A/N: Nothing in this story is meant to be offensive. To offend, perhaps, but not to be offensive. This is merely my attempt to tell an accurate version of the birth of Christ and the events leading up to it in a way that looks behind the curtain we've erected for ourselves and reveals the true characters of the Bible. Warning: some language, and a very glossed-over description of childbirth.
Imagine Mary, the mother of Jesus. What does she look like? An eternal virgin, soft-skinned and beautiful? Young and smiling, holding a child on her lap that will never grow up, trapped forever in those mystical years of desirability and yet somehow risen above it all by being more pure, more virtuous, simply better than any other woman?
Stop.
That is not Mary.
This is.
A girl, old enough to be married and young enough to be your little sister, works in the courtyard of her home in the Judean countryside. She has dark skin, her hair is most likely black and uncut and her eyes brown. In short, she is unremarkable; simply one of the many Jewish girls working in her small village.
She is outside, perhaps cooking, cleaning, or doing some other menial chore and thinking about her husband-to-be. Joseph, the carpenter's son, working beside his father in the hot sun. He is hardly older than she is, and they don't know if they love each other yet. For now, all she knows is that her father thinks he is a good man; the rest will come after their wedding night.
Is all this sounding strange? Not how it should? Like it's the story of another time and place? I raise to you the possibility that it is. These events took place over two thousand years ago. We do it no favours by ripping it from its context and time to drown it in our own.
Back to our story.
An angel appears to Mary. She is shocked and frightened, as would any of us be. This angel is terrifying; made to stand before the Lord of Hosts, it is inhuman. It could have two eyes or many, no wings or wings everywhere, take the shape of a human or not, surrounded by fire, wielding a sword, or a hundred other awesome details.
That, too, is not important.
What is important is its message; that Mary will give birth to the Son of God, the child of Yahweh Himself, and He will save the people from their sins. She is to call the child Jesus.
Mary doesn't protest. She accepts her fate, even though she knows the consequences. Death, if her family finds out or she marries Joseph too late. No one will believe her; Elohim has not spoken for four hundred years, and many believe he has abandoned their people entirely.
No matter.
She bows to the ground, accepting the message and her fate with quiet obedience. The angel disappears and she is once again alone, except now something is different. No, everything is different. She is carrying the child of El-Elyon, and this will change the world. Mary doesn't know why she has been chosen, but she listens to the Lord's command and follows it with the strength of Esther and Deborah.
She is not perfect, though you may think so. Perfect people are not chosen to fulfill Yahweh's plans – there is usually little He can do with them. Flawed people, hurt people, broken people, these are the ones He decides to use as his heralds and messengers, and Mary is no exception.
She doesn't know what to do, so she waits with quiet faith. Joseph is a good man, her father has said. He may have mercy on her, and if he does not, the Lord of Heaven's Armies surely will. She goes to bed that night, and every night for a week and prays to a God who has finally spoken that she may not die.
Does this sound right yet? No? Why not?
Is it sounding too foreign to what you know? Were you expecting another story where Mary is unafraid and proudly proclaims her angelic announcement to anyone who will listen?
Well. Let me interrupt the story for a moment. No one would believe her, not truly. They read the scriptures and practice the Torah and wait for the day when Yahweh will overthrow the Romans like he did the Assyrians and Egyptians, but they do not believe like you and I do. They are not Christian, and that is the one thing we always forget. They are Jews, and we are not. They live two millennia separated from us, and, most importantly, they are not us.
Let me repeat that. They. Are. Not. Us.
They will not welcome what is, in their eyes, an unwed mother proclaiming the birth of an illegitimate child. (Neither would we, if we are to be completely honest with ourselves.) There are words for her and her child, words that we still use. Bastard. Whore. Slut. Adulteress. They are not soft words and neither are the rocks they will use to stone Mary if they discover her. Unless something happens, she has just been doomed to be killed by the very people who have raised her.
But something does happen.
Thousands of miles away, in the upper echelons of Roman government, Quirinuis has ordered a census to be taken. Governor of what we now call Syria, he has ordered every Jewish male citizen to go back to the town of their birth. It is far from the first census to be taken, and far from the last, but this one is part of something more.
For, you see, Joseph's family is not from Mary's town. He is originally from Bethlehem.
He is also a good man and when he hears the rumours that have started to swirl around the town – for a pregnancy is not that easily hidden, especially on a teenage girl – he decides to be merciful. He could order Mary to be stoned, dragged in front of the elders and degraded before being killed, but he does not. Perhaps he loves her, or thinks she is beautiful, or simply values her as a person; in the end the reasons are unclear. He is simply a good man, and that is enough.
He dreams. He dreams and an angel appears to him; whether it is the same one that came to Mary or not is unclear and doesn't matter. It gives him a message: to take Mary as his wife and not to fear the consequences. He wakes up and obeys.
The news of the census spreads and Mary comes home from where she has been staying with her cousin. Elizabeth is a descendant of Aaron, as is her husband, and her pregnancy is also miraculous. Her son will be named John and he will be a prophet in the vein of Elijah, a herald of the Son of the Most High.
The rumours are no quieter, but Mary does her best to ignore them. She denounces some of them, the stories of illicit trysts with other men, of encounters both willing and not with Roman soldiers, but some she doesn't have the energy to fight. Joseph stays with her, placing his reputation on the line for her sake, and she begins to understand what love truly is.
So, Mary returns home and Joseph is worried. He is a good man, and he knows that if he does not bring Mary on the journey to Bethlehem, there are those in the town who are all too eager to stone her. Disrespect, adultery, these are deadly crimes.
And, even though Mary is too pregnant for this journey, he brings her along. They most likely aren't traveling alone – as romantic as the image is, it isn't safe nor practical with the dangers of bandits and sickness, not to mention Mary's health. That is not to say others are welcoming to them – they most likely do not. Still, they arrive in Bethlehem, after long days and even longer nights of walking across rough desert and scrub. Both Mary and Joseph are dirty and tired when they approach the outskirts of his ancestral home.
Mary is also in pain; carrying a baby is never easy and especially not for one so young. She is almost crying from exhaustion when they arrive, and when the doors start slamming in their face, tears start tracing down her face.
You see, as much as we may like the image of the well-meaning but simply overcrowded innkeeper, the truth is far harsher.
Joseph's family lives in Bethlehem and he has aunts, uncles, cousins, and others spread out throughout the town. However, none of them are willing to accept Mary. The same words that were being spoken openly when they left are whispered here, and a wave of anger rises in Joseph. He will not leave her; that is not the sort of man he is, and so, they are relegated to a cave on the edge of town that the shepherds use when they need cover in winter.
Right now, it is lambing season so the sheep are in the fields and there are only a few animals in there. A cow, possibly. A donkey, perhaps. It is unimportant. Mary is in pain, the labour has started, and she needs a place to give birth. The straw is dirty and trampled by animal's hooves, but she does not care.
The birth is not silent, despite what carols you may believe. It is hard and tiring and bloody, and when it is over Mary is weeping from pain and exhaustion. She holds her child, wraps him snugly in cloth, and then places him in the manger. It is a poor option, but she has no other. Joseph hovers, protecting the newborn from the animals that would harm him more likely than not.
Now, is this the story you imagined? It isn't, I know. The story you've heard is cleaner, more acceptable, less painful. However, stripping away centuries of paint and varnish will often reveal some truths that can be unpleasant.
As I have said, it is lambing season. Shepherds are out in the fields, watching their herds to prevent any of their ewes from dying while they give birth. Sheep are stupid, it is a well-known fact, and that is assuredly the reason why they are such a popular comparison for us.
When the angel appears, the shepherds are afraid. Not a shock or a fright, no. This is terror; they are facing something that radiates holy power and they are sure death must follow it. Sometimes, they may be correct. This is not one of those times.
The angel relays the message with joyful noise, singing with its brethren. The shepherds are sure they have witnessed a miracle not meant for their eyes and run back to Bethlehem to find the child the angels sing about.
They find him; kneeling at the manger where Joseph and Mary are keeping him alive until morning, they worship. The Pharisees and Sadducees at the synagogue are holy men, men of learning, who debate over theology for days, but this miracle has come to them, the shepherds out in the hills, and they are grateful. They are awestruck at the gift Elohim has given them and they kneel in front of his Son and worship, the joy mixing with the fear.
Can you see it now? Have I painted a good enough picture for you?
Mary, kneeling on bloodied straw next to her husband as she watches these rough men worship her child. Joseph, worried for his wife, protective of the son Yahweh has given them, ready to defend both of them. The shepherds, still fearful, but overflowing with the desire to tell everyone they know the news of this awesome miracle.
And Jesus, the newborn at the centre of it all. He is a baby and hungry, so he begins to cry. Mary nurses him then and there; she has no other options, and the tears that never quite stopped begin again. This child is hers, hers and Elohim's, and she does not know what she has done to deserve him but she will protect him until the day she dies.
Across the miles there are wise men crossing a desert, and in a palace in Jerusalem there is a cruel and paranoid king, but this is where the story ends for now. Different than you thought, but perhaps not so different after all. Strange, but familiar all at once.
Maybe, once you strip away the layers, allowing the people in this story to be human and brought down off their overwhelmingly tall pedestals, the stable ceasing to be an altar too high to reach and instead becoming a small cave holding only a handful of outcasts and the Son of God who will save them, this story can come alive once again and read itself back to you as a miraculous happening full of the wonder and awe it deserves.