uncertain about the birth of Jesus.”
“The historical date doesn’t matter so much,” objected Chieko. “That’s something we may well leave to scholars. Please go on with the story. That’s what really matters.”
“I quite sympathize with you,” I said with a smile. “But I don’t think Luke would have agreed with you. He goes to some pains to place the birth of Jesus in its historical background, and he must have turned in his grave when the monk named Dionysius got it all wrong. He notes that it takes place in the reign of the first Roman emperor, Augustus Caesar, at the one moment in his reign and in the history of Rome when all parts of the empire are at peace. Then it is that he decides the time has come to hold a census of the population, for the collecting of taxes. He decrees that all citizens are be registered, so many millions of them, each in the town where he was born. Now among all these millions there is an obscure village carpenter named Joseph, of Nazareth in Galilee. He belongs to the house and family of David, and so he goes for registration to the city of David, Bethlehem. With him he takes his wife Mary, who is with child. On their arrival in Bethlehem, they find no room in the inn, which is already filled with others like themselves, but they find shelter in a shepherds’ cave or stable nearby, and there Mary gives birth to her son Jesus. She wraps him according to Jewish custom in swaddling clothes, and lays him in a manger.”
“Stop there!” cried Mariko. “That’s the part of the story I like best, before it comes to the shepherds. I find something so charming in its simplicity. The description of the census of the whole Roman empire is just a kind of decoration, showing the contrast between the outer Roman empire and the poor couple making their way to Bethlehem. I can understand the disappointment of Joseph on finding no room for them at the inn, and perhaps Mary saying that all is for the best. Anyhow, even if the inn isn’t so crowded, it can’t be such a nice place for Mary to give birth to her child. They won’t have any privacy, and it must be so noisy. Instead, God provides them with a poor but peaceful shelter in the shepherds’ cave. And there Jesus is born! Again, I can easily imagine the feelings of Mary, looking down on her new-born child. Once again she must have felt speechless with joy and admiration, or adoration. I even wonder how she could have moved!”
“Yet we know she did move,” I reminded her. “Mothers after all have a very practical instinct, much more than fathers. So the first thing Mary did after giving birth to Jesus – we don’t know if she had any help apart from Joseph – must have been to wrap him in swaddling clothes and lay him in the manger, with straw for a blanket. It must have been cold at night, whether it was winter or not, and she must have been shivering. Yet there’s no mention of her discomfort in the gospel. No doubt her thoughts are so full of her baby, she quite forgets about herself.”
“I like to imagine Joseph there,” remarked Hiroshi. “I see him standing beside Mary and her child, keeping guard over them like a human watch-dog. Even more than Mary, he must have been speechless and motionless with wonder. The very fact that he wasn’t involved as father – if it happened as you say – must have made him marvel all the more at this miracle of grace. He must have felt the one man in all the world entrusted with this most precious secret, as a privileged observer.”
“As for me,” added Chieko, “I’d like to associate myself with the ox and the ass. It’s lovely to think of Jesus being born in the company of animals, though I prefer to call them the cow and the donkey. What does Luke say about them? And how do they come into the picture?”
“I’m afraid Luke doesn’t say anything about them,” I replied. “He only implies it is a shepherds’ cave, when he says the child is laid in a manger. The cave you can still see, as I have seen it, at Bethlehem. But the manger’s no longer there. The manger shows that the place must have been used for animals. As for the particular animals, they are identified not by Luke but by the prophet Isaiah, where he laments that the ox and the ass recognize their owner, but man fails to recognize his Lord and God. Isaiah is, of course, speaking in general terms, but Christian tradition has applied his words to the story of Christ’s birth, to fill in the gaps left by Luke. I am myself fond of this charming tradition, as I was born in the Year of the Cow. And I’m happy to find myself in the company of the donkey, an animal for whom I have always felt special sympathy and affection.”
“What about the shepherds?” asked Nobuo. “I’m impatient to get on with the story. After all, they appear in all pictures of the birth of Christ, don’t they? The one I like is that of Botticelli, showing the angels dancing on the roof of the stable, though it doesn’t look like a cave.”
“Well,” I continued, “that night there are shepherds keeping watch over their sheep, when all at once a bright light shines round them. I imagine it comes from all the stars together, like many beams of light converging on the single form of an angel. They are so astonished, but the angel says to them, ‘Don’t be afraid. I bring you news of a great joy for you and all the people. Today in the city of David is born for you a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.’ Thus it is again an angel, or messenger of God, who first brings the gospel, or good news, to men, and it is simple shepherds who first receive the news, as representatives of men. It is what Paul tells the Corinthians, God chooses not the wise but the simple, to reveal to them his divine wisdom.”
“In that case,” said Iwao, “I’d like to identify myself with one of the shepherds, or even one of the sheep. But you’ve only mentioned one angel. I’ve always thought there were many angels on that first Christmas night.”
“I’m just coming to them,” I said. “Again, I imagine the stars in that night sky not now converging on one angel, but all together appearing as a multitude of angels. It reminds me of what Aristotle says of the heavenly spheres being moved by angelic intelligences, and of what Pythagoras and Plato say about the music of the spheres. These old ideas are aptly combined by Shakespeare, in describing the night scene at the end of his Merchant of Venice, “There’s not the smallest orb which thou beholdest, but in his motion like an angel sings, still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins.” Sometimes when I look up at the stars at night, I can feel their silent music and I imagine them as angels hidden behind bright veils. Now on this first Christmas night they throw aside their veils and appear in all their glory to the simple shepherds. Then they sing the first Christmas carol, ‘Glory to God on high, and on earth peace to men of good-will.’”
“Isn’t that the carol we sometimes sing at Christmas?” asked Mariko. “I mean the one beginning, ‘Angels we have heard on high,’ and ending with the Latin word ‘Gloria!” It’s difficult to make out the Latin, but the O of Gloria goes on and on, as if it belongs not only to glory but also to joy.”
“Yes, it’s glorious, isn’t it?” I agreed. “Then after this splendid fireworks display of stars and angels, the shepherds hurry off to see what the angel has told them. Luke doesn’t tell us how they find the cave, but perhaps the angel’s mention of the manger is enough for them. There they find Mary and Joseph and the child laid in the manger. I imagine them making sure it is a manger, as the angel has told them, and then recognizing the child, as being the Messiah. Maybe they have no difficulty in recognizing him, despite his poverty. Maybe it seems to them only natural for God to come among men in such a form, as the divine Shepherd visiting his straying sheep on earth. That is what the angel has told them, and they may have remembered some prophecies about him. So they, too, must have felt quite speechless for joy.”
“What I’d like to know,” said Iwao, who seemed to have taken a personal interest in the shepherds, “is what became of them afterwards. Does Luke tell us anything more about them, or do they just disappear?”
“They don’t just disappear,” I answered. “They fade away, like a reverberating echo in the hills round Bethlehem. All Luke says about them is that on returning home they praise and glorify God for all they have seen and heard, and everybody wonders at their words. In particular, he says that Mary is filled with wonder at what they tell her about the angels. Evidently, they aren’t speechless all the time they were in the cave. Simple men that they are, they soon come out with it all, leaving the echo of their words and the song of the angels in the heart of Mary. She is said to have pondered on the meaning of their words for a long time,