Why Did They Burn
That Poor Mule?
I remember when I was little hearing people sing the third
stanza of Deck the Halls: “See the
blazing Yule before us.” Afterwards I wondered to myself, why did they burn
that poor mule?
You may have heard the one about the kid who made a drawing
of the Nativity scene for Sunday school. Everyone looked familiar except for a
fat guy standing in the corner. “Who’s that?” asked his teacher. “That’s Round
John Virgin,” said the kid. “You know, Round John Virgin, mother, and child.”
And before you classify that story as myth, remember: I really did think they
were roasting a mule…
Many of you have seen the Discovery Channel’s popular series,
Mythbusters. Each week Adam Savage,
Jamie Hyneman attempt to prove or disprove all kinds of popular myths and urban
legends. What would the Mythbusters do with the theological assumptions and the
level of historical accuracy behind our beloved Christmas carols? Since Savage
and Hyneman are both outspoken atheists, I decided that I was much better
qualified to either confirm or refute the popular beliefs about the first
Christmas found in the carols.
I’m betting that much of what you think you know about
Christmas is based on those carols you learned as a child. It may come as a
shock that these are not an entirely reliable source of information. And I’m
not even talking about some of the more absurd notions like that presented in The Little Drummer Boy:
Shall
I play for you, on my drum?
Mary
nodded, the ox and lamb kept time,
I
played my drum for Him,
I
played my best for Him,
Then
He smiled at me,
Me
and my drum.
Oh course we all know that pounding on a drum has long been a
favorite method of shepherds and cowboys to calm restless flocks and herds, so
we’d naturally expect one of the shepherd boys to be packing his trusty bongo. And
no first-time mother would ever
object to some strange kid banging away on a drum just a few hours after she endured
a difficult birth in a barn. And don’t even get me started about the ox and
lamb rhythm section…
Actually myths about miraculous animal activity associated
with the birth of Christ regularly appear in medieval times. So it should not
be surprising to see the line in the first stanza of Good Christian Men, Rejoice, “Man and beast before Him bow…” since
this ancient carol dates back to the 14th Century in its original
Latin version. Luke 2 makes no mention of any animals at all except for the
flocks of sheep out in the fields. While it is reasonable to assume that there
would have been animals in that stable, there is no reason to believe that they
acted in any way out of the ordinary—unless they may have been a bit uneasy at
having unexpected human company sharing their humble accommodations. You can
bet they weren’t talking, bowing down, or beating time to music.
Away in a Manger
Away in a Manger
was probably the very first Christmas carol that I learned to sing. Remember
those words in the second stanza, “But little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes…”?
The writer is anonymous but I have to believe he was a father who’d lost sleep
due to a crying baby. I’m reminded of the words of one of my Old Testament
professors, a man who was a practicing pediatrician when God called him into
the ministry. Having already earned one doctorate, he headed off to seminary
and earned first a Master of Divinity and then a Ph.D. His comment? “A baby
that doesn’t cry is sick.”
Hark! The Herald
Angels Sing (or did they?)
Perhaps the most prevalent theme in our Christmas music is
the image of heavenly choirs of angels singing to celebrate the birth of our
Lord:
Ø
Hark! the
herald angels sing…
Ø
Angels we
have heard on high, Sweetly singing o’re the plains…
Ø
With the
angels let us sing…
Ø
Sing
choirs of angels, sing in exultation…
Ø
Whom
angels greet with anthems sweet…
I could go on.
It Came Upon a
Midnight Clear adds the idea of angels playing harps:
Ø
From
angels bending near the earth, To touch their harps of gold…
Angels We Have Heard
on High has the shepherds joining the chorus.
The only problem with all this is nowhere in scripture does
it once mention angels singing.
What does Luke’s gospel actually say?
13And suddenly there was
with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,
14“Glory to God in the
highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
In the New Testament singing is always mentioned in the
context of praise to God. There are several different Greek words that are used
to convey the idea. But the word translated praising
in Luke 2:13 is not the word usually used for singing.
But let’s face it. We are
talking about angelic voices here. And somehow I suspect that prose from the
lips of an angel would sound like music to a human ear. So I’m willing to give
Charles Wesley and Joseph Mohr and all those other great hymn writers a pass on
this one.
But lose the golden harps.
Perhaps the biggest misinformation about that first
Christmas that song writers have contributed to has to do with the star and the
wise men; confusion that is compounded by how little we actually know about
this most mysterious aspect of the nativity stories.
We Three Kings of Orient
They adorn countless Christmas cards. They’re the most exotic figurines in a
traditional nativity crèche. They’re the
little boys wearing the paper crowns in the Christmas play. They are the subject of song, and myth and
legend. They are the wise men—those
mysterious figures from the East who came to worship and honor the infant
Jesus.
Just who were the
wise men? Were they, as the song says,
three kings of the orient?
The wise men are more accurately called the magi
from the Greek word mágoi. From
that same Greek root we get the words magic and magician. The term first referred to members of the
shaman chaste of the ancient Medes, a tribe in what is now western Iran. To the magi was ascribed the power to
interpret dreams. The Greek philosophers
regarded the magi not only as priests, but as teachers and philosophers as well.
Long before the 1st Century magi had
assumed a much broader meaning. The
magi were thought to possess supernatural knowledge and ability. They were interpreters of dreams,
soothsayers, astrologers, scientists, magicians, and counselors to those in
power. By Jesus’ day the magi were no
longer exclusively Persians. There were
Babylonian magi, Arabian magi and even Jewish magi such as the sorcerer
Bar-Jesus in Acts 13. They ranged from
charlatans like Bar-Jesus to some of the most learned men in the ancient
world. The magi in Matthew 2 are
pictured has wholly admirable characters, magi at their best.
Where were the magi from? The Gospel simply
says that they were “from the East”. Beyond that, there are three locations
that are usually suggested: Parthia, Babylon, and the deserts of Arabia or
Syria. Strong arguments can be made for each. Parthia is the location
most favored by the history of the term mágoi. The Babylonians had a long and highly developed interest in astronomy
and astrology. And camel caravans had long been bringing gold, frankincense,
and myrrh north from the southern end of the Arabian Desert—the region of
modern day Yemen.
If the magi were from Parthia, then their dress—belted
tunics with full sleeves, flowing trousers, and conical-shaped caps—would have looked
very much like the genie from Aladdin’s lamp!
Then there’s the theory that the magi came from multiple
locations, an idea closely
associated with several other legends, none of which have any basis in history.
Like the belief that there were three magi. The Bible doesn’t say how many
there were. Three are assumed because three kinds of gifts are listed. Or the
notion that the magi were kings. (Again, the Bible is silent on this point.)
Various names have been given them. Best known are: Balthasar, Melchior and Gaspar which first show up in the 3rd
Century. By the 9th Century the tradition was established that they represent
three races. Balthasar was Asian; Gaspar a white European; and Melchior was a
black African.
The confusion continues to this day. Bob Yarbrough, a dear
friend of mine, now teaches seminary in St. Louis but years ago he was as a
logger in Montana. He told me about Steve Spooner, a wild Montana man he sawed
with over 35 years ago. Bob was trying to lead Steve to faith in Christ. It was
around Christmas. The discussion veered off to the birth narratives. To
illustrate how improbable the Bible is, Steve said, “We know the wise men were
from China.” That was news to Bob. So he asked, “Steve, how do we know the wise
men were from China?” Steve’s answer? “Because it says, ‘We three kings of ORIENT are.’” Hard to argue with that kind
of logic.
We don’t know precisely where the magi were from, only
that they were “from the East.” So
what do we know?
·
We know there were at least two, since mágoi
is a plural.
·
We know they were men, since these words have
masculine endings.
·
We can assume that they were men of some
financial means. Their gifts were
valuable. In the First Century
frankincense and myrrh were worth more than their weight in gold. They had the leisure and financial means to
make a long journey. Given the dangers
of travel in the border regions on the eastern end of the Roman Empire and the
value of their goods, they were probably accompanied by a large contingent of
armed guards.
·
We can assume they were men of some stature and
influence, since they were quickly granted a private audience with King Herod.
·
We can assume that they traveled some distance
to get to Jerusalem. If they came from
the closest possible location, the western edge of the Syrian Desert, then they
traveled at least a couple hundred miles—a good ten-day trip. However, if they journeyed from southern
Arabia or from Parthia, which is located well to the northeast of Babylon, then
conceivably they traveled as far as 2,000 miles, much of it through empty
desert, and most likely on camels. Such
a trip would have taken at least four to six months and possibly much longer.
·
We know that they were regarded as wise and
learned men in their day and that a part of their learning included a study of
the stars. Their statements to Herod’s
court were regarded as quite credible and were taken with utter seriousness.
Were the Magi present
on Christmas night? – The third stanza of The First Noel suggests as much.
We get a clue to the truth from Matthew 2:7 which reads, “Then Herod called the Magi secretly and
found out from them the exact time the star had appeared.” Herod did some
quick math. He assumed that the star
appeared at the moment the Messiah was born. We have no way of knowing if that assumption
was correct. Did the star appear when Christ was born, or did it appear to the
Magi in advance, so as to put their arrival on the scene near the time of the
birth? There is simply no way for us to know. Luke’s account of the birth makes
no mention of the star at all. The shepherds saw a host of angels, but they
said nothing about a star. And being familiar with the night sky, we have to
believe that they would have noticed.
In Matthew 2:16 Herod ordered his swordsmen to kill all male
children in Bethlehem two years old and under. Many argue from this that Jesus
was two when the magi arrived. If so, why kill the newborns? The obvious answer
is that Herod wasn’t being all that discriminating—he just wanted to make sure
he got the right baby. But that makes as much or more sense if when Herod
issued his execution order he included children older than the age ascertained
from the Magi just to make certain that he found his target. If we know
anything at all about Herod the Great, we know that he never shied from
shedding innocent blood.
What we can
conclude from the text is that the Magi did not arrive the actual night that
Jesus was born, for it says in verse 11 that they found the family in a house not a stable. But that’s not much
help. I think it safe to assume that the morning after the birth Joseph’s #1
priority was to get his young family out that stable and into a house. Given
the realities of Middle Eastern hospitality, it is unthinkable that some family
in Bethlehem would not have opened their home to a young mother with a newborn
baby. So for all we know, the magi may have arrived the next night.
Why did the magi come? Why would important and
wealthy men journey great distances at considerable cost and risk with no
apparent prospect for personal gain? What drew the magi to Bethlehem? Well,
the Star drew them. It’s hard for a modern Western mind to understand the
way the ancients looked at reality. Let me illustrate with a couple events from
the night of November 5, 2001. I was in suburban Milwaukee when I learned that a
longtime friend and co-worker had just died.
Moments later I noticed something odd about the sky. It was a display of
the northern lights and with a degree of clarity and brilliance unusual for those
latitudes. Bright reds and greens danced across the autumn sky. It was the most
dazzling aurora borealis that I’ve ever seen. In fact, if you go to www.spaceweather.com
and search that date you will see a picture of that same aurora taken in
Roanoke, Virginia!
Now all that this meant to me was that an unusually large
solar flare a few days earlier had sent a mass of energized particles hurtling
through space and those particles were now colliding with earth’s ionosphere,
resulting in an aurora. But had I been a magus in the ancient Near East, I’d
have interpreted those events very differently. I’d have seen an important
connection between my co-worker’s death and that atmospheric disturbance. The
aurora would have been interpreted as a sign with symbolic meaning.
Perhaps this helps us understand how seeing an unusual star
in the night sky would take on special meaning to those sages of old. It was a
sign, a portent of some important event that was happening or was about to
happen. It had meaning to the world at large and to them personally. They would
have gleaned clues to what nation was involved from the specific area of the
sky where the star appeared. Perhaps the star was in the constellation Leo.
They may have associated Leo with the Lion of Judah, the symbol of the royal
house of David. Some such reasoning process led them to conclude that the event
involved Israel. We do know that they were not led to Jerusalem
by literally following the star. That is common misconception. In verse two the
magi told Herod that they saw the star in the east. Later in verse nine we are
told that the star reappeared to them as they were leaving Jerusalem and led
them to Bethlehem—directly to the place where the child was located.
So what was this star? Was it some natural
phenomenon that was interpreted symbolically? Many theories over the years have
been offered with just such an explanation in mind. A supernova, a comet, or an
unusual planetary conjunction are among the better-known ideas. In 1975 Arthur
C. Clarke actually wrote a sci-fi short story, The Star, based on the supernova theory. All of these suggestions
raise interesting points and all have both strengths and weaknesses.
But I’m not convinced that any of these theories adequately address the events recorded in
Matthew. The first appearance of the star might be explained as a primitive
culture’s interpretation of an unusual natural event. But the actions of the star in Matthew 2:9
defy any such naturalistic explanation: “And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them
until it came to rest over the place where the child was.” The Church of
the Nativity in Bethlehem—where tradition says the stable was located—is just over
five miles SSW of site of Herod’s palace in Jerusalem. For a light in the heavens to guide travelers from
Herod’s palace to a specific spot in Bethlehem means that this light must have
been very low in the sky and had to
have been moving very slowly.
Imagine the difficulty of following a hot air balloon from
the ground. If it’s at 30,000 feet and caught up in the jet stream it’d be
impossible to keep up with and impossible to estimate when you were directly
under it. On the other hand, if that balloon were only a hundred feet off the
ground and drifting slowly, you could easily keep up with it in open country and
would know with confidence when it was directly overhead. Movement of this
nature could not be attributed to a comet or a supernova or a planetary
conjunction or any known atmospheric disturbance, nor could such phenomena
begin to provide the kind of precise direction needed to locate one specific
person on the ground. And specific direction, after all, was the whole point of
the exercise! Whatever that star was, it was no thing of nature.
What we think of as
an event limited to one night was actually a series of events spread out over weeks
or months:
First, the command of Caesar Augustus compelled Mary and
Joseph to make the difficult journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Whether they
arrived on the night of Jesus’ birth or a day or two earlier we don’t know, but
given their living arrangements they couldn’t have been there long.
Second, the nighttime announcement of an angelic messenger inspired
the shepherds to leave their flocks and investigate.
Finally, on a night long ago a group of pagan scholars
studying the stars saw something totally unexpected. They concluded, for
reasons no long clear to us, that this unusual star signified the birth of a
new King of the Jews. So they headed for the logical place to look for a new
Jewish king, the palace of the current Jewish king, Herod the Great in
Jerusalem. As they left Herod’s court on their way to Bethlehem, that
mysterious star reappeared and led them with precision to the very house where
Jesus lay.
These diverse moving parts were under the direct control of God:
Roman imperial tax policies, the superstitious beliefs of pagan astrologers,
the natural curiosity of lowly shepherds, the fear and hostility of a cruel
despot, the seemly inconsequential travels of a poor peasant couple, and the
announcement of an angelic messenger… all skillfully combined, like threads in
a heavenly tapestry, to set the stage for the birth of the Son of God.
No one is suggesting that a song or carol must be correct in
every detail before you can sing it. So feel free to enjoy your favorites (unless
your favorite happens to be Grandma Got
Run Over By a Reindeer which ought to be banned by law). But for a reliable
source of Advent season theology, stick with Matthew and Luke.
Merry Christmas!