Matthew’s simple story of Jesus' birth

Today’s passage brings to mind various birth story memories:

• My Dad was born in 1936 in the middle of the night on the family farm near Morganville, Kansas. A neighbor’s wife came to assist Granddad Orville & used the string from a Gunny Sack to sever the umbilical cord. (Thanks to my Grandmother Erma for sharing this story & creating a recurring nightmare for me every time Doris shifted in the night during the latter stages of our two pregnancies.)
• Humphrey Bogart was born on Christmas Day in 1899 in bed #21 at Sloane’s Maternity Hospital in New York City.
• Pebbles Flintstone of The Flintstones’ cartoon show was born on February 22, 1963 at Bedrock’s Rockopedic Hospital. Her birth was a nationwide sensation thanks to various contests to guess if the baby was going to be a boy/girl (it was prehistoric times, so sonograms weren’t invented yet), name the baby, & guess the height & weight.
• When our 1^st son, Matthew, was born, the birth process accelerated so dramatically there wasn’t any time for pain medications. When we were preparing for Jacob’s birth, Doris gave me one job: make sure she got an epidural. That morning, a nurse checks Doris & says it’s too early for an epidural. Five minutes later a different nurse says it is too late for an epidural because she’s going into labor immediately. (Needless to say, I’m not expecting much from the nursing home that Doris will pick out for me.)

We know all these interesting tidbits about these birth stories, so we come with high hopes/expectations for Matthew’s re-telling of Jesus’ birth in today’s passage & we get zip.

       Aside: A father-to-be excitedly calls 911 to tell them his wife is in labor.  The responder asks, “Is this her 1^st child?”  The man responds, “No, this is her husband.”

I don’t think I’m the only one underwhelmed by Matthew’s narrative of Jesus’ birth. I suspect God was also a tad disappointed at the lack of details. I would submit that if God arranged for a star to appear in the heavens to direct the magi to His Son’s birthplace & coordinated a choir of angels to fill the night skies with music & light to celebrate His Son’s birth, then He would probably have a shelf crammed with scrapbooks of memorabilia like a clip of Jesus’ hair, a bit of hay from the manger preserved in a Ziploc bag, & that day’s front page of the Bethlehem Gazette clipped out. And yet, Matthew shares no interesting tidbits with his readers. Seriously Matthew?

      Aside: What could be a more annoying instrument for the Little Drummer Boy to play for Mary after Jesus’ birth & why did you respond, “A recorder?”

But what if Matthew is trying to gently shift our focus? Maybe he is telling us that, yes, Jesus’ birth was an all-time game-changer, but that Christmas is only important because of what occurred over the next 33 years. It’s similar to being a Chiefs’ fan. While we may fondly recall the hopes we had when we drafted Steve Fuller with our #1 pick in 1979 & Todd Blackledge with our #1 pick in 1983, we gleefully exult over our #1 draft pick in 2017, Patrick Mahomes, because of what has occurred since then.

So, we should joyfully celebrate Christmas, not because it was the pinnacle of God’s work in the world, but rather because it initiated God’s grand strategy to transform the world from a place of darkness into a place of light, a place of despair into a place of hope, a place of misery into place of joy. Christmas marks the tipping point of human history when God, Himself, became flesh & walked amongst us to definitively demonstrate His love for each & every one of His children. Now, that is a day worth celebrating!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to reminisce as I peruse Matthew & Jacob’s scrapbooks. Yikes. I forgot just how big Matthew & Jacob were when they were born. Sigh. I’ll be lucky if my nursing home has indoor plumbing.