A few mistakes in our Christmas stories
In many Nativity stories, Joseph and Mary come with a donkey, are refused a room in the local motel, and Mary gives birth in a stable that very night, with only Joseph to help. People are trying to fill in gaps in the biblical story, and they probably made some mistakes along the way. For all we know, there was no donkey, and Mary may have arrived well before she gave birth (Luke 2:6). There may have been midwives to help her, and nativity stories in some cultures include lots of helpers.
The King James Version says “there was no room for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7), but Bethlehem was probably too small to have an inn. The Greek word most likely means a guest room in an ordinary house (see the NIV and several other recent translations). Due to a shortage of lumber for rafters, bedrooms were usually narrow, so Mary used a larger room for the baby. Animals were often kept in the house overnight, and the feeding trough may have been made of stone.
Babies were normally wrapped in cloth, but they were not normally placed in feed troughs; the fact that Jesus was in a feed trough was a confirming sign to the shepherds that this was the Messiah, the Savior (v. 12).
The Western world sings “We Three Kings of Orient Are.” Western legends give them names: Melchior, Balthazar, and Caspar. In some Eastern churches, however, there were twelve visitors from the east. The Bible calls them magi, and doesn’t tell us how many there were (Matt. 2:1). Christians in different regions tried to fill in the gaps in the story.
We do not know when the magi visited Jesus. Matthew 2:8–11 implies that he was still in Bethlehem, which suggests that it was soon after his birth. Herod ordered the death of all boys in Bethlehem age two and under because he may have been calculating from the time the magi first saw the star (v. 16), and Herod may have been generous in his calculations just to be sure.
Many of the details about Jesus’ birth are not known for sure, so a nativity play will have to make some guesses. Our congregation in Glendora, CA, recently held a “living nativity,” and it was necessary to make a few guesses about clothing, number and gender of shepherds, manger construction, and types of animals to portray. Some of our details were constrained by what we had available, and some were wrong. I am confident that none of the magi were Filipino, and that none of the shepherds wore glasses!
Such details are necessary for portraying the story, but they do not affect the point of the story. Some biblical details are like that. Many people think that Isaiah says that the lamb will lie down with the lion. It doesn’t say that (see Isa. 11:6), but the point is still true. Isaiah could have made the same point by talking about mice and hawks, but it was better to name predators that were a danger to humans, too.
The details are there not so much for their own sake, but are examples to help make a more important point. Nevertheless, we sometimes get distracted by the details (and minor discrepancies) and miss the point. The point of the nativity story is not found in donkeys, motel rooms, the gender of the shepherds, the number of the magi, or the time of year.
One point we can see in the nativity story is that the Son of God became a human – not a rich and powerful person, but a baby in humble (even humiliating) circumstances. The kingdom of God begins small, like a mustard seed (or you could say a grain of rice, if you are in a different culture). When judged by the priorities of a world gone astray, God does things in an unexpected way, a hidden way. Salvation is not achieved by the methods and expectations of the world.
Scripture gives us glimpses of God’s work behind the scenes, but to most observers, Jesus’ birth was inconspicuous and not important. Sometimes God’s work through us also seems unimportant. A relatively small number of people came to our living nativity. But God has many ways to work in those who did come, and many ways to work in us as we prepared and presented the event.
The biblical nativity stories are about Jesus, but Jesus doesn’t do anything in these stories. They show us the way that God works, and that can encourage us. We can see ourselves as participants in his story, too, and know that God is working behind the scenes. We do not judge the value of our work by external results, but we trust that God knows what he’s doing and will achieve something that we cannot. He gets the details right, even when we do not.
Have a faith-filled Christmas!
Michael Morrison, GCS News, Winter 2022