Luke 2:1-7

A Story Full of Surprises

Sunday April 25, 2010

Rev. Susan Cartmell

The Congregational Church of Needham

                This month our sermons are all about surprise.  To say that Jesus surprised his followers when he rose from the dead on Easter is an understatement. But after Easter the surprises just kept coming. The resurrected Jesus kept popping up in a whole series of surprising appearances in the weeks after Easter. All his life, Jesus used the element of surprise to get folks' attention, or to shake them from complacency or to provoke them to wrestle with faith. Whether he is turning water into wine, or raising Lazarus from the dead, shock and surprise are central to the story. Surprises do change our lives. It is life's hard surprises that provoke us to think in new ways, create new inventions, or work for change in our lives and in the world.  It is surprise that provokes us to question our faith and to wonder about God. Like Mary in the garden on Easter, it is when we feel most amazed and confused that we are actually closest to God.

                Jesus is one of God's biggest surprises. From the time God sent a baby born in Bethlehem to be the Messiah, Jesus stunned the world.  When he ate with tax collectors and prostitutes he was different kind of holy man - big surprise.  When he argued with the Pharisees and healed some of the Romans he was so odd that it was a big surprise.  When he walked on water and stilled the storm it stunned people that even the winds obeyed him, people were intrigued and amazed. His disciples were confused most of the time. They lived in a perpetual state of shock. But as his followers all these centuries later, we have lost that sense of surprise. We have heard the stories so many times we know them by heart. We don't wonder about Christ. We know all about him. Right?

                Now it is time for a question for the Confirmation Class. Who knows what Jesus looks like? Close your eyes and try to conjure up an image of Jesus in your mind. Now I have some questions for you.  Did Jesus have long hair or short hair?  Did he have a long beard or a short beard?  Was he a tall thin man or a short stocky man?  You may be surprised to learn that all our images of Jesus have all been shaped by European art in the Middle Ages. Through paintings and sculpture they depicted Jesus as a tall man with long hair and a short beard. But you will be surprised to learn that Jewish men in Palestine 2000 years ago were 5 feet tall. They had short hair and long beards. Think of a Jewish Danny De Vito - not Matt Damon. (This kind of information and lots of other surprises come from Bert Gary's book- Jesus Unplugged.   Bert was the scholar who led our trip to the Holy Land.) When I went on that trip I thought I knew all about Jesus. But I was surprised every day. Those surprises made Jesus more interesting for me.

Surprise #1 Jesus was born in a cave not a stable.   When we arrived in Bethlehem from the airport, the town was dark and the lights were twinkling on the hillsides. It was picture perfect. We imagined we were entering the Bible story as we looked out over the little town of Bethlehem. But the next morning as we started our tour we saw the hills differently in the light of day. For the first time we noticed that they were covered with small caves. Sheep still graze with shepherds on these hills. Caves provide shelter for the livestock, today, as they have for centuries.

Joseph and Mary would have lived in just such a cave. At archeological sites in Nazareth today they have found caves that date back 2000 years.  The main rooms of these caves provided sleeping and eating space for adults and children. Smaller caves below the main house were filled with straw for the livestock - goats, sheep, maybe a mule. It was probably in one of these livestock caves that Jesus was born.   In that region animals lived in caves and ate from stone mangers cut from soft limestone. Though this practice sounds strange to us, apparently it was not unusual at the time. Jewish women often gave birth in the animal's cave. The caves were warm and had plenty of straw. Plus, women in labor were considered unclean. They could not give birth in the living space because the birth would have made the bigger house cave and everyone in it unclean for weeks.

Who came up with the idea of a wooden stable and manger? European Bible translators like the King James editors assumed that animals lived in stable; that is how it was in Europe. Surprise!

Surprise #2 - Jesus was a stone mason - not a carpenter.  The Bible says that Joseph was a builder.  For decades people assumed that Joseph and Jesus were both carpenters. That would have been a very difficult line of work because Israel does not have many trees except olive trees. They don't make homes or buildings out of olive wood. All the houses, roads, public buildings were made from stone. There are no forests in that part of the Middle East but there are lots of rocks. It is much more likely that Jesus was stone mason.

Why did people assume Jesus was a carpenter for all these years? The Greek word used for builder is tekton.  Translators in Europe thought builder meant carpenter. Builders all over Europe use wood. So they translated tekton as carpenter. But when Jesus told his stories he used lots of examples about stones and rocks. The very stones will cry out. Build your house on a rock. The stones of the temple will fall down. Jesus never talks about hammers or nails.  That is because Jesus was not a carpenter; he was a stone mason.

Not long ago archeologists discovered a city that was under construction 2000 years ago not far from Nazareth. It is a beautiful complex ancient metropolis. When King Herod planned and authorized the construction of its villas and amphitheatres, its columns and curving stairways, he would have needed lots of stone masons.  Many scholars now believe that it is very likely that Joseph, Jesus and his brothers were among the builders at the ancient city of Sepphoris. They would have walked down from Nazareth four miles each day to work on the city. This construction site would have been a reasonable commute for stone masons.  Surprise!

Surprise #3 - Jesus Lived a Full Life Before He Died. We don't have precise records of how long Jesus lived. For centuries people have speculated that he was in his early thirties when he was crucified. But there is lots of evidence even in scripture, that Jesus lived a full life, and may have been at least ten years older when he died.

For we know that Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great, and Herod died in 4 B.C.E.  Plus there was a census at the time of Christ' birth and the Romans did not do a major census every year. They had a census in 12 BCE and 8 BCE. So it is likely that Jesus was born much earlier than we thought. Finally, there is a story in John's gospel that corroborates all this evidence.  Jesus was talking to a group of followers about Abraham and Christ claimed to have seen the old patriarch Abraham. His followers are skeptical and they scoffed at him, "How could you have seen Abraham; you are not yet 50 years old." John 8(44-59) Now if Jesus had been in his thirties they would have said - You are not yet forty. Based on the census data and other evidence, scholars believe that Jesus was at least 39 and possibly as old as 46 when he was killed. Life expectancy in those days was about 50 years old.

What do these surprises have to do with our faith today? Over the centuries Christians have fashioned Jesus in our own image. We have all done it. We have imagined Bible stories that suited our expectations or catered to our prejudice.  But these surprises about Jesus challenge our assumptions. They make us think about Jesus in more realistic ways.

We know Jesus was divine and also human but it is hard to hold those two elements together. Most of us tend to think of Jesus as more divine than human.  We imagine Jesus as an angel in human clothing. Or we may imagine him like a Greek god on assignment on earth. We imagine that Jesus disguised his true identity and walked around doing miracles like Superman. All this surprising new evidence about Jesus shakes up those assumptions, and makes Jesus real.  If most children were born in livestock caves, then Christ's birth is set in a true place and time in history. Someone who is located in history cannot be a superhero, or a legend. So it causes us to really wonder if perhaps God did come in human form to share our lives- with all the joys and the trials that we know.

Over the years there has been so much made of his non violence that we imagine Jesus was a weak man. We don't understand why anyone would want to kill him. A stone mason would never be a weak man. His pure physical strength jars our images of him. If Christ was cut down in his youth we imagine he was young, vulnerable, and helpless. But if he started his ministry at 30 as Luke says, he was already probably an accomplished stone mason for over 15 years. The ministry was a second career for Jesus.

If Christ really lived well into his forties he was not a precocious kid who could debate the authorities of his time. He was not a bigger version of the twelve year old in the temple. Christ had stature and maturity and would have been was well- respected. On top of that if he was outspoken in his opinions and could command crowds of followers, Jesus would have been a force to be reckoned with.  If Christ was cut down at the height of his power, not before he reached his potential that does not diminish his courage or his sacrifice. All these surprises just make Jesus even more intriguing and more inspiring.  Isn't that a nice surprise?

Senior Minister

The Congregational Church of Needham

1154 Great Plain ave.

Needham MA 02492

781-444-2510

www.needhamucc.org