Reflection on the Word for the Presentation of the Lord (Sunday)
of February 6, 2020
WE SHALL GROW IN FAITH EVERYDAY - LUKE 2:38-30
" When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him. "
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The slogan-ish end of the presentation story, which says that " The child grew, and grew strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was on him.”, is the same generalization as the adjacent story ends, when Jesus and his parents visited the Temple at his age of 12. The Gospel of Luke says that "Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men." Both endings sound too generic.
In the gospel of Mark there is no nativity story at all, the narrative starts, when Jesus had been already 30 years old. Mark does not know anything, what had happened before Jesus showed up at the shoreline of the river Jordan. The gospel of Matthew and the gospel of Luke, when they are talking about the birth and the childhood of Jesus, they contradict each other and have a couple of inconsistencies in attempting to give a credible account of the early years of Jesus including his birth.
However, there existed some very early sources, either as an oral tradition or Aramaic speaking texts regarding Jesus speeches and his miracles, separately. Somehow it looks like, that the much later published gospels, like Matthew and Luke, seem to hide, alter and even camouflage the events of his growing up deliberately. Mark wrapped in utter silence. The question is, that why the Gospels are tiptoeing around the very identity of the historical Jesus, including his obviously artificial genealogy chart, where Matthew and Luke characteristically managed to produce two differing family trees.
In the ancient Middle East the family trees and genealogies were very important, especially in Israel, where, for example, priesthood were strictly hereditary, family ties were remembered for centuries, clan and tribal affiliations were followed for millennia.
If the family ties of Jesus are hid by the Gospel writers in a deliberately created fog, then there was a willing consensus to do exactly that. There must have been some preventative and deliberate measures taken to save the family of Jesus from further persecution. They had to hide the very identity of Jesus and his immediate family, even centuries later. We shall never forget that Christianity itself, in the first centuries, was the religion of martyrs and was heavily persecuted. However, there are still some textual clues in the Gospels, that their accounts are coded, carrying hidden hints of what was really going on.
The Gospel of Matthew began with the Magis, the Astronomers or envoys, coming from Parthia, seeking for the rightful King of the Jews. The ultimate Messianic title in the Bible is not the King of the Jews. The Messianic title is the King of Israel. Pontius Pilate, when according to the Roman Law publicized the reason of the crucifixion on the tag plate of the cross, he made it written that Iesus Nasarenus Rex Iudeorum, which meant the King of the Jews. A contemporary political title.
The official crime, Jesus was accused and sentenced for, was that he had been declared by the crowds the King of the Jews, without the permission of the Roman Emperor, which was a capital offense. At this time the Davidic dynasty was too far in the past of more than six-hundred years. In the first century, in Jerusalem, only two type of royalty claims could have had some personal weight, if someone would have been deemed a Herodean throne claimant, backed by the Roman Empire, or a Hasmonean throne claimant backed by the Parthian empire.
This latter, the so called Hasmonean dynasty, was the last ethnically Jewish ruling family over Judea. It is more than likely that Jesus' mother might have been somehow a Hasmonean princess, possibly even the daughter or granddaughter of the last Hasmonean Jewish king Mattathias II. He was captured by the Roman vassal Herod and executed by the Roman dictator Antonius in the year of 37 BCE. Herod, the next King, a cruel warlord, was especially merciless toward the remnants of the Hasmoneans, a breathing threat to his throne. Herod systematically had all of them executed or assassinated. Here and there hardly anyone or two survived this great Herodean purge.
Thus, the young mother with the kid, not only had to flee for their life, but also had to hide their identity, for ever. Some anti-Herodean priestly families must have helped them to flee and they hid them behind a new identity. That could have been easily the historical reason, why and how Mary got betrothed to Joseph, meanwhile she had been already pregnant. Although Luke does not know or does not want to know at all of their fleeing to Egypt, Matthew says that they ran to Egypt fearing for their life.
Egypt, in Alexandria, had an enormous Jewish community in exile. The exiles came back to Egypt in many waves. The first great wave happened, when the Jews fled the Babylonians in the 6th century BCE. The second great wave fled the mad tyranny of Antiochus Epiphanes in the middle of the 2nd century BCE. The refugees even built, actually two times, a Jewish Temple in Egypt, and they also had High Priests there and legally serving priesthood in it. The family of Jesus, having ties to the Herod opposing, Egypt favoring priesthood, easily found support in Egypt. It is also not a coincidence that John the Baptist’s father was officially a temple priest, and that John and Jesus were cousins.
Luke states that the nativity story of Betlehem happened because of the famous tax registry ordered by the Roman governor Qurinius. According to the historical documents of the Roman administration this tax registry really happened in the year of 6 CE, which is around ten years later than Jesus had been apparently born. However, the tax registry story may have still served as a clue as well, because after Herod, his son Archelaus ruled exactly for ten years, and he was removed by the Romans exactly in 6 CE. It means that Luke hints that the Herodean search after the family and the kid was still on, and it ceased to exist only when Archelaus was disgraced and exiled. Luke technically says that only after that in 6 CE, they returned to Galilee.
If the family spent the exile period in Egypt or somewhere else, they were likely protected by the priestly network connected to Egypt, to which the family of John the Baptist also belonged. The Baptist movement had its first leader in John, and it is also not a coincidence, he also lost his life to the Herodean vengeance. After his cousin, John’s death, Jesus became the leader. The Gospel is right by hinting that they both existed in exile and hiding.
The Gospels were written after the events, and in hindsight the Gospel witnesses, that when Jesus grew up, he took up his mission as a teacher, as a prophet, as a Master, as King, as a Christ, who gave up his life for the others. It did not happen overnight. But exactly, that happened, what the Gospel reads that " The child grew, and grew strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was on him.” And when the day came, the Heaven was opened above and the Voice said: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
May we bless the Son according to the will of God in Heaven, by the Holy Spirit, and by showing our everyday growing Faith in our good deeds, AMEN.
