Mary, Did You Know?

     This blog is not about the popular Christmas song with the above title, it is about the way Christmas songs have formed, for right or wrong, many of our beliefs about Christ's birth. I enjoy both modern and traditional carols and many contain sound theology, especially if you sing all the verses. Others, like the title above, speculate about what the participants in the Christmas story felt, and that is a good way to meditate on God's Word. But some of our traditional beliefs about Jesus' birth fall far from the star, so to speak. I wonder what Mary thinks when newcomers to heaven tell her what we have come to believe about Jesus birth, courtesy of carols.

     Mary, did you know:

•   That because around the 4th century A.D., Christmas began to be celebrated in winter, we sing about Jesus being born in winter. The Bible does not specify when Jesus was born, and there is probably a good reason for that, but greater minds than mine have drawn from some practical considerations. One being that because shepherds brought their flocks in from the fields for the winter, as ranchers still do with livestock, if the shepherds were in the fields, it was probably not winter. The other practical issue is that Roman rulers would likely recognize that requiring subjects to return to hometowns to pay taxes in winter when travel was difficult, might cut into their tax revenues. They might have been cruel, but they were not stupid.
•   Other scholars have calculated the timing by using John the Baptist's birth. Zechariah's temple service in the order of Abijah would have been in June. If Elizabeth got pregnant in June and was six months along when Mary became pregnant, then John would have been born in March and Jesus in September. It is wonderful to have the Christmas season to brighten our "Bleak Mid-Winter", but it is unlikely that winter is when it actually occurred.
  
•   That we think you were turned away from some local Super 8 type motel when the word "kataluma" actually describes family guest quarters, which naturally would be full if all Joseph's family gathered in Bethlehem for the census. And the stable was not some cave far away, but usually attached to the home where the animals could be protected during the night. Often this was in the main room of the house. If I had the choice of giving birth in front of unknown in-laws or the privacy of the stable, I would have chosen the stable too.
  
•   That since only Mary, Joseph and Jesus were mentioned after the birth, we assume Joseph delivered Jesus. That is extremely unlikely however, if the stable was in the family home. If the guest quarters was crammed full of relatives, some of them had to be women. And women, especially those who already had children, would be hard to keep away from Mary's delivery, even if an experienced midwife was available. Women want to help (although sometimes it is called meddling/interfering) and very few women can resist holding a newborn, much less helping him get born. Just because the Bible does not say who helped with the labor and delivery, that does not mean the couple went through it alone, however poignant the carols may be.
•   That because there were three gifts given by the Magi, we sing about the three of them traveling thousands of miles bearing gifts of great value (through barren, lawless lands with only their camels for protection). Some have even given the wise men biblical sounding names. Even if there were only three Magi, it would have required an army of guards and support staff to get them that far across the desert with their lives, not to mention wealth, intact. But showing that would require too many costumes and an extremely crowded stage at church Christmas pageants.

      It is always better to take our theology from the Bible than the hymnal. The cover may say "Sacred Hymns", but the contents are not inspired unless they are solely scripture. And I am sure Mary has heard about our misconceptions about her conception many times, but I do not think she will mind if I ask, "Mary, did you know . . .?"