"And when she saw him she was troubled and cast about in her
mind what manner of salutation this should be."
Only Mary could have told the interior state of her mind, the
doubts, the troubles, the mental inquiries, known only to herself.
The rest of the interview, the magnificent and solemn words of the
angel, in the nature of things could have come to the historian only
through Mary's narrative.
"Thou shalt conceive and bring forth a Son and shalt call his
name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of
the Highest, and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of
his father David, and he shall reign over the house of Jacob
forever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end."
In St. Matthew we have the history of the hesitation of Joseph, his
manly delicacy and tenderness for his betrothed wife, and the divine
message to him in a dream; all of which are things that could have
been known only through his own narration.
We find also in this history, whose facts must have come from
Joseph, a table of genealogy tracing his descent back to David,
while in the account given by Mary in St. Luke there is another and
different table of genealogy. The probable inference on the face of
it would be that the one is the genealogy of Joseph and the other
of Mary; and it confirms this supposition to find that she was
spoken of in Rabbinic writings of an early period as the daughter
of Heli,[3] who concludes the genealogy given in Luke, and on this
supposition would be the father of Mary and grandfather of Jesus.
Moreover, as the angel himself in announcing the birth of Christ
laid special stress upon the fact that his mother was of the house
of David, it is quite probable that the genealogy which proved that
descent was very precious in Mary's eyes, and that this is therefore
imbedded in the account which St. Luke derives from her, as the very
chief treasure of her life. That genealogical record was probably
the one hoarded gem of her poverty and neglect--like a crown jewel
concealed in the humble cottage of an exiled queen.
[3] Lightfoot, in his notes on Luke iii., maintains this theory, and
quotes in support of it three passages from the Jerusalem Talmud,
folio 77, 4, where Mary the mother of Jesus is denounced as the
_daughter of Heli_, and mother of a pretender. The same view is
sustained by Paulus, Spanheim, and Lange.
When the conviction was brought home to both these hidden souls
that their house was to be the recipient of this greatest of all
honors, we can easily see how it must have been a treasury of secret
and wonderful emotions and contemplations between them. A world of
lofty thought and feeling from that hour belonged to those two of
all the world, separating them far as heaven is above the earth from
the sordid neighborhood of Nazareth. Every tie which connected them
with the royal house of David must have been wakened to intense
vitality. All the prophecies with regard to the future Messiah must
have blazed with a new radiance in the firmament of their thoughts.
The decree from Cæsar that all the world should be taxed, and the
consequent movement towards a census of the Jewish nation, must have
seemed to them a divine call and intimation to leave the village of
Nazareth and go to their ancestral town, where prophecy had told
them that the Messiah was to be born:--
"And thou Bethlehem-Ephratah, though thou be little among the
thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall come a Governor which
shall rule my people Israel, whose goings forth have been from
of old, from everlasting."
On this magnificent mystery were these two poor, obscure, simple
people pondering in their hearts as they took their journey over
the picturesque hill-country towards the beautiful little town of
Bethlehem, the village of their fathers; Bethlehem, the city of the
loving Ruth, and her descendant, the chivalrous poet king, David.
It seems they went there poor and without acquaintance, casting
themselves in simple faith on the protection of God. The
caravanserai of those days bore more resemblance to camping-huts
than anything suggested by our modern inn. There was a raised
platform which gave to the traveler simply space to spread his bed
and lie down, while below this was the portion allotted to the
feeding and accommodation of the animals.
When these two guests arrived the space allotted to travelers was
all taken up, and a shelter had to be arranged in the part allotted
to the animals. We are so accustomed to look at that cradle in
Bethlehem through the mists of reverential tradition that we have
ceased to realize what a trial and humiliation it was to these
children of a royal race to find themselves outcasts and homeless
in the city of their fathers--in the very hour when home and its
comfort were most needed. We must remember they had to live by faith
as well as we. Though an angel had announced this coming child as
the King of Israel, still their faith must have been severely tried
to find themselves, as the hour of his birth approached, unwelcomed,
forlorn, and rejected by men, in the very city of David.
The census in which they came to have their names enrolled was the
last step in the humiliation of their nation; it was the preparation
for their subjugation and taxation as a conquered tribe under the
Roman yoke: and they, children of the royal house of David, were
left to touch the very lowest descent of humiliation, outcasts from
among men, glad to find a resting-place with the beasts of the stall.
Christ is called the Morning Star, and truly he rose in the very
darkest hour of the night. The Friend of the outcast, the Care-taker
of the neglected, the poor man's Helper, must needs be born thus.
But was there no message? Yes. In those very hills and valleys of
Bethlehem where David kept his father's sheep were still shepherds
abiding. The Psalms of David were there the familiar melodies; they
lived by the valley and hill, as when he sang of old,--
"The Lord is my Shepherd;
I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;
He leadeth me beside the still waters."
These shepherds probably were poor men of a devout and simple faith,
men who longed and prayed and waited for the consolation of Israel.
Their daily toil was ennobled by religious associations. Jehovah
himself was addressed as the
"Shepherd of Israel;
He that leadeth Joseph like a flock;
He that dwelleth between the cherubims."
It was to such souls as these, patient, laborious, prayerful, that
the message came; that the Good Shepherd--the Shepherd and Bishop
of Souls--was born. No comment can brighten or increase the solemn
beauty of those simple words in which this story is told:--
"And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the
field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the
angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord
shone round about them; and they were afraid. And the angel said
unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of
joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day
in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And
this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall find the babe wrapped in
swaddling-clothes, lying in a manger.
"And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the
heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the
highest, and on earth Peace, Good-will toward men.
"And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them
into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now
go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to
pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. And they came
with haste, and found Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in a
manger. And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the
saying which was told them concerning this child. And all they
that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by
the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them
in her heart.
"And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all
the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto
them."
They received the reward of faith; having heard the heavenly
message, they believed and acted upon it. They did not stop to
question or reason about it. They did not say, "How can this be?"
but "Let us go even unto Bethlehem and see this thing which is
come to pass." And so it was that they were rewarded by seeing and
hearing the wonders "as it was told unto them."
The visit of these simple, confiding souls doubtless cheered the
patient hearts of the humble outcasts, and strengthened their faith.
If now it be asked, Why was all this so? we have only to answer that
heaven is a very different world from our earth, and that heavenly
ways of viewing people and things are wholly above those of earth.
The apostle says that the foolishness of God is wiser than man, and
the weakness of God is stronger than man; that the things that are
highly esteemed among men are abominations in the sight of God.
When a new king and a new kingdom were to be set up on earth, no
pomp of man, no palace made with hands, was held worthy of him; few
were the human hearts deemed worthy of the message, and these were
people that the world knew not of--simple-minded, sincere, loving,
prayerful people.
The priests and scribes were full of national pride and bitterness,
burning for revenge on the Romans, longing for conquest and power.
They were impatiently waiting for the Leader whose foot should be on
the necks of their enemies. They had no sense of sin, no longing for
holiness, no aspirations for a Spiritual Deliverer; and therefore no
message was sent to them.
But to the simple-minded Joseph the angel said, "Thou shalt call his
name Jesus (Saviour) for he shall save his people from their sins."
Not from the Romans but from their sins he came to save, and the
message of his coming was to humble souls, who wanted this kind of
salvation.
But there was a fitness furthermore in these circumstances. Up to
this time the poor and the unfortunate had been the despised of the
earth. It had been predicted again and again that the Messiah should
be the especial Friend of the poor:--
"He shall deliver the needy when he crieth,
The poor and him that hath no helper.
He shall spare the soul of the needy,
And precious shall their blood be in his sight."
As a mother when seeking a lost and helpless child, outcast in some
den of misery, would pass by palaces and refuse the shelter of
luxurious roofs, to share the poverty of her beloved, so the poor
man's Friend and Lord chose to come in the hut and the stable rather
than in the palace, that he might be known forever as the God of the
poor, the Patron of the neglected, and the Shepherd of the lost.