 | St Alban’s Episcopal Church Bolivar, Missouri Monday, January 3, 2021 Continuing Christmas Two birthdays How does the story look to you? |
 Christmas ContinuesHere are a few more unusual Nativity pictures. I love this one: Mary is in bed reading, (Scripture?) while Joseph takes care of the baby! Notice the ass nibbling on Joseph’s halo! It is from the 15th century Besancon Book of Hours, now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK.  And here’s another from about the same time: Mary has the baby this time, but Joseph is cooking dinner!  In none of the oldest carvings, mosaics or paintings does Mary appear kneeling, adoring the baby, but simply resting or nurturing him. They are behaving like normal parents. The Magi adore him. The shepherds do. Not until the 15th century do we see Mary and Joseph in that kind of position, odd and unnatural as it is. But most commercial nativity sets still show the figures in that strange way, which may we why we instinctively love this very contemporary one:  How did early Christians portray Jesus’ birth? The earliest stone carvings of the holy baby are of him alone, tightly swaddled, in a low manger or even on the ground. But an ox and an ass are also always present with him. Neither is mentioned in the gospels. Perhaps it simply makes sense: they were in a stable of some kind, But also it refers to Isaiah 1:3 “the ox knows his owner and the ass his master’s crib; but Israel does not know, my people do not consider…” Sometimes the ox is said to represent Israel, and the ass the Gentiles.      Happy birthday to Selah Cook who turns five today, and also to Janet Wray! And please pray for Lily Shepard – She at home in Springfield, miserable and sick with COVID. This stuff is NOT a joke. |
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