Introduction:
Every hero needs a good origins story.
I grew up with comic books and the idea of superheroes, and the coolest superheroes also have the coolest origins stories. Origins stories are the tales told of how a hero got his powers, where he came from, and why he came from there. Origins stories tell you why he is the kind of person he is. They tell you about his motivation and drive, about why he does the things he does. All of the good deeds and battles against evil are only so much fluff and stuff without the origins story. You can't really appreciate and understand the hero if you don't understand his origin.
The first two chapters of Luke tell the brief, but extremely significant origin story of Jesus. Please don't think that I'm trying to equate Jesus' story with those of comic book superheroes...I'm not. But I want to try to help you understand how very important Jesus' origin story is. It's hard to really appreciate Jesus and His work without having some grasp of his beginnings.
Luke As A Bridge
Luke's Gospel is different from the others in a very major way. It's not so different because of the stories it tells or the details recorded, but because it was written by a man who had never seen Jesus. So, you can view Luke's gospel as sort of a bridge between two generations of believers...between those who had known Jesus personally and those who had never met him. In order to write this book Luke had to interview people who did know Jesus and were witnesses of what he recorded.
Yet along with recording the historical data, Luke had the immense task of presenting the man Christ Jesus in a way that would fire the imaginations of those who had never known him. For many, Luke's gospel would be the only way they would ever form an idea of the kind of man Jesus was.
There are some scholars who think that Luke's gospel served as a cover document to a selection of letters used to defend the Apostle Paul during his trial in Rome. In order to form an estimation of the kind of man Paul was, and in order to understand why he would risk life and limb over and over again to preach about Jesus, and in order to grasp why he would defy the power of Imperial Rome to do so, they had to be introduced to the Jesus whom Paul preached. The officials of the Imperial Court needed to know the kind of man Jesus was in order to understand the kind of man that Paul had become because of him.
Since Luke seems to serve as a bridge, the beginning of the story is of vital importance because it sets the tone for the rest of the work. Luke's gospel begins with an origins story that tells us far more than you may typically think. Like the very best origins stories, we're given hints and shown teasers that provide glimpses into the kind of man that Jesus would become. And that is critical to Luke's story; that those who didn't know Jesus could know the kind of man he became, and that they could know why he was that man.
Honour/Shame Culture
To us the particulars of Jesus birth are little more than quaint details.
Preceded by a cousin, born to Mary in a stable, wrapped in swaddling clothes and worshipped by shepherds...oh holy night the stars are brightly shining! In all the plays the young girl stares in wonder at a doll in straw filled manger, while the man with a false beard stands reverently by her side. Enter the children clad in bathrobes with towels on their heads who gather 'round and begin to sing, "Silent Night". To us, this story is about Christmas and joy to the world, the Lord is come. But it's more than that. To understand just how important this origin story is, you need to understand a bit about the cultural foundation of the world these events occurred in.
We live in what anthropologists call a guilt culture. In our society, an individual's behaviour is largely regulated by feelings of approval for well-doing and feelings of guilt for wrong doing. If you do things that society believes to be undesirable, you will feel guilty. But the society Jesus was born into had a different cultural foundation; it was a shame culture.
In a shame culture what matters more than anything is how you are seen by others. Your significance is determined by the group's estimation of you. Honor means greater significance, shame means less significance. If you are shamed enough, you lose all significance and value. No matter how much you have or how good you are, if you are shamed then you lose face. Being seen as shamed, without value, without significance, is worse than anything in this kind of culture.
In Jesus' day you could be shamed for poor performance. If for some reason you couldn't perform the role society required of you, or if you couldn't live up to society's expectations, you were shamed. Even if circumstances meant that it wasn't your fault, you were still shamed. And, that shame was borne by your family, your extended family, and your tribe.
You could be shamed for unfaithfulness. The inability to keep your word, your pledge, or your vow was viewed as a terrible lapse...and it reflected on your friends and family. Adultery was punished severely not simply because it was immoral, but because it was a betrayal of faith.
And you could be shamed for your social position. It didn't matter how much money you had, it didn't matter how big your house was, and it didn't matter how well you dressed. If you were in what was considered a shameful position on the social ladder, you were insignificant.
Let me tell you why this matters; it matters because Jesus' origin story isn't really a heartwarming Christmas tale. In actuality, Luke tells a tale of shame so great and so profound that his readers would wonder how on earth such great disgrace could ever be overcome. They'd wonder how on earth a man born into such dishonourable circumstances could command such devotion as Jesus commanded. You see, the readers of Luke's gospel would have seen a three-fold cord of shame being woven into the very genesis of the one claimed to be the Messiah of Israel.
There was the shame of his kinswoman Elizabeth's barrenness. Of good priestly family, herself married to a priest qualified to serve in the Temple; yet none of this would have removed her shame. The expectation of her society was that women would bear children, and even though her barrenness was not her fault, she and her family bore the shame of that inability to perform what was expected.
There was the shame of his mother Mary's pregnancy and his own birth out of wedlock. In our culture this means little or nothing, but since it was known that Mary and her fiancée had not slept together, the clear implication was that teenaged Mary had cheated. So Jesus was born under the shame of his mothers implied unfaithfulness...in a culture where betrayal was one of the worst possible sins.
And if this was not enough, the first witnesses of Jesus' birth were shepherds who had been staying in the fields. This brought an additional level of shame into the story. You see, shepherds were on the same rung of the social ladder as tax collectors. Shepherds were despised and treated as outcasts. They were lower than hookers, thieves, and murderers. For Jesus' birth to be greeted by these was a shameful thing.
Shame Lifted!
Yet Luke's story wasn't just a sordid tale spun to make his readers wonder, because the shame-stories weren't left without resolution. In a culture where honor meant everything and shame was to be avoided at all costs, it was next to impossible for the shameful accounts that Luke used in Jesus' origin story to have a happy ending. Shame of this magnitude could only be lifted by an extraordinary deed. Somehow the person who was in the shameful position had to reverse their circumstances by doing what was expected, by being faithful, and by climbing the ladder.
But this was impossible. Elizabeth couldn't bear a child. Mary couldn't undo her pregnancy. The shepherds could not change what they were. Yet, Luke records that in each of these shameful situations there was an extraordinary deed, an extraordinary demonstration performed by another on their behalf that did indeed lift their shame!
So, Elizabeth bears a son who becomes the prophet of the Messiah. She is filled with the Holy Spirit, her husband is filled with the Holy Spirit, and her son John is filled with the Holy Spirit from his birth! Her shame was lifted!
Joseph takes Mary for his wife when he would have been perfectly justified in not doing so. He treats the child Jesus so much like his own son that the people of Nazareth (who know the truth) find themselves calling Jesus "the son of Joseph." Mary's shame was lifted!
The shepherds can't stop being shepherds...yet on that holy night a host of angels appears to them and sing to them of glory, of God, and of peace! Their shame was lifted!
Closing:
Luke tells the story a man of sorrow who was acquainted with grief. He knew what shame felt like. He knew what it was like to have a black mark on his name. He knew what it was like to have a shameful past. And Luke presents this origin of Jesus to help those who read to understand why Jesus was a friend of sinners, why he ate with the despised tax collectors, why he allowed hookers to wash his feet with their tears, why he touched lepers, why he cared for widows enough to raise their dead sons to life again, why women and children had such a special place in his heart, and why even while hanging on the cross he would offer compassion to a thief. And why an educated man of good family like Paul would love Jesus so much that he wasn't afraid to die.
Why? Well, it's because Jesus was the shame-lifter. He transformed the greedy to the giving, offered forgiveness to the immoral, gave the hopeless their lives back, loved the unloved, and even pardoned the guilty. He knew shame...and lifted theirs.
He hasn't forgotten. He remembers what shame feels like. And he's still the shame-lifter. No matter how much you've failed, no matter how untrue you've been, and no matter how insignificant you feel yourself to be...Jesus will be your shame-lifter.
