid!

We don't see much of him as a boy. Of course, St. Luke's version of his birth is the original Christmas story, but Luke leaves out huge chunks which would make it so much more appealing. Where did Joseph and Mary stay on their journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, a distance of over 70 miles, over rough, bandit infested country, with primitive roads. Why did Mary go along, when she was so close to term. Why didn't she stay with her own parents, or with friends, or with Joseph's father?^[1] Who were the Wise Men, and where did they come from?^[2] Who was the midwife? (No midwife? There's nothing in the Gospels to suggest that!)^[3] Why do the shepherds appear in the story?^[4] How did young (sixteen to twenty years old) Joseph cope with the unexpected journey, the complication of no place to stay,^[5] and the untimely birth of a child not his own? What did the family do in Egypt? When and how did they return? How were they received in Nazareth after so long and unexplained an absence? All we really know is about the birth, and that's Christmas.

The story of Christmas is about a very common event, the birth of a baby. This makes Christmas for everyone, for every one of us was once what Jesus was, a child, a baby, a fetus, an embryo. From the moment of our conception, even if we are never born, God Himself was once like a being like us.

Where did Jesus go to school? Who were his teachers? We can imagine him messing in his diapers, crying to be nursed, cutting his first tooth, eating all kinds of disgusting things when his mother wasn't looking. We can almost see him taking his first step, speaking his first word, proudly pointing out this and that letter of the Aramaic alphabet as he learned it. We know he wandered away on a family trip to Jerusalem, possibly at the age of twelve or so, the age of a modern Jewish boy's bar-mitzvah. We wonder what Jesus was like as a teenager. (Did he have a problem with zits? Was he popular with the Nazareth girls? Was he good at sports?) What did he do in his twenties? Did he work as a craftsman? What happened to Joseph? Why did he move to Capernaum?^[6] Who looked after his mother when he was gone?

Jesus-God-the-Son doesn't show until later, at the age when a modern adult enters his mid-life crisis years and begins to reevaluate who he is and how he fits into the scheme of things. (Could there be a hint there?) There is a miracle or two here and there, the first one a little quiet one which saved his friends from social disgrace and helped everyone to have a good time at a party. But nothing so spectacular that it would save him from death at the hands of the pagans. And the Christian scriptures all agree that he was dead. There is absolutely no doubt among Christians of that. He received a scourging which strong men often did not survive. He hung on a cross in the desert noonday sun for three hours afterward. After being stabbed through the heart, he was officially pronounced dead by a duly certified official of the occupying powers. His mother and friends were present at his burial.

But then, for several weeks afterward, he was seen apparently healthy and strong by many of his friends. It's only after the death of Jesus-the-man that we recognize Jesus-the-God.

But that's Easter. That's The Resurrection, Christ the King, the Savior of the World. Easter's OK, but we're talking about Christmas. What makes Christmas so much more popular than Easter? It is, after all, about the birth of a baby. What's so special about that?

I think Christmas is so popular because it's not about Jesus so much as it is about us. (For us human beings, and for our salvation, he came down from heaven.) St. John says the Word became flesh and lived (dwelt? pitched his tent?) among us. Christmas is the formal celebration of the miracle which occurs every day, in every town and city around the world, the miracle of birth and life, by which God, in his infinite mercy, bestows the blessings of immortality upon our frail race.

It is all this and much more.

Christmas is the Good News of Christianity, double filtered and boiled down and triple distilled. It's the wonderful, exciting, utterly incredible news that, no matter what our station, whether we are fabulously rich oil barons or starving Somalis or South American natives living in a mud hut, we are worth something in the mind of God Himself. It is the ultimate certification that we count, that each one of us, young or old, rich or poor, famous or unknown, simply by being human, by being what we are, has a dignity unmatched by any other creature in this universe, or, indeed, beyond it.

Christmas is the remembrance that the creator of the stars and the galaxies and the birds and the trees and the flowers; this very same, never ending, unlimited, Almighty, Most Beneficent, Most Merciful God, so loved our race that he became one of us.

And not even the greatest angel, in all his glory, can say that!

John Lindorfer

In addition, as both a husband and a father of pregnant teenagers (which Mary was), I think I can provide a more rational explanation. Teenaged girls, especially pregnant ones, are pretty persistent. Mary, being a newly married one, might have been especially so. I can well imagine an exchange something like this:

Joseph: "But Sweetheart, it's going to be a long trip. You'd better stay here. I'll be back in a couple of weeks."

Mary: "Oh, Joseph, Honey, I just can't bear to be without you that long. Please can I come? Please, please please please, pleeeeeese? I promise I won't have the baby until we get back! Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeese!"

Mary: "Honey, why are we going this way?"

Joseph: "This is the road to Judea, Sweetheart."

Mary: "But the sign over there says that Bethlehem is that way. Don't you think you ought to stop and ask for directions?"

Joseph: "No, Sweetums, that's the road to Bethlehem, Galilee. We're going to Bethlehem, Judea."

Mary: "Judea! But that's all the way past......Ohhhhhhhhhh Noooooooooooo!....."

^[2] I think I can explain this one, too. Matthew says the Magi, or wise men, were from the east, not that they were coming from there. (The word "maji" means "priests in the service of the god Ahura Mazda" in what is today the country of Iran.) He doesn't say how many there were, or what they were called (certainly not "Caspar," "Melchior" and "Balthasaar"). If they had been following a star at its rising, as they said, they would have to have been traveling east, which means they were coming from the west. If they were from the east, and were going that way by following a rising star, they were coming home from whatever they were doing in Judea when they started following it. Jerusalem is actually in the eastern part of Israel, about 15 miles from the Jordan River. There wasn't anything much west of Jerusalem except wide open spaces and the Mediterranean Sea. If they were heading east toward Jerusalem, they had to be coming from the seacoast, which makes them either sailors or merchants. Merchants would have been following roads, not stars, but sailors would have been following the stars, because that's how sailors find their way around. Matthew's assertion that they were "overjoyed at seeing the the star" suggests that they were afraid of getting lost amid the city lights of Jerusalem, which is additional evidence that they weren't familiar with the road net or terrain and relied instead on celestial navigation. My guess is that they were navigating by a well known star (Al-tair? Al-Nilam?) to the seaport near Ashdod, transferred their cargo from ship to caravan, kept going on the trade highway to Jerusalem, visited Herod, and then turned south toward Bethlehem, all the while keeping their eyes on whatever star they were using as a guide, which was on their left after they passed through Jerusalem. Bethlehem is about 5 miles to the south. If the Magi had been following the same star when they left Jerusalem that they said they had been following to Jerusalem, they would have missed Bethlehem completely.

Historical evidence indicates that there were many people who felt that they were experiencing the "last days," and expected the Messiah to arrive any minute; the Magi may have been some of them. The Prophet Micah specifically identifies the location of his birth as Bethlehem-Ephrathah, the city where Rachel died, the place where David was anointed as king by Samuel; and from whose well that three of his heroes brought water for him at the risk of their lives when he was in the cave of Adullam. As wealthy sailors just passing through Judea, they certainly would have noted the unusually large crowds of people along the same road who were on their way to their ancestral home towns to be registered for Caesar's new head tax. It would have been natural to assume that something important was going on, and they may have simply stopped to check out the local Messiah legends. The star, which they would now have been keeping to their left, would have appeared to be "where the child was" as it rose after they entered Bethlehem, and eventually ended up overhead of everybody, including Baby Jesus (wherever he happened to be), at that latitude.

Matthew also documents the flight into Egypt and the massacre of the Holy Innocents, the Church's first canonized saints. Joseph was warned in a dream to go to Egypt to get away from Herod, and to return to the "land of Israel" only after Herod's death. The fact that he was afraid to return to Judea is considered by some commentators as indicating that Matthew places the Holy Family's home in Judea, not Galilee (directly contradicting Luke), but that's not what the text says. What it says is that Joseph was afraid to go from Egypt back to the land of Israel. Judea was the first part of the "land of Israel" anybody on a journey from Egypt to Nazareth would have encountered, because Judea is on the main road between Egypt and Nazareth. He almost certainly didn't have enough money for an expensive voyage by sea from Egypt directly to Galilee, especially for the extra accommodations required for safe passage of a young woman and toddler. Nevertheless, as usual, Joseph did as he was told and made the long and arduous journey from Egypt back to his boyhood home, no doubt taking extra care while he and his family were traveling to Galilee through the country of Judea then ruled by Herod's son, Archelaus.

Matthew says that after the visit in Bethlehem, the Magi, "having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed for their country by another way." Actually, there was no reason to return to Jerusalem if they were going "to their country" from Bethelehem, except out of courtesy to Herod, since he had asked them to report back to him. They might not have wanted to annoy such a ruthless and powerful tyrant (with good reason, as it turned out), but the dream gave them an excuse to get away from him by continuing their journey home by the most direct route, toward the Jordan River at the head of the Dead Sea, across the river, and then along the Silk Road north of Arabia to "the east" and, eventually, home (Iran).

This makes more sense to me than astrologers who magically divined that some never before seen star meant that the King of the Jews was being born that very night, and also, I think, explains why the Magi just happened to have gold, frankincense and myrrh with them. In addition, it was the vehicle by which this anecdotal story, which appears only in Matthew, found its way into the Bible. The gifts were valuable trade commodities that traveled well and brought a high price at the market. They were almost certainly taking them back home (where they were "from") to sell! Matthew, a tax collector, naturally would have considered anything regarding expensive (untaxed) gifts worth writing about! Had the Maji just been rich guys on a journey, we would never have heard about them at all; they would have had to give the Baby Jesus gifts made out of fresh, steamy camel dung!

^[3] With all those people crowded into tiny Bethlehem, the news of a pregnant teenaged newlywed foreigner quickly would have made the rounds of the old ladies in the village, many of whom were experienced midwives. Midwifery was so common that including the fact that Mary had the services of a midwife in the Christmas narrative would be like including the fact that she ate lunch, which is not mentioned in the gospel, either. On the other hand, Luke was a physician by trade, and when did you last hear a physician give any credit to a midwife?

^[4] The curious story of the angels and the shepherds appears only in Luke's Gospel. Luke, you will remember, was a pagan convert who carefully researched the origin and evolution of Christianity for his friend Theophilus, and compiled it in two books, the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles. He was apparently not an eyewitness to any of the things he wrote about Jesus. The fact that the experience of the shepherds, ordinary people "taking care of business every day," was recorded in his Gospel at all indicates that it was sufficiently noteworthy for him to have heard about it in the first place, and that he felt it was important enough that his noble patron should have been informed of it.

These shepherds were "living in the fields and keeping the night watch over their flock," basically "taking care of business every way." They didn't even have enough money to go into town for the night; they had to stay out in the fields with the sheep. They were therefore probably the lowliest of the lowly, teenagers and younger who were apprenticed to the older boys who were in town goofing off. Luke describes the youngsters as "struck with great fear," "sore afraid," or, perhaps, "terrified!" The angels immediately recognized this, because the first thing they told them was not to be afraid. The shepherds were sufficiently impressed that they immediately hurried into town (possibly to find the older boys) and found the Baby Jesus out of all the other babies that were probably born on that stress-filled night. The fact that they discussed the matter among themselves suggests that they went in shifts consisting of small groups, possibly to keep from abandoning the sheep, essentially "making business care a paradigm." They must have "made known" what they had seen and heard far and wide, because Luke managed to find out about it 90 years later, six generations (at that time) after it happened.

I think there is a profound message here, which Luke, the scholarly historian, recognized, even if modern commentators often do not. The first messengers to be chosen to receive the wondrous news of the arrival of the Savior of the World was not just a random group of poor, young, lowly peasant boys sitting around doing nothing and waiting for something to happen. These poor, young, lowly peasant boys were hard at work; "taking care of business and working overtime!"

^[5] All the bibles I have read say that Mary laid the child in a "manger" because there was no room for them in the "inn." The Latin word "diversorio" used in the Vulgate, the earliest Christian Bible, means "inn," "lodging house," "stopping place," "public/private accommodation," or "quarters." It does not mean a bed and breakfast motel, because such things didn't exist then. Bethlehem was a rest stop for shepherds, rough rowdy folk with not much money and used to living "on the street," so the "diversorio" might well have been cheap lodging, what we might today call a "flop house," or perhaps a "bar and brothel" where the AWOL shepherd boys could get fed, drunk, laid and sleep in a real bed all in the same place. Mary might not have wanted to stay there and have her baby in a public place with unwashed crowds of curious and possibly lecherous onlookers gawking at her.

My guess is that long-suffering Joseph dutifully asked around until he found a kindly soul (possibly the midwife's husband) who was willing to rent (or perhaps donate) a private space in his feed loft, where Mary could have her baby in private and then curl up in the warm hay and sleep after her ordeal, without being bothered by anybody, and with the midwife and possibly a doctor (a veterinarian) close by. People in that area of the world lived with their animals (and still do; the Palistinian Cave Dwellers live in caves with a bed/living room, a kitchen/dining room, and a room for their animals, who are more like pets than livestock). Giving Mary a warm, dry, private place to sleep might have been the equivalent of a modern home owner offering his daughter's bedroom for the young couple. The animals might have been the Bethlehemian equivalent of friendly family pets! The traditional hospitality of Semitic peoples suggests that this is the case. There is certainly no biblical evidence that it was filthy, or even less clean than the owner's personal bedroom, and the presence of animals (if any) might have kept the place comfortably warm. Mary might well have been grateful for their company (especially if one of them was a milk goat or cow).

Matthew gives us another clue that the Holy Family were guests of local residents. When the Magi visited, it was to a "house" (Vulgate: "domum"), not a stable or barn. My guess is that it was the private home where temporarily homeless Mary, Joseph and Jesus had taken up residence as guest members of the generous host family until Baby Jesus was strong enough to endure the long trek back to Nazareth. Good thing, too, because as it turned out, he had to survive the trip all the way to Egypt!

As for the "manger" (which is mentioned three times), the Vulgate word, "praesepio" can mean "manger" (a container/dispenser for hay), but it can also mean "baby bed," "crib," "brothel," "feed stall," "haunt," "lodging," or "home turf." I think it could well have been a container and dispenser of hay, which makes sense if Mary delivered in a hay loft. Such mangers were up high, so the cattle wouldn't pull out the hay and ruin it by trampling on it, so it was a safe and entirely reasonable place to put a baby, much better than, say, at the "inn" with a bunch of drunken, horny street people. On the other hand, I think Joseph gets far too little credit for his part in all this, and it wouldn't surprise me if, having diligently and responsibly found precisely the right place for his young wife to deliver, he might have searched around and found a "baby bed" or "crib" to put the Baby Jesus in. Heck, he was a craftsman (but perhaps not exactly a "carpenter" in an area of the world where there are precious few trees); he might have even made one!

^[6] Speaking of making things, it is reasonable to assume that Joseph the craftsman ("fabri," literally "maker" in the Vulgate) passed on his profession to his (foster) son, who would have made his living that way. It wouldn't have been a very lucrative profession for a woodworker, because in tiny, dry Nazareth there were few people who could afford things made out of the scarce lumber available. On the other hand, driftwood was so common along the shores of the Jordan river that boats were made out of it. We know that Jesus moved to Capernaum near the beginning of his public ministry. This seacoast town has no obvious advantages over landlocked Nazareth except that it provides a fertile opportunity for boatbuilders to ply their trade, ultimately bringing them into contact with people who used the boats, namely, fishermen. What were the professions of the Apostles Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John? (Hint: Matthew 4:18, 21) Spending time along the Jordan picking up driftwood would have brought him into contact with the popular, charismatic John the Baptist who may have influenced Jesus to begin his own ministry in the same fashion.

I submit as evidence a picture of the Galilee Boat, found on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee, where the Apostles were known (from Matthew 4:18, 15:29, Mark 1:16, 7:31 and John 6:1) to fish. (Capernaum is near where it was found.) It has been reliably dated by two independent methods to the beginning of the Christian era, when Jesus lived there. It may be the only physical object we have that connects us personally to him; Jesus himself may have built or repaired this very boat!

Merry Christmas!

John Lindorfer