Part I
Evening Reflection by Fr. James Martin, SJ
In this Christmas season of the Church, we ought to spend time rediscovering Jesus. Who is this God-man? What did he do? Why should we love him? Why is our Church founded and grounded in him? Look for a series of posts leading up to the Epiphany on January 6 that reawaken our love for Christ and the Church.
Who is Jesus? Your Internally Displaced, Homeless, Refugee, Poor, Low-Class, Jewish, Palestinian, Uneducated, Possibly Illiterate, Dark-Skinned Savior.
Remember that the person whose birth we celebrate at Christmas was born to an internally displaced couple, that is, people who were forced to be on the move within their own country. At the time of the boy's birth, perhaps for a few days or weeks, Mary and Joseph were also homeless. With no place to stay, they found shelter in either a stable or a cave. Soon, they would become full-fledged refugees, that is, people crossing the border of another country, in this case Egypt, out of fear of, in this case, violence. Remember that when we're talking about IDs, Mary and Joseph had none. And when we're talking about borders, Mary and Joseph crossed one. Twice, actually. On their way into Egypt and then when they returned to Galilee. Overall, they knew what it was like to be seeking shelter far from home.
The boy was a Jew. As were Mary and Joseph. As was the boy's entire extended family. As, by the way, were all the apostles. They lived in what was called Palestine by the Romans, who occupied the territory. So Mary, Joseph and Jesus all knew political oppression.
They knew poverty, too. Joseph's trade was, most likely in the eyes of those at the time, seen as "low class." The Greek used by the Gospels to describe his profession is "tekton," which is more accurately translated not as carpenter, but craftsman, handyman, or even day laborer. The occupation probably didn't garner much respect, and was seen as ranking below the peasantry, since the "tekton" didn't have the benefit of a plot of land.
The family was from a minuscule town. Nazareth was both poor and small, with only about 200 to 400 inhabitants in Jesus's time. Jesus's hometown, in other words, could have likely fit into your local church. The Apostle Nathanael mocks it when he hears where Jesus is from. "Can anything good come from Nazareth?," he says. Some scholars believe this was a saying popular at the time, perhaps a common put down Jesus's place of origin, and Jesus.
While Jesus may been able to read (many scholars believe that when he quoted Scripture, he was not reading it, but doing it from memory--in his oral culture) it is almost certain that neither Mary or Joseph could. None of the three could be considered "educated." Indeed, most scholars believe Jesus was probably illiterate.
Jesus also would have looked nothing like what we see on 99% Christmas cards, or 99% of Christmas creches, or 99% of Christmas movies. Nor would Mary and Joseph. Nor would Elizabeth, Zechariah, Anna, Simeon, John the Baptist, or any figures from the stories of his birth.
It's impossible to know exactly what they looked like, but they were surely much darker skinned than what we see in 99% of portraits. A few years ago, scientists reconstructed the face of a man from around Jesus's time, using remains of several people from first-century Palestine (seen here). Somewhat ridiculously, the reconstruction was touted as the "Face of Jesus," which is like digging up skulls from a Mount Vernon graveyard from around the time of George Washington, using them as the basis for reconstruction, and saying, this is the "Face of George Washington."
But it's not so ridiculous in that the facial reconstruction reminds us what people of Jesus's time and his family's ethnicity looked like in general. And, again, it is much closer to the look of people in the modern Middle Eastern than modern Europe or the United States. He certainly wasn't white.
So to recap:
Internally displaced.
Homeless for a time.
Full-fledged refugee.
Poor.
Low-class occupation.
Jewish.
Palestinian.
Uneducated.
Possibly illiterate.
Dark skinned.
In other words, a lot of the categories people tend to demonize today. So when discussions about anyone from any of those categories come up, and you wonder about the Christian thing to do, remember who Jesus Christ really was.
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