THE BIRTH OF JESUS

Every December 25th Christians celebrate Christmas, that is, the birth of Jesus, a carpenter from Nazareth, who, because of his holy life, his miracles, his teachings and his resurrection from the dead, is recognized as the Son of God. Christians understand this event as God's own entrance into humanity to save it from the yoke of sin and death. In Luke 2:1-10, three aspects reveal the uniqueness of this event: the realization of a spiritual reality that permeates the world of matter; birth itself; and the discreet character of the announcement of this event. 

It was to be just another night's vigil by the flocks. But suddenly the shepherds found themselves taken by a spiritual vision in which a being not of this world, that is, an angel, appeared to them. This angel announced to them: "I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David the Saviour, has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord” (Luke 2.11). After the talk of this angel, the material reality is miraculously torn again and they, the shepherds, see a scene from another world in which "a great multitude of the heavenly army appeared with the angel, praising God" because of the birth of the baby Jesus. 

Although humanity lives immersed in a world of matter, the sacred Scriptures speak, from beginning to end, of a nonmaterial reality, a spiritual world that interferes with this world in which we live. The Apostle Paul, for example, speaking of himself, said that he knows a man who "was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell" (2 Corinthians 12:1-4), a reality of existence incomprehensible to the human mind. The Apostle John, also a prisoner on the island of Patmos because of the gospel, was raptured in spirit on the Lord's day and had a vision of God's throne room and other environments and settings of the Creator's spiritual world, as described in his Revelation. 

With respect to the birth of Jesus, the Lucan narrative actually deals with the moment when the Creator becomes a creature to live among men and redeem them from the prison of death because of the original sin that drove them away from God. See that Luke 2:11 says that it is God who is born: "...today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. "Christ" is the Greek form of the Hebrew word "Messiah", which means "Anointed One". And that Christ, that is, that Messiah is the "Lord". The word "Lord" in the Greek in which the gospel was written is κύριος, which Gingrich and Danker (2005, p.123) affirm that it was used, among other meanings, to designate "God," as well as Jesus, indicating his divinity. Kύριος appears more than 700 times in the New Testament in reference to Jesus. 

With regard to the discreet announcement of such an important event, it is striking that it was made to humble pastors. It was the arrival of the long awaited Messiah, promised and prophesied in the Old Testament. The religious awaited this event with great expectattion. But it was the simple shepherds that God gave the news. The pastors, in the Jewish society of that time, constituted a discredited class of people.They were even considered by the religious to be impure because they did not perform certain rites of purification because of their profession. It should also be noted that the witness of the sepherds had no value in the courts.  Why was the arrival of the Son of God announced to exactly these people? 

Paul explains a little of God's action in the world in his first letter to the Corinthians (1:18-31; 2). The Apostle says, "God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things – and the things that are not – to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him” (1Corinthians 1.27-29). He also says that if the powerful had understood the mystery of Christ they would not have crucified Him, but God revealed Him to the little ones through the Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:8,10). 

The religious, with their theological schemes, did not become aware of the coming of the Messiah. Jesus was only recognized as the Son of God by the humble, because the way God revealed Himself in Christ fled from human logic. Jesus remains misunderstood by many. The Jews were asking for miraculous signs, the Greeks were asking for wisdom, today, men are asking for a rational explanation, but it pleased God to save some of humanity through "the folly of preaching" (1 Corinthians 1:21,22). Christ can only be understood through faith. "Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek him" (Hebrews 11:6).

[1] GINGRICH, F. Wilbur e DANKER, Frederick W. Léxico do Novo Testamento: Grego - Português. São Paulo: Vida Nova, 2005.

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