Advent 2024: Notice

Advent Day 11, December 11, 2024

I am currently walking with a group through the book, The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Teach about Jesus’ Birth, by theologians Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan. It definitely isn’t Christmas Hallmark movie reading. Yet in spite of its scholarly depths, the authors make some intriguing observations about these two very different birth narratives.

For instance, why does Matthew focus on Joseph’s role in the story of Jesus’ birth while Luke focuses on Mary’s? In Matthew, a messenger tells Joseph, in a dream, what is going to transpire, whether Joseph wants to be involved or not. In Luke, Gabriel appears to Mary (no mention of a dream) and waits for her acceptance and agreement before explaining how things will unfold. In Matthew, we’re told that Joseph plans to quietly divorce Mary while in Luke there’s no mention at all of divorce. And why do Mark and John leave out the great Christmas story in their versions of the gospels? Don’t they like pageants?

Well, I’m not going to spoil all the fun and answer those questions for you. I mention this book because it compels me to look with fresh eyes at a story I’ve known since I was a toddler and to notice things that have gone unnoticed. 

While reading this book, I was gifted a poem written by a poet-friend of mine. Margaret has an uncanny sense of noticing what has gone unnoticed in scripture and then bringing that absence to life. Here is her poem, The Midwife:

The Midwife

A story I tell my children.

I was Mary’s midwife.
She was so young to be bearing a child
travelling all that distance on a donkey.

But I was there when she needed help.

When her time came, Joseph called for me,
I slipped into the stable with swaddling cloths,
a bowl of water, and my small knife.

I held her hand, reassured her,
and quickly the babe was born.
He slipped into my arms.
I held God!

My children rapt ask me how I knew he was God,
I could feel the power. I remember the power.

I did my midwifery duties,
wrapped the Babe in the swaddling cloths,

and laid Him on His mother’s breast.

I slipped out of the stable and out of the story.

© Margaret Vann

I have no idea what Borg or Crossan would think about whether a midwife was present when Jesus was born. If I ever even gave it a thought, I assumed Joseph had that honor. In a patriarchal society? Wouldn’t he, instead, have searched for a female to assist with this most special, most unusual birth, no matter how or where it happened? And if so, who was she? Why wasn’t she mentioned?

In this season of waiting, this poem makes me think about the people who slip in and out of our lives during our own times of waiting, worry, or need.  Some of them we know very well, and others, perhaps angels, we hardly acknowledge, yet there they are, like the midwife. If Advent is a time to pay attention, we’d do well to notice those who go unnoticed.

Blessings ~ Rosemary

Photo credit: Pixabay