What can my Bible teach me about Christmas?

A few months ago, my mother got her first Bible. I’m sure she reads it with more voracity than I read mine. But I just love the way God makes each of us so differently; I’ve a mind for numbers, so much of my memory for the Bible, its books, chapters and verses is catalogued somehow. And then there’s the matter of revelation, where God’s Spirit literally highlights a word or a concept, which starts searches that seem to occur randomly on a daily basis.

Here is what I’m advising my mother as she remains curious about the Christmas in Christ Jesus. Curiosity is what keeps us growing toward knowing and knowing makes us even more curious. What emanates is the fruit of God’s Spirit as it flourishes in our life—all for reading God’s Holy Bible. It really is THAT simple.

Here goes:

Well, we need to start in the obvious of places; the birth narratives themselves. Yes, there’s more than one. Between Matthew and Luke, we have two historical accounts that highlight different facts, as they reveal how two different people would notice or write about the same account but differently.

You could say Luke feels more prophetic and seems to talk more about before Jesus’ birth. It’s wonderful to read about Mary and her relative Elizabeth, the early connection of Jesus with John the Baptist.

You might say Matthew is more the Jewishly faithful account in that it gives the very helpful genealogy of Jesus in chapter 1, before talking about Joseph and his relationship with Mary, his betrothed (the one he was pledged to marry), amid his desire to obey the Jewish Law.

Throughout these gospel accounts, we may notice references to what is located in the Old Testament. There are eight direct prophesies that speak of Christ’s birth, including the virgin birth and his naming, Immanuel, which means “God with us,” in Isaiah 7:14, and the reference that the Messiah (Jesus) would be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2).

Many facts about the birth of Christ are faithfully played out in detail in nativity plays and sets every Christmas. What they may not depict, however, is how arduous and stressful that time must have been for Mary and Joseph, a very young and poor couple in a strange place on their way to abide by the mandated Roman census, because Joseph was from the house and line of David and had to report in Bethlehem (Luke 2:1-4).

What I would advise in reading the accounts of Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2 is to flip between these sections as much as you’re curious. Allow your mind to run free within the over-2,000-year-old narrative between both gospels.

You might also go into Mark and John and wonder why they took a different approach entirely. It’s okay entirely to ask the hard questions. Your Bible can withstand any rigour, and you’ll only grow as you challenge the text for more. Wrestle with the text with others who are more biblically knowledgeable than you are.

The beauty in taking an intentional journey more deeply into the Nativity narrative is it takes us more intently into the life of this man named Jesus; a being both fully man and fully God (the “two natures” man) according to our faith.

What I’m hoping is sparked within you as you interrogate passages like Isaiah 7 and Micah 5 is an interest in the other prophecies of Christ, like in Zechariah, which talks about the Messiah to come. You need to know that Christ and Messiah mean the same thing, as does Saviour. Messiah is Jewish, Christ is from the Greek. Zechariah is an incredible book, thick with meaning for Christians, particularly within chapters 9–14, where there are four prophecies about Christ (9:9; 11:12-13; 12:10; 13:7).

While we’re in the Old Testament, if we want to gain a grasp on the Suffering Servant motif, we can go to Isaiah chapters 45–55, where we learn much about the very nature of the God-man.

But I seem to have digressed.

Actually, perhaps that’s the point. As we lose ourselves in reading this ancient book of books, as we thumb randomly through its pages, being led as it were by the Spirit that gave it to us, we are of a fashion meditating in a way that is so good for our soul.

Try it. It works.

Basic photo by Carolyn V on Unsplash