Christmas Reflections: The First Christmas

By Aloysius L. Cartagenas

THE first Christmas was about the magnanimity of two women, two husbands
and two sons.

The two ordinary women were Mary and Elizabeth. Mary, a young maiden from a
simple family in the obscure village of Nazareth in the popular town of Galilee,
and Elizabeth, her cousin, a descendant of Aaron, married to Zechariah, a priest
who served in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. Together with her husband,
Elizabeth lived in Hebron, about twenty miles from the Temple.

Luke tells us that they were cousins. But, more than kinship, their hearts were
joined by a new bond. Both were pregnant. They were anticipating their
motherhood. And so Luke tells us, "Mary set out for a town in the hills of Judah,
entered the house of Zechariah, and greeted Elizabeth." Mary's visit probably
occurred when Elizabeth was in her sixth month of pregnancy. Mary would have
been in her first trimester, and she may have stayed long enough the help the
older one with her delivery.

But there was something more. Their motherhood came by way of anomalous
circumstances, at least in human standards. Six months earlier, Zechariah had
been chosen to do the duty of burning incense before the Most Holy Place in the
temple. It was during this once-in-a-lifetime duty that he received the news: "Your
wife Elizabeth," said Gabriel, "will bear you a son." The news was good news.
They have prayed for a child.

In their longing for a child, they must have thought of the son Yahweh gave to
the aging Sarah and also the twins to Rebekah. But the good news was too
difficult to bear! Elizabeth was barren, how could this be? They had already
accepted their lot that the blessing of parenthood was not for them. Yet God
gave them a son, one who would be a great man, so great that the people
mistook him for Elijah or the Messiah.

More anomalous was that of her cousin. The young maiden Mary had to ask one
of the most human questions of all times. "How can this be if I do not have
relations with a man?" There was confusion, followed by fear. "The Holy Spirit
will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you," said
God’s messenger (Lk 1:35).

With that Mary must have remembered the creation story she had learned as a
child, how the Spirit hovered over the waters to produce the beauty of creation
out of nothing. With that, her fear must have surrendered to awe, anxiety to
wonder. But above all, Mary must have remembered the Most High who had
promised Abraham mercy and compassion. A rush of joy and peace must have
seized her heart as she heard herself said: "I am the Lord's servant. May it
happen to me as you have said" (Lk 1:38).

The other word for anomaly is mystery. "Nothing is impossible with God" (Lk
1:37).

When Mary visited Elizabeth, they embraced not only as cousins, not only as
mothers-to-be. They held each other so tightly and so joyfully; for they were now
a part of the long lineage of ordinary women whose ordinary lives have been
transformed by God for an extraordinary mission: Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel,
Leah, Miriam, Deborah, Naomi, Ruth, Abigail and Hannah.

Through these women God continued to fulfill his promise of salvation. In the
motherhood of Elizabeth and Mary, their God was on the move again, bringing
the long-ago promise to its final fulfillment. The promise to put down the mighty
from their thrones, and lift up the downtrodden; to fill the hungry with good things,
and send the haughty away empty (Lk 1:52-53).

Needless to say, theirs was motherhood with a mission. This they will come to
understand more deeply from the names to be given to their sons. John which
means "the Lord is gracious" and Jesus which means "God saves.” God wanted
to be known and understood who He is also through their names: "He is gracious
because he saves.”

Elizabeth and Zechariah must have prayed hard to God to "teach (them) what
(they) shall do unto the child" (Judges 13:8). Both died while John was still
young. But she lived just enough to impress upon her son those qualities that
prepared him well for his mission to prepare the way of the Lord.

Mary, on the other hand, together with Joseph, mothered Jesus to "grow in age,
in wisdom, and in grace" (Lk 2:52). God wanted a human home where the
groundwork of the divine ministry of the Messiah shall be laid. Her sorrow was to
see the son she loved shamed and tortured, left to die like the worst kind of
criminal. But her joy was to see her son raised from the dead, and to receive the
Holy Spirit being the first of the many disciples of her son.

How wonderful to know that every woman can be like Mary and Elizabeth by the
grace of God! How wonderful to know that every motherhood has a mission to
raise children "in age, in wisdom, and in grace.” How wonderful to know that
even the most obscure of motherhood is part in the history of salvation!

What about their husbands? Joseph, the carpenter, and Zechariah, the priest
have also something in common. Both had to pass through confusion and doubt.
But their respect and fidelity to the commitment their wives gave to God moved
them to see the mystery behind the confusing events. They could have acted like
proprietors of their wives, as dictated by Jewish macho culture. Joseph could
have left Mary to suffer shame and possible execution. Zechariah could have
surrendered to the taunting of incredulous neighbors.

But they refused to surrender to the caprice of a macho culture. Instead, they
discerned and gave God the chance to explain it to them. We are told God did to
Joseph in a dream, to Zechariah in a vision. Faith, hope, love prevailed.
Husband and wife became equal sharers in the mission God entrusted them.
Christmas is much more than a birthday of a cute baby boy. For one, it is reaping
the fruits of the seed planted in our history by the two mothers, two husbands,
and two sons who risked it all with God. May God grant us the eyes to see the
continuous birthing of this mystery.

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