Jesus: A Biography From a Believer. Read Free Page A

poetry of mighty power.
    Luke says Mary stayed three months with Elizabeth. She then returned to Nazareth and told Joseph of her condition. According to the Gospel of St. Matthew (1:19-25), which in many respects is the most detailed and is based upon Aramaic sources, her fiancé, who had treated her as a virgin, was shocked by her news. “[B]eing a just man,” however, he was “not willing to make her a publick example, [but] was minded to put her away privily. . . . [W]hile he thought on these things,” an angel appeared to him “in a dream” and said, “[F]ear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.” Matthew says that Joseph did as the angel bid “and took unto him his wife.” Matthew says that Joseph did not cohabit with Mary until Jesus was born. Indeed, the most ancient traditions insist that Mary remained a virgin all her life, though Joseph gave her and her child all the love and care of a devoted husband.
    The next episode occurred four or five months later, when a decree of the emperor, Augustus, for a census needed for taxation was passed on to all Herod’s subjects by Cyrenius, the governor of Syria. They were commanded to register at their native towns. As both Joseph and Mary were of David’s house, they went (Mary “great with child,” as noted in Luke 2:5) to Jerusalem, the city David had added to the Jewish kingdom by conquest, and in particular to Bethlehem, a small, one-street town six miles away, which was particularly associated with David’s name. Mary was a sturdy teenager. This was her third long journey while pregnant. Once in Bethlehem, “the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn” (Lk 2:6-7). About a century later, Justin Martyr, who came from about forty miles away and repeated local tradition, said the manger was a cave; that is not unlikely, for there are many in the limestone ridge on which Bethlehem perches.
    There is no mention of a doctor or midwife, and Joseph seems to have been Mary’s only attendant. But she had no need of help. She ministered to herself, and her baby was, and remained throughout his life, healthy. But there were visitors (Lk 2:8-18; Mt 2:1-12). According to Luke, local shepherds, “keeping watch over their flock by night,” were startled by an astonishing light, which they recognized as an angelic vision— “and they were sore afraid.” But they were told by the angel: “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy. . . . For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. . . . Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.” Suddenly there was a heavenly chorus singing, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” The shepherds decided to go to Bethlehem, and they found Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, just as the angel said, in a stable. They explained all this to local people, and “all they that heard it wondered.” They also told Mary of the light, and the angel, and the chorus, so that she “kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.”
    What Luke did not describe, but Matthew did, were the next visitors, “wise men from the east.” They brought gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh, “treasures” as Matthew called them, fit for a king. For the wise men were astrologers, used to studying the heavens and prognosticating from the changing configurations of the stars. One star in particular they believed denoted by its position that a king had been born to the Jews. They came to Jerusalem and presented themselves at Herod’s court, asking to be given directions. Herod “gathered all the chief