Radio Script #953

Little Talks on Common Things
December 24, 1972

Again, as has long been the custom for this program, today’s broadcast is devoted to the subject of Christmas. In many churches today the story of Jesus’ birth is being read from the gospels. The favorite account of that story is in the book of Luke, “There we find the most detailed relation of events of Jesus’ life. Most of us are well aware that the four gospels differ greatly in the incidents their writers selected to record. Some episodes are told only in one gospel, some in two, very few in all four. That does not mean that, because only one gospel writer told of an event, it didn’t happen. It only means that, for the purpose of his writing, that incident impressed him as worth telling.

The story of Jesus’ birth is told in only two of the gospels, Matthew and Luke, and those accounts are quite different in certain details that have become part of our Christian tradition. Both say that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Both refer to a shining star. But in Matthew makes no mention of a cave stable or a manger and his account it has not shepherds, but astrologers, the Wise Men of the East, who came to worship the baby. It is no wonder that Luke’s account has always been more popular than Matthews. It is closer to ordinary life; it stresses the humble place of Jesus’ birth; it lays the groundwork for his unfailing concern for the poor, the sick, and the oppressed during the reign of Herod. After his birth, astrologers from the east arrived at Jerusalem asking, “Where is the child who is born to be king of the Jews? We observed the rising of his star and have come to pay him homage.”

Then follows the account of Herod directing the astrologers to Bethlehem with the intent to kill the child when they had reported to him exactly where the baby was. After that, the gospel story continues in these words: “The star went ahead of them until it stopped above the place where the child lay. At the sight of the star they were overjoyed. Entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and bowed to the ground in homage to him. Then they opened their treasures and offered him gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh and being warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned home another way.”

Notice that Matthew says nothing about a stable or a manger.

Now let us see how Luke wrote a much more impressive and beautiful story: “In those days, a decree was issued by the Emperor Augustus for a registration to be made throughout the Roman world. This was the first registration of its kind. For this purpose everyone made way to his own town so Joseph went up to Judea from Nazareth in Galilee to register at the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was of the house of David by descent. With him went Mary. She was child, and while they were there the time came for her baby to be born, and she gave birth to a son, her first-born. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them.

“Now in the same district there were shepherds out in the fields, keeping watch through the night over their flocks, when suddenly there stood before them an angel of the Lord. They were terror-stricken, but the angel said, “Do not be afraid. I have good news for you. Today in the city of David, a deliverer has been born to you – the Messiah, the Lord. And this is your sign: You will find a baby lying wrapped in swaddling clothes in a manger.”

The shepherds said: “‘We must go straight to Bethlehem.” So they went with all speed and found their way to Mary and Joseph, and the baby was lying in a manger. When they saw him, they revealed what they had been told about this child and all who heard were astonished, but Mary treasured all these things and pondered over them.”

Our Christian heritage, in pageantry and music, in liturgy and art, has long combined these two stories, so that we have combined the birth of a royal child lavished with gifts by three wise men and the birth of a humble baby visited by simple shepherds. In one was foreseen the Messiah king, who was expected to deliver Israel from the Roman yoke. In the other the Messiah savior of the common man, humbling himself on a Roman cross.

Now it occurs to me that there are items in both of these gospel stories that are only words to the younger generation of 1972. The only manger many of our young people ever saw is the kind depicted on the creche scenes erected at Christmas in churches and homes. Men and women of my age remember well the mangers, the barns and stables of long ago. In the early year of this century, many families had one or more horses and those horses in barns or stable ate their ::12:11: from mangers.

In our own stable in Bridgton, Maine, were stalls for three horses, two open-end stalls and a box stall. In that latter deluxe accommodation was kept Mollie, my father’s carriage horse. In the open stalls were the two work horses, whose duty it was to haul the delivery team for Father’s grocery store. Attached to the front end of each stall was an open box called a manger, in which was put the grain and hay for each meal the horse had. To feed the horse one had to pour a measure of grain into the manger, and to do it one had to go into the stall beside the animal. How we hated the nippers and the crowders – those occasional horses that would grab one’s sleeve in their teeth, or would push one against the side of the stall. Fortunately most of our horses were gentle, and my brother and I could safely feed them when we were young. Hay was put into the manger with less risk to nips and crowding. On the second floor of the stable was the hay loft. Leading down into each manger was a wooden chute, down which we would pitch the required quantity of hay.

Now for another item in the Luke story.

Does any listener to this program know what swaddling clothes looked like? They were long, narrow strips of cloth wrapped around a newborn baby, to prevent the infants’ free movement and thus avoiding injury. In later times all that resembled swaddling was the diaper; otherwise, the baby had a long dress.

As for Matthew’s story about the gifts brought by the Wise Men, everyone knows that gold has been highly regarded as a precious metal for centuries. Much of King Solomon’s wealth is said to have come from the mines of Arabah. The spur that prodded the early voyages to this continent in the late 15th and early 16th centuries was the belief that fabulous gold mines would be found on this side of the Atlantic.

Everyone knows what gold is, but what were frankincense and myrrh?

Frankincense is a gum resin obtained from certain trees in Asia and Africa. Even today, the milk-like juice is gathered, allowed to harden into lumps, and then carried in goat-skin containers on camels to seaports. The frankincense brought by the Wise Men probably came from some part of the Arabian peninsula, where today frankincense is shipped from Aden and other Arabian ports. The ancient Egyptians used frankincense in their religious rites. It was highly regarded by the Jews, that it constituted a greater part of all the incense used in the sanctuary. It was stored in the great chamber of the Temple in Jerusalem.

Myrrh was also highly regarded as medicine. Moreover, itwas commonly used in Egyptian embalming. It comes from a ‘3rna11 tree grown only in Arabia and East Africa. Like frankincense, it was a part of all incense used in the Jewish sanctuaries.

It was quite natural that the good Jew, Matthew, should include frankincense and myrrh along with gold in his ancient story. He was fully familiar with the ancient belief, by no means restricted to the Jews, that God loves a pleasant odor, and the aroma of frankincense and myrrh was delightful. Like gold, frankincense and myrrh were both precious luxuries that common people could not have – things that belonged to the Temple and to royalty.

What a far cry is Christmas today from what it signified to our forefathers. It was to them a day of deep, religious significance, not one of boisterous celebrating and commercialized giving.

But let us not be too pessimistic. Change is the law of life, and not all change is by any means bad. The giving that accompanies a modern Christmas, the annual exchange of greeting cards, the baskets to the shut-ins – these things do make us think of others rather than ourselves.

We forget that there was a time less than two centuries ago when New England people paid no attention to Christmas by any special observance, even in their churches. Even as long ago as when St. Paul was still alive, the church’s emphasis was on Jesus’ crucifixion and ressurection, not on his birth. The birth got recognition with the Roman church’s sanctification of Mary. It was not the coming of Protestantism, but of a special branch of Protestants – the Puritans that knocked Christmas out of the picture for a couple of centuries. The Puritans associated the gaiety of Christmas with all they considered evil in the Church of England. Everything that savored of idolatry must be abolished. Along with other images must go the pictures of Madonna and child, the creche, and all other visible symbols of Jesus’ birth.

As a result, right here in Waterville, it was in the 1850s before any attention was paid to Christmas. The time for exchanging gifts was January first the beginning of the New Year, not December 25. But in those years just before the Civil War the strangle-hold of Puritans on New England life had at last been broken, and change to the modern Christmas was on its way.

How true it is that our behavior habits are seldom controlled by Aristotle’s Golden Mean – not too little, not too much, but just enough – so we went from no observance of Christmas at all to wild orgies of office parties, and wild extravagance of gifts. Perhaps some day we can more generally recognize both the gaiety and the sacred meaning of Christmas.

Year: 1972