Title: Waiting for Baby Jesus
Isaiah 9:6-7; Luke 2:39-40, 51-52
Today is the first week of Advent. It is also called Advent. It contains the meaning of Advent, that is, the coming of God. It is one of the church feasts that await the baby Jesus for four weeks until Christmas. Why did God, who came to save the world, come in the form of a weak baby? If it appeared on the clouds of the sky as in the vision Daniel saw (Dan 7:13), or if Elijah ascended to heaven on horses and chariots of fire (2 Kings 2:11), then all people would have believed that 'God is God'. I would
The 4 Gospels take the form of a kind of biography of great men. The main character is Jesus, and the time was when Augustus, the first Roman emperor, ruled, and the spatial background is the insignificant colonial Judea on the outskirts of Rome. However, while the four Gospels talk about the same protagonist, Jesus, the content is slightly different. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke are more biographical than the Gospels of Mark and John. The reason is that it deals with life, from birth to death.
The fact that there is no story of the birth of Jesus in the Gospels of Mark and John, and that Paul never mentions the birth of Jesus is the result of different theological interests. Of course, living on this earth presupposes the event of a birth, but they did not see birth as significant to Jesus. Because their interest was not in the life history of Jesus, but in the presence of God in Jesus, that is, to meet God in Jesus, regardless of when and how Jesus himself or those who accept him as God, regardless of the birth of Jesus. Because it only mattered whether you became aware of it. The story of Jesus in Mark begins with Jesus being baptized by John, and eventually Mark understands that from this baptism, that is, from the experience of hearing God's voice from heaven at the same time Jesus was baptized, he understood that the presence of God was experienced in Jesus. means. On the other hand, John begins with the first thing, “In the beginning was the Word,” and the identity of Jesus and God by claiming that Jesus was the original God and the Son.
Shall we talk about the difference between the Gospels of Matthew and Luke? How about imagining the Christmas pictures we are all too familiar with? In fact, the paintings we are familiar with are actually a mixture of scenes from Matthew and Luke, and the artist's imagination. What Matthew and Luke have in common is that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, was born in Bethlehem, and grew up in Nazareth.
Where was Jesus born in Bethlehem? - According to Matthew, it is a house (2:11), not a stable. The people who came to the house to worship were wise men from the East. The incident with Herod the Great (the birth of a king) eventually resulted in Jesus' family fleeing to Egypt, and after Herod's death, Joseph returned to his hometown, but Herod's son Archelaus became king (to Archelaus). Did Herod even testify that the king of the Jews must be destroyed?) For fear of harm, it is said that he went to Nazareth in Galilee far away from the king's hometown, Bethlehem, to live. And Matthew is interpreting from the Bible text, verse by verse, that all these journeys were God's will, which had already been prophesied in the Hebrew Bible.
But the Gospel of Luke is quite different. Jesus' parents, Joseph and Mary, had been living in Nazareth from the beginning. At the emperor's command to register his family, Joseph leaves for Bethlehem, his hometown, with his full fianc e. And there she gave birth to a son. The ‘baby in the manger’ is thought to have given birth to a child in a stable because there was no room in the inn, but nowhere in the Bible does it say that it was a stable. It's clear that it wasn't just a 'room' to lie down in. And there the shepherds in the field hear the message of the angels (in Matthew they follow the stars) and come to worship the baby. The pictures we see often show flocks of sheep worshiping together, but there is no mention of it in the Bible either.
Why is it so different? Is it the difference that Matthew only remembers the events of the Magi, and Luke only remembers the events of the shepherds? Or did both authors hear and know both, but only excerpts from what they thought were important? However, the background or progression of the story itself is too different to be solved simply like that. Moreover, how is it to be understood that neither the Pauline epistles or the Gospels of Mark, which are said to have been written before by Matthew and Luke, even mention the details of this birth? Or was it that Paul deliberately wanted to drop the tradition of the birth story in order to see that Jesus was confirmed as the Son of God in the resurrection event and Mark in the baptism event?
However, if you turn these questions around, you realize that all these questions presuppose the historicity of the story of Jesus' birth. In general, the authenticity of biographies is based on the fact that events in the life of the protagonist are real. If it turns out that the story adds events that didn't actually happen, the authenticity of the whole story is questioned, even if everything else is true.
Considering the difference in memory, the two stories of Matthew and Luke are so different that it seems enough to question their authenticity. Even if it's a story that has been passed down by word of mouth, how can it be so different, isn't this a made-up story? suffice to ask.
In conclusion, this is a made-up story. It's not based on fact, it's a created story. The story of Jesus' birth was a real event, and it was not the so-called 'history remembered' that was passed down by word of mouth and formed into the Gospels. Director Spong says in this regard: If the Jews who believed in the presence of God in Jesus searched the Hebrew Bible to find and grasp the practical meaning of this presence experience, created events corresponding to them and made up stories through them, we Christians, Westerners, non-Jews, and Gentiles, It was literally believing the description itself. In fact, if you read articles related to historical Jesus studies such as Spong and Vogue, it is said that every event in the story of the birth was created with thorough meaning and purpose. Explain that even the names of Joseph, Mary, and even the parents of Jesus were deliberately planned. Each event is, after all, a metaphor using ancient religious imagery to express a central truth about the meaning of Jesus.
A big thing happened. Since all the stories of Christmas were made up, would you say that you don't need all these things and that you won't play with lies anymore? Here in our community, we also declare that it is Advent, light candles, wait for the baby Jesus, and pray for this period, but would you say that these are all ridiculous and cover up lies?
According to Bultmann, a master of the study of the historical Jesus, the real historicity that remains in the story of Jesus is that a man named Jesus lived and died. No, don't you want to ask, "If it's not the Gospels that we try to explain, but the fact that life and death were real, what is our faith in looking to Jesus, believing and following Him?" That is why Bultmann seems to be the most criticized theologian by fundamentalist theologians.
But I want to think with you today. Regarding the story of the birth of Jesus, I think this is the truth we will find. 'Jesus was born as a baby' Isn't this a reality that no one can deny? As a human being who lived on this earth, Jesus had no choice but to be born as a baby. He's not like Superman, who suddenly came down from the sky one day. Jesus begins life on earth as a baby just like us. It appears in the birth story as a fragile baby who cannot live without anyone's help. The verse we read today tells us that as a child loved by God and people, Jesus goes through the same process of growth as he grows in wisdom and stature. The story of the birth contains the most realistic content of the Jesus event. It is said that the Christmas story contains the most plausible ‘fact’ than any other events, including the cross and resurrection events. If a human named Jesus had really lived on this earth, he would have been born on this earth as a child.
Jesus, who came to this earth as a baby, was a true human being who lived a fierce life amidst joys and sorrows mixed with people through the process of growth. It should be noted that another birth story hints to us what the meaning and truth of the life of such a human Jesus was. The Gospel of Matthew gives another name besides the name Jesus. ‘Immanuel’ means that God is with us. What does this name mean for Jesus? What was the meaning of Immanuel in the human Jesus?
This name seems to be the gospel given to us. Immanuel Jesus is 100% human just like us, but he is the one who showed and taught us what the true meaning of life is. It is that Jesus himself showed us the way of life for those who are with God. He did not turn away the suffering and set them free from their suffering, and he laughed with those who laughed, and he showed us what it means to be truly together through miracles and the table community. He did not live that way because he was a son of God different from us, but he revealed the possibility of a true life with God as a pure human being. In his name, ‘Immanuel’, it is revealed that we too have a duty to live such a life. This is because it is not ‘Imnoel’ (God is ‘with him’), but ‘Immanuel’ (God is ‘with us’).
As we meditate on the story of Advent, this period of waiting for the baby Jesus, I hope that we can reflect on the true meaning of the baby Jesus. In this way, Jesus came to us in the form of a true human being, allowing us to see with our eyes, hear with our ears and understand the true way and meaning of life for humans to live together with God and our neighbors. Even if he is the Son of God and the savior, as long as the story of the birth is told, the life of the human Jesus never disappears and remains. As God was with us in Jesus, we pray that we can meet the baby Jesus and meet God during this Advent and Christmas season while wrestling with this question of what kind of life God expects of us.
Prayer
God of love, Advent. Give us time to meditate while waiting for the baby Jesus. So that we may discover the true human form in the baby Jesus. Help us to realize the grace of Immanuel, to discover God through our lives, and to live a perfect life with you and our neighbors. I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.