Part One: The Coming.....Stage 1: The Arrival

Without any doubt the prime purpose of the first two chapters of Luke's Gospel is to record the incarnation of the Son of God. No exposition of their contents can possibly be correct if it obscures the incomparable importance of that unique event. Nevertheless Luke has not been content simply to record the fact of the incarnation in a few majestic words in the manner of the Fourth Gospel: 'And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us' (John 1:14). He has surrounded the story of the incarnation with a number of other stories. Their general function is obviously to tell of the preparations for the coming of Christ, of his conception and birth, of his infancy and boyhood. What other functions they have will appear if we look carefully at their contents, proportions and arrangements.

We suggest that Stage 1 contains the ten stories listed in Table 1.

Table 1 Stories in Luke 1:5–2:52

Between Story 10 and the next event recorded in the Gospel (Luke 3:1ff.) there is a chronological gap of about eighteen years. It is plain then that these ten stories form a closely knit group.

We already have had occasion to notice ^{[p p. 9–11]} the internal proportions of this group; so now let us look at the way Luke has arranged the ten stories within the group, to see if that can tell us anything.

We find that though in one sense the ten stories present a continuous storyline, Luke does not allow the narrative to flow in one undivided stream from Story 1 to Story 10. Every now and then he ^{[p 22]} brings the thought-flow to a temporary pause by inserting a general remark or summary, mostly with some indication of the time-lapse between one story or group of stories and the next. In tabular form the arrangement looks like Table 2.

Table 2 Thought-flow in Luke 1:5–2:52

This arrangement produces a simple pattern in which a series of four pairs of stories is preceded by one single story standing by itself, and is followed by a single story standing by itself. But the arrangement is perfectly natural. Story 1 stands by itself not only because it relates a different incident from Story 2, but because an interval of five months separates the two incidents (see Luke 1:24).

Stories 2 and 3 stand together because their subject matter is interrelated and also because no time worth speaking of intervenes between them. In Story 2 Mary is told about Elizabeth's miraculous pregnancy and therefore as soon as the angel departs she goes in Story 3 to see Elizabeth 'in those days' (Luke 1:39). By contrast we are explicitly told that three months pass by between the end of the Magnificat in Story 3 and the beginning of Story 4.

Stories 4 and 5 form a natural pair. Their subject matter is closely related: in Story 4 Zechariah recovers his speech, and in Story 5 he forthwith uses it to pronounce his great prophecy. But then the ^{[p 23]} interval-marker at the end of Story 5 carries on the mind some many years to the beginning of John's public ministry; so that we have to retrace our steps a long way to begin Story 6.

Stories 6 and 7 once more form a natural pair, for the birth of Christ in Bethlehem was followed that very same night by the visit of the shepherds to the manger. But at the end of Story 7 there is ^{[p 24]} mentioned first (see Luke 2:21) an interval of seven days, and then (see Luke 2:22) a further interval of thirty-two days (the time for purification being forty days after birth).

Again Stories 8 and 9 have no interval-marker between them, for there was no interval: Anna came up 'at that very moment' (Luke 2:38) as Simeon was concluding his prophecy. But naturally enough there is an interval marker between Stories 9 and Luke 10: the interval covers some twelve years (see Luke 2:42).

We are left with one story standing by itself. At its end one more general remark covers an interval of some eighteen years before the next event to be recorded.

From all this one thing immediately stands out: Luke's consistent concern to give us a precise and accurate timetable of events. He obviously considered that he was recording datable historical events, and not constructing myths, nor presenting general truths in mythical form. Now this observation is so important in itself, as we shall see later ^{[p . 34]}, that we might be inclined to think that Luke's arrangement of his material in this stage can be accounted for simply by his concern for precise timetabling and chronology. But at this point we remember the unanswered questions about Story 10 left over from the Introduction ^{[p . 3]}. Why did Luke select only this story from the boyhood and place it all by itself at the end of this series of pairs of stories? And then we remember that he has placed one story all by itself at the beginning of the series as well. We had better look more closely at these two single stories. Chronology is important, but here it may not be Luke's sole concern.

Story 1 is about an old man in the temple, and practically the whole point of the story is based on the fact that he is an old man. Story 10 is about a young boy in the temple, and, once more, the whole force of the story rests on the fact that the one who is amazing the teachers of the law with his questions and answers is a young boy, only twelve years old. Interesting, but perhaps superficial? Let us look deeper. The question raised in Story 1 is parenthood: can an elderly couple, all against nature, become parents? The question raised in Story 10 is similar but significantly different. It is parentage. ^{[p 25]} Mary says to the child 'Son why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been very distressed searching for you'. And the child replies . . . 'Did you not realize that I must be in my Father's house?'¹² Your father and I . . . my Father . . . Without doubt the child is referring to supernatural parentage.

Miraculous parenthood, supernatural parentage. Quite clearly, there is something more here than superficial similarities and distinctions. These two stories are calling our attention to the two different kinds of miracle involved in the work of redemption. In other words the stories are not repetitiously recording the simple fact that miracles surrounded the coming of Christ into the world. The stories are complementary: they tell us that miracles of two essentially different orders were both necessarily involved in our redemption.

Zechariah and his wife were old. Nature in them was decrepit, the processes of generation already dead. For them to have a child would mean reversing the natural processes of ageing and decay (see Luke 1:7, 18), and restoring the malfunction of Elizabeth's barrenness which had been with her all her life. A miracle indeed; but if such a miracle is impossible, as Zechariah at first thought, all talk of redemption is idle talk, or at best a misnomer. A new body that had nothing at all to do with the old body, a new world that had nothing to do with the old world, this would certainly be a wonderful thing—but it would not be redemption. Redemption must mean turning back the decay of nature, renewing dying bodies, resurrecting dead ones, restoring fallen spirits.

But that is only half the story of redemption. The parentage of Jesus involved a miracle of a different kind: not restoring nature to her original unfallen state, but introducing into nature something that nature had never known before, the birth into the human race of one who was simultaneously God and man. Once more, if this miracle of Christ's divine parentage is not true, there is no redemption. No mere man, however holy, could offer himself as an adequate sacrifice to bear away the sin of the world, or impart ^{[p 26]} resurrection life to the dead bodies of the myriads who have believed on him.

The conclusion seems inescapable therefore that Luke selected Story 10 to complete his account of the incarnation because the special point of its subject matter complemented the issues raised in Story 1.

So much for Luke's selection and arrangement of the material in this first stage. We ought now to look to see if there is any common theme, or themes, running through the several stories. Our work is already half-done. Stories 1–5, so we noticed in the Introduction ^{[p . 9]}, all deal with the reaction of Zechariah, Elizabeth and Mary to the announcement of coming miraculous events. Mary at once believes, but is nonetheless given evidence to confirm and support her faith. Zechariah at first disbelieves; but his faith eventually recovers, and in Stories 4 and 5 it comes to triumphant climax. In Stories 6–10 a very similar, though significantly different, theme recurs: Mary's reactions to the things that begin to happen to, be said about, or be said by, her Son. As in Stories 1–5 so here, we shall find no unbelief in Mary; but whereas in Stories 1–5 the challenge to Mary as to Zechariah and Elizabeth was to believe that the miraculous was about to happen, in Stories 6–10 the great miracle of the incarnation has happened, and the challenge is to face and try to understand the implications of that miracle as they begin to work themselves out. And here Mary who had no difficulty at all in believing that the miracle would happen, does have difficulties with understanding and accepting its implications.

In Stories 6 and 7 Mary is obliged by Augustus' decree to give birth in Bethlehem and her child unexpectedly has to be laid, not in a cradle in the hotel, but in a manger. Yet a few hours later that very night shepherds arrive at the manger explaining by means of an extraordinary story how they knew exactly where to come to find the baby, and saying extraordinary things about him. All present are amazed; 'but Mary stored up all these things pondering them in her heart' (Luke 2:19).

In Stories 8 and 9, Mary and Joseph are 'amazed at the things which were being said [by Simeon] about him [i.e. Jesus]', and then ^{[p 27]} Simeon adds that one day, because of what shall happen in connection with her Son 'a sword shall pierce through your own (Mary's) soul' (Luke 2:33–35).

And finally, as we have already noticed, Story 10 concentrates our attention on Mary and Joseph's anxiety at the temporary loss of Jesus, on their astonishment when they found him doing what he was doing, on Mary's worried remonstrance with him, and finally on their failure to understand his answer (see Luke 2:48–50).

We notice the growing intensity: from one verse (see Luke 2:19) mentioning Mary's continuing reflection on events, to three verses referring to Mary and Joseph's astonishment and Mary's coming sorrow (see Luke 2:33–35), to virtually a whole story recording Mary and Joseph's distress, anxiety, amazement and failure to understand (see Luke 2:43–51). And we notice the direction of this movement of thought. If in Stories 1–5 Zechariah is moving from disbelief to triumphant faith, in Stories 6–10 Mary is moving from surprise and interested reflection through foreboding of future sorrow to present anxious incomprehension.

But more of this presently. For the moment we may sum up the findings of our preliminary survey thus: in this stage Luke certainly puts before us the great objective facts of the conception and birth of the forerunner and the conception and birth of Christ with their precise timings. But he has done more than that. His selection, proportioning and arrangement of material has set the angle from which he means us to look at these things by concentrating our attention on the subjective reactions of Zechariah, Elizabeth, Mary and Joseph to these objective events. We are made to look at these events through their eyes and, as presently we analyse their reactions, we may well find that we are analysing our own. On the other hand their subjective reactions, being matters of history, are as much objective facts of history to us as the birth of John and the birth of Jesus. Our assessment of the evidence for these two miraculous births must necessarily include an assessment of the characters, motives, behaviour, credulity or incredulity of the people who were the leading human actors in these momentous events. ^{[p 28]}

The movements

1. The last hours before the dawn (Luke 1:5–80)
2. The rising of the sun (Luke 2:1–52)

1. The last hours before the dawn (Luke 1:5–80)

Story 1. Zechariah in the temple (Luke 1:5–25)

If the birth of Christ, to borrow Zechariah's metaphor, was 'the dawn from on high' (Luke 1:78), then chapter 1 of the Gospel covers the last few hours before sunrise. The night had been long and, for Israel, at times very dark. But through it all—through times of national success and disaster, through the conquest and the monarchy, through the exile and return—hope had persisted that the night would at last end and, as Malachi put it, 'the sun of righteousness would arise with healing in his wings' (Mal 4:2). Isaiah had prophesied (Isa 40:3–8) that before the 'glory of the Lord' should 'be revealed', a forerunner would be sent to prepare the way of the Lord. Malachi had added that before the day of the Lord came, the prophet Elijah would be sent to 'turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse' (Mal 4:5–6). And now more than four hundred years after Malachi the seemingly interminable night was coming to its end: the dawn was about to break. Great preparations were afoot, and plans laid in the eternal past began to swing into action. The forerunner had to be born. A certain Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth, long since chosen to be his parents, had now to be advised of the coming birth and told how to bring up the child in the strict discipline appropriate to the unique Elijah-like ministry that he was destined to fulfil (see Luke 1:13–17). And so in the last few months before sunrise the angel Gabriel was sent to tell Zechariah that he and his wife were soon to have a child. And Zechariah refused to believe the angel!

No doubt, Zechariah's disbelief, coming at this critical point in history makes a very dramatic story; but we may be sure that it was more than a fine sense of the dramatic that made Luke tell the story. Nor was it merely Luke's concern to tie John the Baptist's ^{[p 29]} life and ministry to its historical context that made him tell the story in such great detail. The requirements of historical dating and identification would have been satisfied without any record at all of Zechariah's temporary lapse into unbelief; and if honesty demanded that some mention be made of it, mercy might have kept it brief. Instead, Luke has told the story in great detail. Why? Presumably, because he thought that Zechariah's lapse into disbelief raised important issues which ought to be considered.

Take first the grounds of his disbelief, as Luke gives them to us. Zechariah's difficulty was not that he was taken aback by the suddenness of the angel's message, and genuine humility made it difficult for him to believe that he and his humble wife had been singled out for such high honour as to be the parents of Messiah's forerunner. Had that been the case he would have replied to the angel as Gideon did on another occasion: 'But my family is the poorest . . . and I am the least in my father's house . . .' (Judg 6:15), or words to that effect. What he actually said was 'On what evidence can I be sure of this? For I am an old man and my wife is well on in years' (Luke 1:18). This was his real difficulty: for him and his wife to have a child would mean a miracle of divine intervention; and Zechariah considered such a miracle to be so extremely unlikely that even if it was an angel of God who announced it—and Zechariah did not dispute that—he was not prepared to believe it, not at least unless he were given some stronger grounds for belief than the bare word of an angel.

Now Zechariah had no time to think through his response before he blurted it out, and that is why perhaps it revealed an attitude grievously inconsistent and bordering on the irrational.

After all, Zechariah was no atheist nor deist. He was not even a layman, but a priest, who at the time the angel appeared to him was publicly officiating at morning prayers in the temple. Moreover, as we learn from the angel, Zechariah in his private devotions had been praying to God for a child; and there is no point in praying to God for something which nature is refusing to do by herself, and at the same time believing that God is never likely to intervene in nature anyway. ^{[p 30]}

Of course, to be fair to Zechariah it may be that he and his wife had gone on praying only so long as they were still of normal child-bearing age, when all that they were asking the Creator to do was to give nature a little push forward to get on with the job which the Creator had designed her to do. They were long past that age now. For them to have a child now would require the Creator's intervention to put the processes of ageing and decay into reverse. Perhaps, then, they had ceased praying for a child after middle life, in the belief that these processes of ageing and decay were also designed by the Creator and that he would not intervene to reverse processes which he himself had created.

Be that as it may, for a private person to refuse to believe the word of an angel over some personal matter is serious enough; but, as we have already noticed, at the time of the angel's visit Zechariah was not a private person: he was the official public, priestly representative of the people of God. Moreover the good news which the angel was bringing to Zechariah was not simply a private or personal gospel message: it was, as the angel had carefully explained (see Luke 1:15–17), a preliminary and integral part of the gospel itself. Yet here was Zechariah refusing to believe this particular gospel message on grounds that would deny the very basis of the gospel in its entirety. If God could not restore the processes of nature in Elizabeth's body, what hope was there that creation itself should ever be delivered from its bondage to corruption? If God could not revivify Elizabeth's ageing and dying body, how should he ever raise from the tomb the body of Jesus already three days dead? And if that resurrection were impossible, no resurrection would ever be possible. The grounds which Zechariah gave for his disbelief were, without his knowing it, utterly subversive of the entire gospel.

We are told that the angel struck him dumb. The action was neither vindictive nor arbitrary. In a few minutes Zechariah was expected to go outside and, as priest on duty for the day, in God's name pronounce God's blessing on the waiting people. But a priest who cannot believe the authoritative word of an angel of God, because he cannot accept the possibility of divine intervention to ^{[p 31]} reverse the decay of nature, has lost faith in the basic principle of redemption. Without redemption, he has no gospel. Without a gospel, any blessing he pronounced upon the people would be the emptiest of professional formalities. If Zechariah could not believe the angel's gospel, it were better that he did not pretend to bless the people. Fittingly the angel struck him dumb.

At this point we should notice how fair Luke is to Zechariah. He exposes the whole story of his disbelief; but that does not mean that he impugns either his loyalty to ecclesiastical order or his moral integrity. Luke points out that Zechariah as a priest had married within the priestly family of Aaron (see Luke 1:5), and as far as morality and personal holiness went 'they were both righteous in the sight of God, blamelessly observing all the Lord's commandments and requirements' (Luke 1:6). But Israel's religion was concerned with far more than correct morality and ceremonial. Israel's prophets and priesthood, indeed Israel's very existence, were meant to stand as a testimony to God's redemptive interventions in nature and in world affairs. In fact, though Israel doubtless had priests of some kind before the exodus, her special role among the nations as a kingdom of priests (see Exod 19:4–6) was a direct historical outcome of God's miraculous intervention in nature in the plagues of Egypt and at the Red Sea, and of his redemptive intervention in the Passover. The Levites, too, who were assistants to the priests, likewise owed their existence as an institution to God's intervention at the Passover in Egypt (see Exod 13:11–16 with Num 3:1–13). Moreover these great historical interventions of God on Israel's behalf were not regarded as mere past events: for Israel they were pledges and patterns of God's future intervention for the purpose of the restoration of all things. Every Passover at which Zechariah assisted was a memorial of past, and a prophecy of future, divine redemptive intervention.

When therefore the angel came and announced to the priest Zechariah that God had heard prayer and was about to fulfil his prophetic promises, that Messiah was coming to effect the restoration of all things, and that Zechariah had been chosen to be the father of the forerunner, Zechariah as a priest ought not to have been unduly ^{[p 32]} surprised. That he should disbelieve the angel on the grounds that miraculous divine intervention was incredible, made a nonsense of the very faith which as a priest he was appointed—and paid—to represent and maintain.

But we have no basis for thinking that Zechariah's disbelief at the angel was the expression of some well thought-out position whose implications he had worked out to their logical conclusions. It was more likely instinctive, an instance of that disbelief of God and of his Word which ever since the fall has been endemic in the human race, and which, however deeply suppressed by religious discipline, is liable in unguarded moments to reassert itself. It reminds us that much of our modern disbelief springs from the same source. We flatter ourselves if we think that it necessarily arises from our scientific outlook. Happily for Zechariah his lapse was only temporary, and in any case it did not nullify God's purpose. Not long after he got home from his tour of duty as a priest, Elizabeth conceived.

Stories 2 and 3. The annunciation and the Magnificat (Luke 1:26–56)

We must now leave Zechariah and his initial disbelief in the possibility of divine intervention, though we shall have to return to him and his problems later. For the moment Luke moves our attention to Mary and her story. Her story, as given here, is in fact two stories: the annunciation and the Magnificat. The one is Mary's explanation of how she became pregnant before marriage; the other is her reaction to that pregnancy. At least, that is what these two stories are, if Luke is writing history.

But is he? The traditional answer to this question has always been and still is, yes. But in more recent decades expressions of the contrary opinion have grown louder and more frequent. Many hold that Luke's and Matthew's accounts of the incarnation are of very doubtful historical worth; but they are inclined to add that this does not matter because these accounts are imaginative statements of theological truths about Jesus; not history but religious myth. One can therefore deny the incarnation as a historical fact, but still believe the truth expressed by the incarnation myth. ^{[p 33]}

It would be both out of place and impossible here to discuss, or even report, what exactly the truth is which it is claimed that the incarnation myth expresses; the scholars who maintain that the story is a myth are not all agreed—and not altogether certain themselves—as to what that truth is. But some of their reasons for not accepting the incarnation as a historical fact are clearly relevant to our present study. The basic contention is that divine intervention is impossible, and that therefore the incarnation cannot have taken place. If that is so it raises some very grave questions about the nature of Luke's and Matthew's narratives. These questions have been stated very succinctly and forcibly by Clifford Longley:

If . . . nothing miraculous occurred at the event of Jesus's conception, the implications are enormous . . . It means Jesus had a natural father. This was either Joseph or someone else. If it was Joseph, those New Testament references to his thinking his betrothed wife was made pregnant by another man are not just "religious myth"—they are deliberate lies, either by Joseph himself, or someone else who made them up. If it [the natural father—addition mine] was not Joseph but indeed another man, then Mary's story was a lie, Joseph was deceived (or an accomplice in the lie), and the Gospel writers were "taken in".

The question . . . is . . . how do they [modern liberal theologians] avoid casting aspersions at the integrity (and chastity) of Joseph and Mary?¹³

The only way of rebutting these charges would be to say that the New Testament references to Joseph never had any basis in anything that Joseph or Mary ever said or did; that as to the historical fact Jesus was probably born to Joseph and Mary in the normal way after their marriage; and that Matthew's story about Joseph finding Mary pregnant by someone else before they were married is simply part of the myth; that Matthew and Luke (or some other person) who fabricated this myth would have been the first to admit that if taken as history it would be preposterously untrue; but that they cannot be charged with lying since they never attempted to give the impression that they were writing history. According ^{[p 34]} to this theory they must have thought that everyone (except the most stupid) would see that their story was a myth designed to convey a religious truth (and presumably that everyone would see what that truth was); that neither Mary nor Joseph, had they lived to read the story, would have been offended or mystified by their distortion of the historical facts in the interests of religious myth; and that none of their contemporaries, not even Jewish ones, would have sought to deny this religious truth simply on the grounds that the details of the myth were not historically true. And finally this theory would have to admit that though the early Christians were sophisticated people and recognized the myth for what it was, after a few decades Christians became less sophisticated, mistook the myth for literal history and continued to do so for centuries.

The whole idea is, of course, preposterous; but close examination of the way Luke writes wrecks the theory completely. It shows unmistakably that he regarded the incarnation as literal, factual history, and that he intended his readers to do so too. First, in his prologue he assures his reader that he has carefully consulted the oral and written sources, and that his account is reliable. Then as we have already noticed ^{[p . 24]}, he organizes his material relating to the incarnation according to the precise timings of its main events. Then again, his record of the two miraculous pregnancies becomes even more precise in its timings. He tells us that after conception Elizabeth hid herself five months (see Luke 1:24), that the angel visited Mary in the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy (see Luke 1:26), that the angel informed Mary that Elizabeth was already six months pregnant (see Luke 1:36) and that after the visitation Mary visited Elizabeth, stayed with her about three months, and then returned home before Elizabeth's child was born (see Luke 1:56). Finally when Mary's child is born, he dates the birth by reference to contemporary secular history (see Luke 2:1–2). So Luke has not simply related these stories and left us to make of them myth or history as we will. He has indicated beyond all doubt that he intends us to take them as history. It is illegitimate, therefore, to take what Luke intended as factual history, deny its historicity and then interpret it as though he meant it to be a religious myth. Certainly Luke ^{[p 35]} intended to convey a religious truth, namely that Jesus is the Son of God; but in his account the religious truth is explicitly based on the historical fact: 'the Holy Spirit shall come upon you and the power of the Highest shall overshadow you; for this reason moreover the holy one to be born shall be called Son of God' (Luke 1:35).

There is only one escape open to the myth theory. It is this. Luke in consulting his sources came across the myth already fabricated (it must then have been fabricated very early). Unquestioningly, and very unintelligently, he mistook it for history. Physician though he may well have been, and travel companion of Paul though he was, he was not sufficiently disturbed by the story of a miraculous, virginal conception as to consult his educated and sophisticated Christian friends who would at once have told him that it was myth; but innocently proceeded to assure his reading public that it was history. This explanation is so utterly improbable that to borrow some more words from Longley: 'it may be easier to believe in miracles . . . or in atheism'.¹⁴

According to Luke, then, the incarnation was an historical event and that means that the story of the annunciation originates with Mary and the report of the Magnificat originates with Mary and/or Zechariah and Elizabeth. In telling these stories Luke has called our attention to two things: first, as we have just seen, to a number of precise timings related to the onset and development of the two miraculous pregnancies, and secondly to the question of Mary's reaction to the great announcement.

The precise timings (see above p. 34) allow us, whether Luke intended it or not, to work out when Mary first told her story. She must have gone and told Elizabeth almost immediately after the annunciation. And that means that she did not wait until undistinguishable evidence forced her to offer some explanation of her state. Who would have believed her then? She went at once, while there was still no physical evidence, perhaps none that even she could observe herself, to tell Elizabeth that an angel had visited her and had announced that she was going to have a child without being married. ^{[p 36]} What possible reason could she have had at that stage for inventing the story and telling it to others if it were not true? It may be said that like any Jewish girl she was full of dreams of becoming the mother of Messiah. That in itself is very doubtful. But even if it were true, she had no dreams of its coming about that way, as is shown by her immediate retort to the angel, 'But I'm not married!' (Luke 1:34). And to think the unthinkable for a moment, what girl in her position would try to explain a pregnancy (for which there was as yet no evidence) resulting from some casual affair, by claiming that an angel had told her that she was going to become pregnant by a divinely induced conception, and that her child would prove to be the Messiah? Who would she expect to believe the story? She was not a Greek teenager, with her head turned by reading too many ancient Greek myths about gods coming in to human women. And her relatives were certainly not Greeks either. The only story in their Old Testament about supernatural beings coming in to human women was a story of illicit demonic unions (see Gen 6:4). As a Jewess living among humble, conservative, believing Jews, she would have known instinctively that her story, had it been invented, would not have had the slightest hope of being believed. We know what Joseph thought when he first heard the story (see Matt 1:19); and we know what action he initially proposed to take. He, and all his social class, would have regarded Mary as guilty of a criminal breach of the law of betrothal, for which Scripture (though it was no longer normally carried out) prescribed the death penalty (see Deut 22:23–24). We also know what some people who knew that Jesus was conceived before Mary was married, continued to think of the matter long into the life of our Lord, in spite of Mary's story (see John 8:41). All this, with a woman's instinct, Mary would have instantaneously foreseen the moment the angel made the announcement. It magnifies the faith and devotion which made her submit herself to the will and word of God (see Luke 1:38); but it also makes it utterly incredible that she invented the story.

The second matter Luke calls our attention to in great detail is Mary's reaction to the annunciation. First her faith and then her joy. ^{[p 37]}

Towards the end of the annunciation the angel virtually suggested to Mary that she should go and visit Elizabeth to obtain confirmation of her faith. It takes little imagination to see why her faith would need strengthening. She had been chosen for a gigantic, unprecedented, unrepeatable task: how should her mortal flesh stand the psychological and spiritual strain in the long nine months of waiting? We have earlier thought of modern man's difficulty in believing Mary's story. That is not the question that concerns Luke here. He is concerned rather with how Mary herself, being an ordinary human girl of flesh and blood, believed it, and went on believing it, and bore the incalculable honour and the immeasurable burden without losing faith and nerve and proper humility and sanity itself.

When the angel departed the first temptation would have been to think that she had imagined the whole thing. But when she arrived at Elizabeth's, she found not only that Elizabeth was, as the angel had said, miraculously pregnant, but that Elizabeth knew by prophetic inspiration without Mary's having to tell her that Mary was going to be the mother of the Lord. And Elizabeth confirmed Mary in her faith.

So now Mary knows for sure that she is to be the mother of the Son of God. How will she react? We cannot but scrutinize her reaction very carefully since it is part of the evidence presented to us for the truth of her story. If she does not show herself emotionally aware of the immeasurable greatness of the honour she claims, we shall feel uneasy: does she even understand the claim she is making? If on the other hand she shows the slightest trace of pride or self-centredness, we shall feel uneasy again: how could a woman who claimed to be about to become the mother of the Son of God be proud and arrogant on that account without totally undermining her claim? As therefore Mary breaks out into praise and prophecy we must try to listen critically.

Her phraseology, we notice, is formal, archaic and poetic, drawn in great part from the Old Testament. This is not grotesque, as some have suggested, a sign that Luke is here concocting an artificial story. Anyone who has attended meetings where non-literary people of ^{[p 38]} moderate education engage in extemporary prayer, will know that such people generally use language laced with archaic expressions taken from some old translation of the Bible which they have heard read ever since they were children, and mixed with words of hymns written a century or more ago. And so with Mary now. This is for her an exalted and intensely spiritual moment. Probably the only exalted language she knows is biblical language. We are not surprised by its style, though presently we may be by its contents.

She begins by praising God (see Luke 1:46)—a normal opening to any prayer. Then at once (see Luke 1:47) she confesses to great joy (the Greek word Luke uses to translate her original Aramaic indicates exultant, overwhelming, religious joy). She is, then, emotionally aware of the stupendous wonder of the thing that is happening to her. Aware also of the immeasurable contrast between her present obscure, humble state, and the immense publicity and honour which inevitably shall be hers throughout all succeeding generations (see Luke 1:48).

What effect, we wonder, will all this have on her personality, on her concept of herself and of her status, on the relationship, as she now feels it, between herself and all other people, between herself and God?

Here a very striking thing meets us: never once in all the Magnificat does she mention the fact that she is going to be the mother of the Son of God. Of course that is the reality which underlies her joy and praise; but the way she refers to this great fact shows us what, as she sees them, are the implications of it for her.

Her joy arises, she explains, because in acting as he is towards her, God is acting as her Saviour (see Luke 1:47). We note with more than interest that she still regards herself as someone who needs to be saved like the rest of mankind.

'All generations shall call me blessed'—but she does not add 'because I am to be the mother of the Son of God' but 'because the mighty one has done great things for me' (Luke 1:49). In other words, what God has done, rather than what she is, is the aspect of the matter that is filling her mind. ^{[p 39]}

But what, in the light of these great things which God has done for her, is her relationship with God as she now sees it? The Old Testament had always insisted on the impassable gulf that separates the name of God from any other name: God's name alone is holy. Have the great things elevated her to a position where for all practical purposes the distance and distinction between her and the divine persons reduce to vanishing point? Not in Mary's estimation. Even in these moments of intense spiritual exultation, she has no illusions, no incipiently blasphemous thoughts. All generations of creatures shall call her blessed; but she immediately takes her stand as a creature with all those other creatures: for Mary still 'Holy is his name' (Luke 1:49).

She has now spoken three couplets. In all three she has said something about herself, though without either self-importance or self-centredness. And this is the last we shall hear from Mary about herself. There are twice as many couplets still to come, but Mary will not speak of herself personally and explicitly again.

This may strike us as remarkable humility, but actually it arises naturally from the way she looks at the event itself. Utterly unique though it is in one sense, in another it appeals to Mary as nothing unusual. It is an act of God's mercy. But then, 'God's mercy comes to generations after generations for those who reverence him' (Luke 1:50). Anyone of the millions in these innumerable generations could tell a tale of God's mercy just as she could. She does not feel the specialness of her case, because her eye is not on herself but on the constancy of God. In the infinite class of God's merciful acts her case, however large, is but a single member.

But surely humility can sometimes arise out of ignorance, and if so, it is not the genuine article. Could it be that Mary, in first claiming to be the mother of the Messiah and Son of God and then in regarding the whole affair as simply one more example of God's common mercy to all generations, is giving the game away? Never having known anything outside her own humble artisan class, could it be that she has no concept of what is involved in being, say, the high priest of her nation, or the Caesar Augustus ^{[p 40]} of the Roman world, let alone Messiah of the royal house of David and Son of God; and therefore sees nothing incongruous in the notion that God should bypass the rich, noble, educated and powerful families and choose a little artisan-class girl from some obscure family to be the mother of the King of kings and Lord of lords?

It is almost stupid to have asked the question; but it is important to see why the answer is no. Mary is aware of the great differences in ability, resources and power which separate the philosophers, the rich and the aristocrats from the uneducated, the poor and the weak, and she herself observes that for the purposes of the incarnation God has deliberately bypassed the former class and chosen someone from the latter. But to explain it she launches into a string of verbs in the aorist tense (see Luke 1:51–53), which have the exegetes undecided whether she is describing God's action in the past, God's action in the future viewed prophetically as though already accomplished, or God's habitual action. We need not decide the exegetes' question. Mary means all three. She sees God's choice of her as merely one example of what God always does, has done, and will do. And the reason for this is that, as she has told us in her very first couplet, what is happening to her is an activity of God as Saviour. In salvation he always scatters the proud, puts down princes, sends the rich away empty, but exalts the lowly and feeds the hungry. That is why she uses the poetic language of the centuries to describe her own experience, for this has always been the experience of any who have at any time experienced any aspect of God's salvation. Hannah (see 1 Sam 2) found it so in her domestic situation, very different though it was from Mary's. Paul was to observe that this is the principle, in the highest sense of the term, on which God's salvation works (1 Cor 1:18–31).

And finally Mary puts what has happened to her in another larger context. 'He has helped Israel, his servant, remembering to put into action his mercy (as he promised to our fathers) to Abraham and to his seed for ever' (Luke 1:54–55). Hundreds of times since her childhood, in the home, in the synagogue, at the religious festivals, Mary had heard of God's calling out of Abraham, of the formation ^{[p 41]} of her nation from him, of God's great covenants to him and to his seed: of the way God had honoured those covenants in the past, and how he would do so again. When, therefore, the mighty event happened to her, she had its proper context already imprinted on her mind. What was happening to her, was happening to her as part of her nation, not because she personally and individually was special but because of God's faithfulness to Abraham and to his seed. This context would not detract from the uniqueness of what was being done in and through her; but it would help her to see herself in true perspective as part of God's ways with her nation, its election, history and destiny. That awareness of context doubtless both sustained her faith and at the same time kept her, in her exalted office, from any exaggerated sense of self-importance. And, by pointing it out, Mary helps our faith too. Seen as part of that unique nation's unique history, the unique event of the virgin birth and the incarnation looks almost natural.

Stories 4 and 5. The birth and naming of John and Zechariah's prophecy (Luke 1:57–80)

The next two stories revert to Zechariah. The first (see Luke 1:57–66) relates the birth, circumcision and naming of his son; the second (see Luke 1:67–79) records the prophecy he pronounced over that son.

In the course of the first story Zechariah will recover his power of speech. So let us briefly recall how and why he lost it. The angel said to Zechariah: 'You shall be silent and not able to speak until the day these things happen, because you did not believe my words which shall be fulfilled when their time comes' (Luke 1:20). Zechariah's disbelief did not last long. Perhaps it scarcely survived his being struck dumb; for when he completed his tour of duty and went home Luke briefly notes: 'And after this Elizabeth his wife conceived' (Luke 1:23–24). Here was the angel's word being fulfilled in front of his eyes: he could not but believe it. But he remained dumb. The beginning of our present story (see Luke 1:57) relates the child's birth.

This surely destroyed any lingering doubt in Zechariah's mind: but still he remained dumb. Obviously, therefore, the story could ^{[p 42]} not stop here: it must go on to tell us what had to happen before Zechariah was allowed to recover his speech. Even so, Luke, had he chosen, could have informed us briefly in so many words that it was when Zechariah did as the angel had told him to, and named his son John, that he was released from his dumbness. And if Luke had done so, we might reasonably have concluded that what the angel wanted was not only belief but also obedience on Zechariah's part, and that with obedience achieved, the story had reached its proper climax.

In actual fact Luke has given the story a different focus and a different climax from what we have just suggested. It is not, of course, that Zechariah's faith and obedience are merely secondary matters in this story: they are crucial. Nor are we denying that Zechariah's faith will be the climax of the Zechariah story taken as a whole. But that climax will come in Luke 1:67–79 when, with his speech recovered, Zechariah will fill the stage and the one-time disbeliever will deliver a prophecy triumphant in its faith from beginning to end. Here in Luke 1:57–66, however, the focus of the story is not Zechariah nor Elizabeth, but their neighbours and relatives. When Elizabeth's child is born, it is the reaction of these neighbours and relatives to which Luke devotes a whole verse (see Luke 1:58). When the naming day comes, it is the neighbours and relatives who take the initiative: it is they who are for calling the child Zechariah; and when Elizabeth objects they appeal over her head to Zechariah; and when he takes his tablet and writes 'John is his name', Luke pauses to record their astonishment (see Luke 1:63b) before he adds that at this juncture Zechariah recovered his speech. Quite clearly Luke is focusing on the neighbours and relatives. And when Zechariah's silence is broken, Luke does not forthwith end the story: he spends no less than two whole verses more depicting the effect it had on them and on people throughout the whole of Judaea (see Luke 1:65–66). Here then is the climax and we must notice precisely what the stated effect was: 'All who heard them stored these things in their memories, saying, "What then shall this child be?"' So we ask next what it was about the happening recorded in Luke's story that led to their being so impressed about the child and his future. ^{[p 43]}

We notice that it was not simply the birth that impressed them. They realized that the birth of a child to such elderly parents was a remarkable thing, and they were prepared to attribute it to God's extraordinary goodness: 'they heard that the Lord had magnified his mercy to Elizabeth, and they rejoiced with her'. But when they saw what happened at the naming ceremony, they did not rejoice so much as they were astonished and overawed. Even before Zechariah recovered his speech they may have heard Zechariah's story of the angel in the temple via Zechariah's writing tablet and Elizabeth; if not, they certainly heard about it afterwards. It had two parts. First the angel had predicted the miraculous birth. Whatever anybody might think of Zechariah's story, there was the baby as large as life. But according to Zechariah the angel had also announced that his child was destined to be the Messiah's forerunner. This was a story of an altogether different order, earth-shaking in its implications. If it was true, they were standing on the verge of the messianic age. But was it true? After all, most parents think their first child is somehow special and dream up a marvellous future for it. Elderly parents are especially prone to such doting. Could it not be that Zechariah carried away by paternal pride was exaggerating or even fantasizing? It would be only natural.

Time would tell, of course, but meanwhile the child, whatever his future, must be named. Naturally the relatives were especially interested in this. In their society it was considered a disaster if a man died without a son to carry on the family name.¹⁵ The relatives therefore would have been tremendously relieved that Zechariah's branch of the family now had a son to keep the family name going, and they were already calling him Zechariah after his father when Elizabeth said, 'No: he has to be called John.' The relatives were shocked and tried to get her to see that this would break the family tradition completely (see Luke 1:61). But Elizabeth insisted. They appealed over her head to Zechariah; and to their astonishment and dismay he agreed with his wife. It was all so contrary to natural feeling, family interests and accepted practice. Why must they deliberately break ^{[p 44]} the connection between the child and his family tradition especially if, as they claimed, he was destined to be the illustrious forerunner of Messiah?

And then dumb Zechariah spoke, and explained (or explained again) that this break with family tradition was not his idea: the angel had told him that he must call the child John. The neighbours and relatives were overawed, as were people in general as the news spread through Judaea; for here, they needed no telling, was something that was so contrary to nature that it was obviously not a story invented by Zechariah, and they fell to considering its implications: 'What then shall this child be?'

John eventually grew up, claimed to be the forerunner and announced Jesus as the Messiah. John was murdered, Jesus was crucified. We today still have to ask the question, Was John really the forerunner? And that means asking, among other things, what motives Zechariah had in naming his son John.

So much then for Story 4; but we have not finished yet with what happened at the naming ceremony. With his infant son lying before him in his cradle, Zechariah was moved to prophesy, by the Holy Spirit, so we are told (see Luke 1:67); and Luke 1:68–79 (Story 5) records what he said. We listen critically. Will it in fact bear the hallmark of the Holy Spirit's prompting, or will it turn out to be little more than the expression of paternal pride, a glorification of his son, disguised in the phraseology of religion?

Note first his sense of proportion. Of the twelve verses of his prophecy the first eight go by without his mentioning his son at all (see Luke 1:68–75). Then come two verses (see Luke 1:76–77) in which he refers to John and his destined ministry; and after that the last two verses (see Luke 1:78–79) revert once more to something else. The proportion is healthy, but it implies no belittling of John or false humility on Zechariah's part. On the contrary it arises out of Zechariah's conviction that John is to be the forerunner. Zechariah sees that if John is indeed the forerunner, something is happening that is infinitely more important than the birth of one prophet, however exalted he proves to be: here is an intervention of God in history ^{[p 45]} that vindicates every prophetic promise truly made in God's name ever since history began (see Luke 1:68–70). Again, since John is to be the forerunner, Zechariah realizes that there is soon to appear someone infinitely more important than John. In Zechariah's mind John is already outshone by the rising sun (see Luke 1:78). God has intervened. The long night for Israel and the world is over. The sunrise from above is about to dawn (Luke 1:78). It will mean redemption (see Luke 1:68); and salvation (see Luke 1:69); and deliverance from servitude and freedom to serve God (see Luke 1:74–75): forgiveness of sins and therefore freedom from the fear of death, and peace (see Luke 1:77–79). God has intervened. He has raised up a horn of salvation, that is a mighty Saviour, in the house of David (see Luke 1:69). And that horn, of course, is not John, but Jesus.

And now we become aware of a remarkable thing. Zechariah throughout his prophecy has been using the past tense. 'God has visited . . . has raised up a horn of salvation.' In one sense quite correctly: the Saviour had already come. But at the moment he was an unborn infant, not yet viable. As far as the world was concerned, the sun had not yet risen. It was still dark. Yet Zechariah's faith was already sensing vindication and victory. It was long ago now since the prophets first preached the promise of God (see Luke 1:70), and God himself swore a covenant on oath to Abraham (see Luke 1:73). Since then faith had often been tempted to say that those old prophecies were only myths, an expression of man's belief in hope itself as a principle of life (for life without hope is unbearable); that they were never meant to be taken literally, that there never would be any real dawn in this world; that the only way for faith to survive was to reinterpret the dawn as a way of expressing a belief that the never-ending night had a pleasant side to it, if you only learned to adopt the right attitude to it. And faith had had to fight back and say that God cannot lie; that he must have meant what he said; that the prophets were not all self-deceived fools, unable to distinguish their own thoughts from the voice of God; that it was God who spoke to that long succession of unique prophets; that he must one day honour his oath, and honour the faith of generations of men. ^{[p 46]}

And now it had happened. Faith had been vindicated. But faith was also sober. It could afford to be. Zechariah looks back at his own baby. Yes, you, my child, will have your necessary preliminary work to do. Messiah will save us from all our enemies (see Luke 1:74), the great imperialist Gentile powers included. But first, Israel must repent. There can be no salvation in other senses until Israel has learned the way to salvation in the sense of forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God. That alone is the way out of the darkness of death's shadow and into peace. It will be Messiah's task, my son, to give his people not only forgiveness of their sins, but the knowledge that they have been forgiven. But you must go in front and prepare his road (see Luke 1:76–79).

Zechariah knew the people. He was not a priest for nothing. They would be more interested in political deliverance than in repentance and forgiveness of sins and in getting right with God. It would be difficult for John building a road down which Messiah could travel to get at their hearts. But nothing could alter the fact, or spoil the triumph for Zechariah's faith. The Messiah had come.

Luke is halfway through his first stage, his account of the last few hours before the dawn. At the beginning Zechariah's faith was decidedly shaky. It is delightful here to see that before Messiah actually came physically and publicly into the world, Zechariah's faith recovered and triumphed. So may ours before Messiah comes again.

2. The rising of the sun (Luke 2:1–52)

Stories 6 and 7. The birth of Jesus in Bethlehem and the visit of the shepherds (Luke 2:1–21)

Stories 4 and 5 told of the birth, circumcision and naming of the forerunner; Stories 6 and 7 tell of the birth, circumcision and naming of the Messiah. At once a vivid contrast appears between the two sets of stories: in the naming of John great stress was laid on the break with family tradition; at the birth of Jesus we shall find great stress laid on the maintenance of family tradition. This contrast is no mere superficiality. As the forerunner of Christ, John was to be 'the ^{[p 47]} voice of one crying in the wilderness' (Luke 3:4), a voice, that is all. It was irrelevant to his ministry who he was and of what family he came. On the other hand, as forerunner John led a movement that at the beginning was independent of Jesus, and in a sense continued to be independent even after Jesus began his own public ministry. John himself never became one of Christ's apostolic band; his converts were regarded as his disciples (see Luke 5:33); and though John's disciples frequently left John and attached themselves to Jesus (see John 1:35–37; 3:25–26), John still went on making disciples (see John 4:1). Moreover John made such a great impact on the nation that many people wondered whether he was in fact the Messiah. He carefully and clearly denied it, and publicly declared Jesus to be the Messiah (see Luke 3:15–17; John 1:19–34); but in case any doubt should arise then or later, the angel in naming him saw to it that family tradition, which was essential to Messiah, should be declared to be irrelevant to John's ministry. It did not matter who his father or family was.

For Jesus, by contrast, the maintenance of family tradition was, as we have said, all important, and that for obvious reasons. To claim to be the Messiah was to claim to be the Son of David and heir to the covenant and the promises made by God with David. So in the annunciation Gabriel describes the destined role of Mary's child as follows: '. . . and the Lord God shall give to him the throne of his father David and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end' (Luke 1:32–33). Likewise Zechariah in his prophecy speaks of Jesus as a horn of salvation raised up by God in the house of David (see Luke 1:69). Nor is this a little local colouring which came from Christ's Palestinian Jewish origin, but which disappeared when the Christian gospel moved out into the Gentile world: it remained an essential part of the gospel. Paul the apostle to the Gentiles describes the gospel as '. . . the gospel of God . . . concerning his Son who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh . . .' (Rom 1:1–3). And years later writing from a Roman prison Paul bids Timothy 'remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, of the seed of David according to my gospel' (2 Tim 2:8). This emphasis on the Davidic tradition springs from the very ^{[p 48]} nature of the gospel. The gospel is not a set of timeless universal truths expressed in the language of myth. The gospel is that centuries ago God started a great movement in history with Abraham and his seed and then with David, a movement which was every bit as literal and historical as the rise of the Roman Empire; and that Jesus the Messiah and Saviour is the culmination of that historical movement, come to fulfil all the promises made to and through David.

It was therefore indispensably necessary for this royal family tradition to be maintained at the birth of Jesus, and one feature of it in particular. The prophet Micah had predicted that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem (see Micah 5:2); in Bethlehem, therefore, Jesus must be born. Notice at once how our two stories together emphasize the place where Jesus was in fact born: in the city of David, in Bethlehem, in a manger (see Luke 2:4, 7, 11–12, 15–16); but notice next that the chief concern of Luke 2:1–7 (Story 6) is to explain how he came to be born there.

It was not Joseph or Mary who arranged it in order to lend credibility, when the day should come, to Jesus' claim to be David's Son. Divine providence so ordered things that it was the supreme organizing genius of the ancient world who arranged for Jesus to be born in Bethlehem. Caesar Augustus ordered a census. The organizing principle of the census was that every man must return to the city from which his family sprang in order to be registered. Joseph belonged to the house and line of David and he therefore had to go to David's city. He could not avoid maintaining the family tradition: the census compelled him.¹⁶ Of course Augustus knew nothing about this effect of the census, and the last thing he or his vassal Herod would have done would be to strengthen the credentials of a messianic claimant to the throne of Israel. For Augustus the taking of censuses was one of the ways he employed to get control over the various parts of his empire. But—and here is the irony of the thing—in the process, as he ^{[p 49]} thought, of tightening his grip on his huge empire, he so organized things that Jesus, Son of Mary, Son of David, Son of God, destined to sit on the throne of Israel and of the world, was born in the city of David, his royal ancestor. Fulfilling, all unknowingly, the prophecy of Micah, he established this particular detail in the claim of Jesus to be the Messiah.¹⁷

It is a most interesting example of God's providential government of the world of men. When John the Baptist was conceived, God turned back the processes of nature. When our Lord was conceived there was introduced into nature something which nature had never known before and which nature by herself could never have produced. But when God's Son and destined ruler of the kings of the earth entered the world of men, there was apparently no interference with men's will or freedom of action whatsoever. Augustus had his own completely adequate reasons for his action and he did exactly what he wanted to do. Yet he did what, had he known, he would not have wished to do: he established the claim of the royal Son of David. He did in fact what had been predetermined by the counsel and foreknowledge of God.

So much then for Story 6; what about Story 7 (see Luke 2:8–20)? The story of the angelic hosts and the visit of the shepherds to the manger is perhaps the best known of all the nativity stories. The marvellously rich imagery of the story appeals to some of the profoundest feelings in the human heart: shepherds caring for their sheep, the mother for her baby, and the angel choir breaking into the darkness of earth's night to herald the long-awaited sunrise, assuring the humble poor that whatever the mighty governments of the world might be doing, God cares for his people, and with a shepherd's heart has chosen that his Son should be born not in a palace but in a manger. Nor do we need to deny the symbolism of the story in order to maintain its historicity. History is solid, but without poetry it is dull and in danger of being meaningless; poetry is glorious, but without history, insubstantial. In the gospel of Christ both meet. ^{[p 50]} Only the dullest of pedestrian minds would insist that an event must be either symbolic or historical and cannot be both.

Our chief concern with Story 7, however, is to discover, if we can, how it fits into its context in Luke's narrative. And there are clues. We have already noticed how both Stories 6 and 7 emphasize the place where Jesus was born: in the city of David, in Bethlehem, in a manger (see Luke 2:4, 7, 11–12, 15–16). But there is this difference: Story 6 explains how Jesus came to be born in this place; Story 7 explains how a few hours after he was born, certain shepherds knew exactly the place to come to in order to find him: an angel, they said, had told them. Next we notice the effect of this whole incident as Luke himself has related it. The shepherds were the only ones, as far as we are told, to hear or see the angels. After they had visited the manger and told their story, they went off singing praise to God, and are never heard of again. The people standing around who heard what the shepherds said to Mary and the people who subsequently heard their story, 'marvelled' (Luke 2:18); but we hear nothing more of them either. And then we are told of Mary's reaction, as we shall be also in the next pair of stories (see Luke 2:33–35), and even more so in the final story (see Luke 2:43–51; see pp. 59–60): 'Mary was storing up all these things pondering them in her heart' (Luke 2:19).

And no wonder. They would have been an incalculable comfort to her. Preparing for the arrival of an ordinary baby, especially if it is her first, is responsibility enough for most mothers. Mary had been told that her miraculously conceived child was the Son of God. But since the annunciation no further angel had appeared to instruct her from time to time as to what preparations and arrangements would be appropriate for the Son of God. Imagine her concern! How would she know if she was doing everything right, as it ought to be done?

At home in Nazareth she would have been making the best preparations she could for the birth, when the census demands had put all her plans awry. To have to take a journey, and stay in a public hotel at such a time was bad enough. Imagine her distress when she got there and found all the rooms were taken. Their house in ^{[p 51]} Nazareth was not a palace; but Joseph was a master builder and doubtless they had reasonable comfort. Now she would have to give birth in some makeshift quarters, half in public. And where could she put the child when it was born? Her first baby! And God's Son! How could she put God's Son in a rough manger?

And then the shepherds arrived enquiring where the baby was. When asked how they knew where to come they replied that an angel of the Lord had told them that the Saviour, Christ the Lord, had been born this very night in the city of David.

With this, if not before, things must have begun to make sense to Mary. Gabriel had told her that her child should have the throne of his father David; and here was an angel sending these shepherds to David's city. She and Joseph had not intended to come to Bethlehem, but Augustus, or so it had seemed at the time, had compelled them to come to David's city. Now she saw what plan it was that lay behind Augustus and his administration, and had shepherded her and Joseph to Bethlehem. But there was another question. Perhaps, with the sudden increase in the population caused by the census, there might have been more than one baby born in David's city that night. How did the shepherds know that Mary's baby was the right one? The answer was simple: the angel had given them a sign: they would find the right baby lying in, of all places, a manger.

Ordinary women in Bethlehem did not put their firstborn infants in mangers, we may be sure, at least not if they could help it. For Mary it must have been unspeakably distressing to have to do so. Yet here were these shepherds, and according to them angels knew that the Son of God was lying in a manger, and were glad of the fact: they could use it as a sign to guide humble shepherds to where they might find the Saviour. Since then, of course, uncounted millions have been grateful for this sign, for at the higher level of meaning the birth in a manger has guided them more surely to the recognition of Jesus as God's Son and as Saviour of the world than birth in a palace would have done. Mary, of course, could not have foreseen that; but this much surely she saw: if angels were glad to use the manger as a sign for shepherds, another shepherd must have guided her and ^{[p 52]} Joseph and the child to the manger in the first place. All, then, was well and would be well: the responsibility for shepherding the infant Son of God was in higher hands than hers.

Stories 8 and 9. The prophecies of Simeon and Anna (Luke 2:22–40)

We may have forgotten it by now, but in Stories 2 and 3 we listened to Mary expressing her intense joy: 'My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Saviour' (Luke 1:46–47). In Stories 8 and 9 (see Luke 2:22–39) we are to hear of Mary's anguish: '. . . and your own soul shall be pierced through with a sword' (Luke 2:35). It goes without saying that this contrast is not an artificial literary creation of Luke's; still less is it the product of the present writer's subjective imagination. The contrast is inherent in two essential elements in God's programme of redemption: the incarnation with its joy and the cross with its inevitable anguish. The chief concern of our two stories will be to tell us how, when, and in what circumstances the warning of coming anguish was conveyed to Mary. Earlier ^{[p . 36]} we found ourselves wondering how Mary, being an ordinary mortal of flesh and blood, would bear the enormous strain of the prospect of becoming the mother of the Son of God. We can now also perceive that when she saw the one she believed to be the Son of God rejected by his nation and crucified, her faith would have been overwhelmed with indescribable dismay and bewilderment, if it had not been adequately prepared. Stories 8 and 9, then, will describe that preparation. For the incarnation Mary was first prepared by Gabriel and then her faith was further strengthened by Elizabeth; for the cross Mary will first be prepared by Simeon, and then consoled and encouraged by Anna. Let us begin by studying these two people.

Both Simeon and Anna had a vigorous and active faith in what they believed to be the divinely inspired prophetic programme for the restoration of Israel. Simeon is described as 'looking for the consolation of Israel' (Luke 2:25). The delightful term 'consolation of Israel' suggests that his expectation was based on the programme enunciated in such passages as Isaiah 40 ff. He was looking for the day when Israel's warfare and chastisement would be over, and God ^{[p 53]} would 'comfort his people'. Nor was Simeon narrow-mindedly concerned simply for the future of Israel. Basing himself again on Isaiah's predictions (e.g. Isa 42:6; 49:6) he foresaw the time when the light of God's salvation would spread to the very ends of the earth (see Luke 2:31–32).

Anna, for her part, is described as speaking of Jesus 'to all those who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem' (Luke 2:38). That expectation, again, was not mere wishful thinking or narrow-minded jingoism. It was solidly based on the repeated promises of the prophets. Jeremiah (see Jer ch. 33), for instance, had spoken of the matter. Daniel (see Dan ch. 9) had been given a timetable for Jerusalem's partial restoration, its consequent renewed desolations, and its ultimate complete restoration. After the return from the exile in Babylon, the prophet Zechariah had repeatedly (see Zech 1:12–2:13; 8:1–23; 9:9; 12:1–13; 14:1–21) affirmed that Jerusalem would one day be finally and permanently redeemed, and his language had made it clear that he was thinking of a restoration far more glorious than what was achieved when Nehemiah rebuilt the city's walls. Since that time Jerusalem had been desecrated by Antiochus Epiphanes, and now downtrodden by the Romans. But Anna, and those like her, were undaunted in their faith: Daniel had said that after the partial restoration following the exile, desolations would supervene until the final restoration. In Anna's mind things were going according to plan. Jerusalem's 'widowhood' (see Lam 1:1) had lasted a long while; but Anna, too, in the literal sense had been a widow for a very long time, and in a way her personal experience mirrored that of her city. Constant in her prayers and supplications, she was undaunted in her faith that the city's sorrows and desolations would one day be a thing of the past, and Jerusalem would be redeemed (see Luke 2:37–38). If Mary should need to be consoled and fortified to face the prospect of Messiah's 'being cut off', as Daniel had phrased it (see Dan 9:26), there was none more suited to the task than Anna.

We return to Simeon. Not only had he a firm faith in the prophetic programme in general, but he had been given a personal revelation relating to the timetable for the fulfilment of some of the ^{[p 54]} details of that programme: 'it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ' (Luke 2:26). From that revelation one might have jumped to the conclusion that Simeon would live to see the messianic kingdom established and the consolation of Israel, for which he looked, fully realized. But Simeon did not take it so. He recognized in Jesus God's salvation (see Luke 2:30). He did not mean, of course, 'salvation accomplished': the Saviour was still only a baby; he meant 'the means, or instrument of salvation'.¹⁸ Obviously the baby would have to grow up before he could accomplish salvation. Even so, having seen God's instrument of salvation actually born into this world, Simeon did not make it the basis of a prayer to be allowed to live on to see salvation accomplished; instead he took it as an indication that he was now going to be allowed to depart in peace. He could go in peace, in the certain knowledge that if the Saviour had actually come, salvation would eventually be accomplished, however long it took. But he was happy to go because he knew also—and this he began to tell Mary—that even after he had grown up, the Saviour would not immediately be welcomed by the nation, drive out the enemy, liberate Jerusalem city, 'console' Israel and put the world right. On the contrary, the Saviour would meet bitter opposition and rejection, and Mary would find the anguish of witnessing it like having a great military sword thrust through her soul.

Nor did Simeon get all these foresights simply from his private revelation. 'This child' he said 'is set for the falling and rising up of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against . . . so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed' (Luke 2:34–35). Both the language and the ideas are taken from the Old Testament. Isaiah had early prophesied that the Lord would be 'a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel . . . many shall stumble over it and be broken . . .' (Isa 8:14). Similarly the phrase 'a sign that is spoken against' carries overtones from the Old Testament. The noun ^{[p 55]} form (antilogia) of the participle which Luke uses for 'spoken against' (antilegomenon) is the word which was used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament to record Israel's rebellion against God in the wilderness (see Num 20:13).¹⁹ And when Simeon explains that the purpose behind Christ's being a 'sign that is spoken against' is 'that the thoughts of many hearts might be revealed', his words take us back to the explanation God gave to Israel as to why he had allowed them to undergo such traumatic experiences in the wilderness: '. . . that he might humble you, to prove you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not' (Deut 8:2).

Israel had never been a nation marked by unqualified obedience, any more than other nations had. When they came out of Egypt singing their songs of redemption, no one had dreamed that hidden in the hearts of many of them lay as yet unformed thoughts of sheer rebellion against God their Redeemer. But the wilderness, by God's deliberate intention, exposed them. And Simeon knew what Isaiah knew, that human nature is the same in all ages. Much therefore as he looked for the consolation of Israel, he knew that beneath the outward forms of religion there lurked still in many hearts that same spirit of rebellion, and that the first effect of the coming of Christ would be to provoke their hidden rebellion into open antagonism. In a sense Christ had to do that, for there could be no consolation of Israel until the latent rebellion against God had been brought out into the open, had been recognized for what it was, repented of and forgiven.

Simeon was no pessimist: he believed that Christ would be not only the cause of many in Israel falling but also the means of their rising again (see Luke 2:34). Exposure, confession and repentance would lead to forgiveness, reconciliation; even the Gentile nations would be embraced in the scope of that reconciliation. But Simeon was a realist. To him was given the delicate task of gently warning Mary that before the final consolation of Israel there must come bitter anguish for Israel, for her Son and for herself. ^{[p 56]}

Mary may well not have understood at the time all that Simeon told her; but later when the opposition against Jesus mounted, hardened and became official, and Mary was tempted to think that God's programme and timetable of redemption had gone wildly astray, she would look back to this meeting with Simeon and Anna in the temple and take comfort. Perhaps she would reflect on the providentially precise timing that brought Simeon into the temple at exactly the right moment on the right day to meet her and the child. And then she might even reflect on how she and the child came to be in the temple on that day to hear what Simeon had to say about the programme of redemption—at least, if she did not, Luke has done his best to make sure we do. Five times over (see Luke 2:22, 23, 24, 27, 39) Luke has told us that the reasons for, and the timing of, her visit to the temple were controlled by the law of the Lord. That law required from her two things: the sacrifice connected with the purification of a woman after childbirth and the presentation of her firstborn son to the Lord. Since her child was a male, forty days had to elapse before she was allowed to come to the temple to offer her sacrifice (see Lev 12:1–8); and so it was 'When their days of purification were complete' (Luke 2:22) that Mary brought Jesus to the temple to present him to the Lord. The timing of her visit was not a matter of chance: in this particular she was controlled by the timetabling of God's law.

Nor was the presentation of her firstborn Son to the Lord an empty formality or a mere superstition. The law (see Luke 2:23) went back to the time of Israel's redemption from Egypt, when under God's judgment Egypt's firstborn were slain, but Israel's firstborn were saved by the blood of the Passover sacrifice (see Exod 12; Luke 13:11–16). Ever after this, Israel's firstborn males, in recognition that their predecessors in Egypt owed their lives to God's redeeming mercy, had to be consecrated to the service of God. Since such consecration meant a life of religious service to God, like for instance that of Samuel (see 1 Sam 1–2) or that of the whole tribe of Levi, parents were normally allowed to redeem their firstborn from that life of service by a payment of five shekels (Num 18:15–16).²⁰ But every ^{[p 57]} firstborn male still had to be formally presented to the Lord; and the constantly recurring presentations had reminded Israel, as they were intended to do, that redemption was the basis of God's deliverance of his people. At the same time they had indelibly impressed on the nation's consciousness the basic principle and programme of redemption: the price of redemption is the sacrifice of the substitute.

It was on the very day when Mary came to present her firstborn to the Lord and stood there with her own sacrifice in her hand, that Simeon had approached her and had gently indicated that for Israel's redemption her firstborn must suffer. The message was at the time veiled in a certain obscurity, and that was kind: but when eventually Mary came to understand its full import, she would see that God had controlled both the time and the occasion of the message's delivery. And she would perceive that her Son's suffering and death were not untimely, some tragic accident: they were a necessary part of an eternal purpose.

One more small detail of timing might well have occurred to her as she reflected on that day in the temple. Anna had spoken of Jesus to those who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. Now had Anna appeared first, delivered her message and then left Simeon to finish the story, Mary might have concluded that Simeon's announcement annulled Anna's enthusiastic message; that Israel's rejection of God's Son, although it meant that salvation would go to the Gentiles, made it doubtful that Jerusalem city would ever be restored. But Anna had come up after Simeon; and in spite of all that Simeon had said, she had still assured her listeners that Jerusalem city would be redeemed. Remembering this, Mary would be prepared to hear the worst without losing heart.

She would one day hear that her Son had stood and wept over Jerusalem: 'O Jerusalem, how many times would I . . . and you would not. Behold your house is left to you desolate' (Luke 13:34–35). ^{[p 58]} She would one day hear, until her blood ran cold, how he had warned that Jerusalem would be surrounded by armies, its inhabitants butchered, or taken captive, and the city itself trodden down until the times of the Gentiles were fulfilled (see Luke 21:20–24). But she would lose neither heart nor faith; for she would also hear that he said, a few sentences later, '. . . they shall see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. But when these things begin to come to pass, look up, and lift up your heads; because your redemption draws near' (Luke 21:27–38). Hearing that, she would remember Simeon and then Anna.

Story 10. The boy Jesus in the temple (Luke 2:41–52)

We have already considered this final story in different connections ^{[p p. 3 and 27]} and there is no need to repeat here what we discovered there. It will be enough perhaps, if we observe here how natural and true to life Luke's narrative is and yet how skilfully he has caught the dramatic climax of the incident.

As pilgrims Mary and Joseph were travelling in a large caravan which included a number of friends and relatives (see Luke 2:44). It was not careless of them but very natural therefore, that during the first day of the return journey they did not know exactly where the boy Jesus was. He could have been with any one of the members of their extended family, or even with friends; and anyway he was a boy of twelve and well able to look after himself during the day.

It was also very natural, and typical of thousands of parents who have temporarily lost a child, that when at last they found him, Mary's sudden relief should allow her pent-up anxiety to express itself, even in front of such a distinguished company, in a clear, if restrained, reprimand of her child.

But now notice how Luke times the climax. At Luke 2:46a he has the parents finding Jesus; but he does not immediately give us Mary's reprimand. At this point he first switches our attention to Jesus sitting among the teachers of the law, astonishing everybody by the depth of his understanding and the quality of his answers. In a situation where an unaccompanied child is found in a public ^{[p 59]} building, the most natural questions for the authorities to ask are 'Hello son, are you all alone? Where's your father? Who is your father?' On this occasion the remarkable ability of the child must have given these questions an even greater interest in the minds of the theologians. When therefore Jesus' parents came in and identified themselves as the child's parents by Mary's reprimand: 'Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I . . .', the theologians must have watched and listened with intense interest: 'so this is his father, then; I wonder exactly who he is.'

At that dramatic moment the child spoke: 'Why were you searching for me? Did you not realize I had to be in my Father's house?' (Luke 2:49).

My Father's house? The learned doctors knew the Old Tes­ta­ment inside out. In all the long biblical record, not even Moses who had built the tabernacle, not David who had longed to build the temple, nor Solomon who had actually built it, no prophet, no king or commoner, not the most exalted of them, had ever referred to the tabernacle or temple as 'my Father's house'. The child was conscious of a relationship with God that none had conceived of, let alone expressed, before. And with that relationship, a compelling devotion: 'I had to be in my Father's house.'

'Did you not realize it?' he asked Mary and Joseph. The question was asked with all the delightful simplicity of a child. Mary, at least, ought to have realized it, and ought to have worked out some of the implications of what Gabriel had told her; but in her defence it can be said that she was not the last one to believe Jesus to be the Son of God, and then with unfortunate inconsistency to express ideas and views implying that in some things Jesus was in error. She had had, moreover, such little time to think through those implications; even we who know the subsequent story of the life, ministry, death, resurrection and ascension, and believe most firmly in the incarnation, even we have not managed to think through fully all its implications.

But now both Mary and Joseph were flustered, and they did not understand what he said (see Luke 2:50). Did it mean that from now on he was constantly going to assert independence of them? That would ^{[p 60]} make it very difficult to bring him up; and after all, he was a child still. He had still to grow in wisdom and stature (see Luke 2:52). No, he would not be asserting premature independence. Mary and Joseph still had their task to fulfil as parents, and he would be subject to them (see Luke 2:51). He was a real child.

But they had been given an early warning; and Mary kept all these sayings in her heart (Luke 2:51). The time would come when she must let him go. Her unique task would be over. She would then have to let him go at the level of the mere human relationship of child, that she might receive him as Saviour, Lord and God. As she thought over this incident, it would prepare her, so that when the break came it might not be so much a break as the eclipsing of one unique joy and responsibility by an infinitely greater wonder, worship and obedience.

Luke in all his gospel will mention Mary only once more (see Luke 8:19–21), and then not by her personal name. By that time the human, physical relationships of mother and brothers of the Messiah will already be starting to give way to the higher spiritual relationship to Christ of those who hear the word of God and do it.

Some further observations

We set out in our study of this first major section of the Gospel to examine Luke's selection of material, sense of proportion, repetition of ideas and themes, thought-flow, composition and structure. We early noticed that he had chosen five stories to cover happenings before the birth of Christ and five to cover the birth and what followed. That in itself suggested that Luke had a carefully balanced sense of proportion. Then we noticed ^{[p . 24]} that Story 10 contained striking similarities and contrasts with Story 1; and we concluded that Story 10 was selected by Luke because its theme complemented the theme of Story 1. Since then we have noticed that a leading theme in Stories 6 and 7 contrasts vividly with a leading theme in Stories 4 and 5; and similarly Stories 8 and 9 show a marked contrast with Stories 2 and 3^{[p 61]} .

This suggests not only that Luke has arranged his selected material in a carefully composed structure, but also that the structure is in fact symmetrical. The matter can best be represented in tabular form:

Table 3 Structure of Luke 1:5–2:52

This observation calls for comment, if for no other reason than that many people have an instinctive aversion to such structural symmetries. In a purely literary work they would regard symmetry as a cheap device, tending to triviality, and a sign of poor taste. They cannot think that a writer of holy Scripture would so far demean himself as to employ it. In a serious historical work they would regard symmetrical structure as being quite impossible. History by its very nature, they argue, is not symmetrical, and therefore no account of it can be given in symmetrical form without serious distortion of the historical facts. Moreover in recent years many scholars have claimed to detect symmetrical structures in Luke's writings; but their schemes are often mutually exclusive. This proves, their critics argue, that these symmetries are not objectively present in Luke's work: they are creations of the subjective imagination of the commentators. ^{[p 62]}

The question of literary taste is not so serious as it first appears. Granted that symmetrical structures in literature do not please modern taste, there is abundant evidence that they were to the taste of ancient writers of the highest excellence. C. H. Talbert refers in this connection to Homer, Aeschylus, Euripides, Herodotus, Thucydides, Pindar, Catullus, Horace, Virgil, Propertius and Plutarch.²¹ Luke's taste is more likely to have been that of the ancient world than that of ours.

More serious is the charge that the use of symmetrical structures is incompatible with a concern for historical accuracy. We have already hinted ^{[p p. 6–7]} that this charge is mistaken; we will discuss it more fully in Appendix 2.

The third objection rests on an all too true observation, but on a false deduction. Granted that the differences between the symmetries which scholars of a literary bent have claimed to detect in Luke-Acts are so great that they cannot all be right, but could all be wrong. The same could be said often enough about the learned views of the exegetes and historians; and we do not on that account rule out in advance all attempts at exegesis or historical criticism. We patiently seek for sound criteria for judging between the conflicting views put forward. This likewise we shall discuss later in Appendix 3.

For the moment, however, certain practical considerations call for our attention. In the rest of his Gospel Luke will constantly do the kind of thing we have found him doing in this first section. He will group passages by common theme, and he will frequently tell a story which expresses one aspect of a matter and then shortly afterwards balance it with another story which expresses a complementary or opposite aspect of the same matter. He will do it because he wishes to present a balanced account of our Lord's life, work and teaching. The result, intended or otherwise, will be that his work will often give the impression of being symmetrically structured. In some places the impression will be striking, in others ^{[p 63]} not so clear; it is perhaps to be expected that if he has used symmetry at all, he is more likely to have used it in the arrangement of incidents and parables than in the record of long stretches of detailed teaching. But—and here is our first practical point—the question whether and to what extent Luke may have intended to construct symmetrical structures will not be our main concern. Our prime concern will be to perceive the flow and balance of Luke's thought. Symmetries if they exist, certainly do not exist for their own sake: they are the result of the balance of Luke's thought. It is possible to follow the flow and balance of his thought without deciding whether the structure of his narrative is intended to be a perfect symmetry or not.

Our second practical point is that to avoid excessive tedium in what follows we shall not necessarily refer explicitly to the considerations of selection, proportion, repetition of ideas, thought-flow, composition and structure which have guided our exposition in those cases where it is self-evident what they are.

And one final practical point, concerning a labour-saving device. Towards the beginning of each stage we shall place a kind of table of contents, drawn up for the purpose of suggesting what the main ideas and themes of the stage are and how they relate to one another. Some of them will show clear, detailed and complete symmetry; some will show little or none. Let each reader see in them as much or as little symmetry as he pleases.²² But even those who cannot accept any, may still find it useful to turn to the tables from time to time and to use them as maps to help them maintain a bird's-eye view of the terrain as a whole while the commentary is moving inch by inch through that terrain in its necessarily more pedestrian fashion.

Notes

¹² Or, 'about my Father's business'. The difference in translation does not affect the point we are considering here.

¹³ 'A Conservative Case for Christ' The Times (London, June 4, 1984, p. 18). ¹⁴ Art. cit. ¹⁵ This is the crucial point on which the whole of the Old Testament book of Ruth turns.

¹⁶ The historians cannot tell us for certain exactly why Joseph's being of the house and family line of David should have obliged him under the terms of the census to return to Bethlehem. Two or three reasons are possible, none is certain. Red tape in the different provinces and vassal kingdoms of the Roman Empire was almost as complicated as ours is today. For discussion see Marshall, Luke, 100–102.

¹⁷ For another instance in Luke's writings of an imperial decree unintentionally helping forward the gospel at a crucial stage, see Acts 18:1 ff.

¹⁸ The Greek word sōtērion can mean, like its cognate sōtēria, 'salvation accomplished'. But its primary meaning is 'means or instrument of salvation', and that is the sense in which it would appear to be used here.

¹⁹ Cf. its use in Heb 12:2–3: '. . . him who endured such contradiction (antilogia) by sinners against himself'.

²⁰ Luke makes no explicit mention of the payment of five shekels to redeem Jesus, and the commentators disagree over whether Mary and Joseph did, or did not, decide that the child must be left consecrated utterly to God's service and not redeemed (though unlike Samuel, he seems to have worked later at a secular trade as a carpenter: Mark 6:3). We need not try to decide the matter here.

²¹ Literary Patterns, 67. The present writer would not necessarily agree with all the structures proposed by Talbert.

²² See Talbert's remarks on the dislike of perfect, unbroken symmetry among the ancients of both the classical and Near Eastern worlds, Literary Patterns, 78–9. His remarks are valid enough, even if in practical literary criticism it is all too easy to appeal to this principle in order to claim partial symmetry in passages where it is very doubtful. ^{[p 65]}