Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives

by Pope Benedict XVI

The Roman judge asks where Jesus is from in order to understand who he really is and what he wants.

Shock led to denial: “ ‘Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?’ And they took offense at him” (Mk 6:3).

In Caesarea Philippi, Jesus will ask his disciples: “Who do people say that I am? … Who do you say that I am?” (Mk 8:27ff.). Who is Jesus? Where is he from? The two questions are inseparably linked.

More important, none of these women were Jewish. So through them the world of the Gentiles enters the genealogy of Jesus—his mission to Jews and Gentiles is made manifest.

Mary is a new beginning. Her child does not originate from any man, but is a new creation, conceived through the Holy Spirit.

The genealogy is still important: Joseph is the legal father of Jesus. Through him, Jesus belongs by law, “legally,” to the house of David. And yet he comes from elsewhere, “from above”—from God himself.

While for Matthew it is the Davidic promise that permeates the symbolic structuring of time, Luke, in tracing the line back to Adam, wants to show that humanity starts afresh in Jesus. The genealogy expresses a promise that concerns the whole of humanity.

Jesus takes upon himself the whole of humanity, the whole history of man, and he gives it a decisive re-orientation toward a new manner of human existence.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God … and the Word became flesh and dwelt [pitched his tent] among us” (Jn 1:1–14).

This “beginning” that has come to us opens up—as a beginning—a new manner of human existence. “For to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (Jn 1:12f.).

Yet the connection with the confession of Jesus’ birth from the Virgin Mary is undeniably present: those who believe in Jesus enter through faith into Jesus’ unique new origin, and they receive this origin as their own. In and of themselves, all these believers are initially “born of blood and of the will of man.” But their faith gives them a new birth: they enter into the origin of Jesus Christ, which now becomes their own origin. From Christ, through faith in him, they are now born of God.

Luke indicates from time to time that Mary, the Mother of Jesus, is herself one of his sources, especially when he says in 2:51 that “his mother kept all these things in her heart” (cf. also 2:19).

To sum up: what Matthew and Luke set out to do, each in his own way, was not to tell “stories” but to write history, real history that had actually happened, admittedly interpreted and understood in the context of the word of God. Hence the aim was not to produce an exhaustive account, but a record of what seemed important for the nascent faith community in the light of the word. The infancy narratives are interpreted history, condensed and written down in accordance with the interpretation.

The sign of the new Covenant is humility, hiddenness—the sign of the mustard-seed. The Son of God comes in lowliness. Both these elements belong together: the profound continuity in the history of God’s action and the radical newness of the hidden mustard-seed.

Joy appears in these texts as the particular gift of the Holy Spirit, the true gift of the Redeemer. So a chord is sounded with the angel’s salutation which then resounds throughout the life of the Church. Its content is also present in the fundamental word that serves to designate the entire Christian message: Gospel—good news.

Mary appears as the daughter of Zion in person. The Zion prophecies are fulfilled in her in an unexpected way. Mary becomes the Ark of the Covenant, the place where the Lord truly dwells.

“Rejoice, full of grace!” One further aspect of the greeting chaĩre is worthy of note: the connection between joy and grace. In Greek, the two words joy and grace (chará and cháris) are derived from the same root. Joy and grace belong together.

Once again Mary appears as God’s living tent, in which he chooses to dwell among men in a new way.

Yet “his kingdom will have no end”: this unique kingdom is not built on worldly power, but is founded on faith and love alone. It is the great force of hope in the midst of a world that so often seems abandoned by God. The kingdom of Jesus, Son of David, knows no end because in him God himself is reigning, in him God’s kingdom erupts into this world. The promise that Gabriel spoke to the Virgin Mary is true. It is fulfilled ever anew.

He lives the law as Gospel. He seeks the path that brings law and love into a unity. And so he is inwardly prepared for the new, unexpected and humanly speaking incredible news that comes to him from God.

Only a man who is inwardly watchful for the divine, only someone with a real sensitivity for God and his ways, can receive God’s message in this way. And an ability to discern was necessary in order to know whether it was simply a dream or whether God’s messenger had truly appeared to him and addressed him.

Can it be that God has acted in this way toward a human creature? Can it be that God has now launched a new history with men?

The name Jesus (Jeshua) means “YHWH is salvation.” The divine messenger who spoke to Joseph in the dream explains the nature of this salvation: “He will save his people from their sins.”

The prevailing expectations of salvation were primarily focused upon Israel’s concrete sufferings—on the reestablishment of the Davidic kingdom, on Israel’s freedom and independence, and naturally that included material prosperity for this largely impoverished people. The promise of forgiveness of sins seems both too little and too much: too much, because it trespasses upon God’s exclusive sphere; too little, because there seems to be no thought of Israel’s concrete suffering or its true need for salvation.

Is the mission, as lived by Jesus, the answer to the promise, or is it not? Certainly it does not match the immediate expectations of Messianic salvation nurtured by men who felt oppressed not so much by their sins as by their sufferings, their lack of freedom, the wretched conditions of their existence.

In the passage concerned, both the criticism of the scribes and the silent expectation of the onlookers is acknowledged. Jesus then demonstrates his ability to forgive sins by ordering the sick man to take up his pallet and walk away healed. At the same time, the priority of forgiveness for sins as the foundation of all true healing is clearly maintained.

Man is a relational being. And if his first, fundamental relationship is disturbed—his relationship with God—then nothing else can be truly in order.

Once again Joseph is presented to us, in quite practical terms, as a “just” man: his inner watchfulness for God, which enables him to receive and understand the message, leads quite spontaneously to obedience. Even if hitherto he had puzzled over his various options, now he knows what the right course of action is. Being a just man he follows God’s commands, as Psalm 1 says.

Karl Barth pointed out that there are two moments in the story of Jesus when God intervenes directly in the material world: the virgin birth and the resurrection from the tomb, in which Jesus did not remain, nor see corruption. These two moments are a scandal to the modern spirit. God is “allowed” to act in ideas and thoughts, in the spiritual domain—but not in the material. That is shocking. He does not belong there. But that is precisely the point: God is God and he does not operate merely on the level of ideas. In that sense, what is at stake in both of these moments is God’s very godhead. The question that they raise is: does matter also belong to him?

But here we are not dealing with the irrational or contradictory, but precisely with the positive—with God’s creative power, embracing the whole of being. In that sense these two moments—the virgin birth and the real resurrection from the tomb—are the cornerstones of faith. If God does not also have power over matter, then he simply is not God. But he does have this power, and through the conception and resurrection of Jesus Christ he has ushered in a new creation. So as the Creator he is also our Redeemer. Hence the conception and birth of Jesus from the Virgin Mary is a fundamental element of our faith and a radiant sign of hope.

It was not with the timelessness of myth that Jesus came to be born among us. He belongs to a time that can be precisely dated and a geographical area that is precisely defined: here the universal and the concrete converge. It was in him that the Lógos, the creative logic behind all things, entered the world.

So one aspect of becoming a Christian is having to leave behind what everyone else thinks and wants, the prevailing standards, in order to enter the light of the truth of our being, and aided by that light to find the right path.

David comes from looking after the sheep, and he is made the shepherd of Israel (cf. 2 Sam 5:2). The prophet Micah, gazing far into the future, announces that from Bethlehem will come the one who is to pasture the people of Israel (cf. 5:1–3; Mt 2:6). Jesus is born among shepherds. He is the great Shepherd of mankind (cf. 1 Pet 2:25; Heb 13:20).

How many Christians make haste today, where the things of God are concerned? Surely if anything merits haste—so the evangelist is discreetly telling us—then it is the things of God.

God is love. But love can also be hated when it challenges us to transcend ourselves. It is not a romantic “good feeling.” Redemption is not “wellness,” it is not about basking in self-indulgence; on the contrary it is a liberation from imprisonment in self-absorption. This liberation comes at a price: the anguish of the Cross. The prophecy of light and that of the Cross belong together.

From Mary we can learn what true com-passion is: quite unsentimentally assuming the sufferings of others as one’s own.

The wise men have arrived at the king’s palace in Jerusalem, which they presume must be the place of the promise. They inquire after the newborn “king of the Jews.” This is a typically non-Jewish expression. In Jewish circles, people would speak of the “king of Israel.” In fact, this “Gentile” title, “king of the Jews,” does not reappear until Jesus’ trial and the inscription over the Cross, in both cases used by the Gentile Pilate (cf. Mk 15:9; Jn 19:19–22). So we could say that here—as the first Gentiles inquire after Jesus—there are already echoes of the mystery of the Cross, a mystery that is inseparably linked with Jesus’ kingship.

What from the lofty perspective of faith is a star of hope, from the perspective of daily life is merely a disturbance, a cause for concern and fear. It is true: God disturbs our comfortable day-to-day existence. Jesus’ kingship goes hand in hand with his Passion.

Matthew has made two slight adjustments to the quoted text. Whereas the greater part of the textual tradition, particularly the Greek translation (LXX), says: “You are the smallest among the clans of Judah,” he writes “You are by no means least among the leading cities of Judah.” Both versions of the text, each in its own way, illustrate the paradoxical element in God’s way of acting, which runs through the whole of the Old Testament: greatness emerges from what seems in earthly terms small and insignificant, while worldly greatness collapses and falls.

That Herod would draw the obvious conclusion is understandable. Yet it is remarkable that his Scripture experts do not feel prompted to take any practical steps as a result. Does this, perhaps, furnish us with the image of a theology that exhausts itself in academic disputes?

Hosea portrays the history of Israel as a love story between God and his people.

With the flight into Egypt and the return to the promised land, Jesus grants the definitive Exodus. He is truly the Son. He is not going to run away from the Father. He returns home, and he leads others home. He is always on the path toward God and thus he leads the way back from exile to the homeland, back to all that is authentic and true. Jesus, the true Son, himself went into “exile” in a very deep sense, in order to lead all of us home from exile.

Once again the figure of Saint Joseph looms large. Twice he receives instructions in a dream, and thus he is presented to us once again as the listening and discerning one, the obedient one who is also decisive and acts wisely. At first he is told that Herod has died and that the time has therefore come for him and his family to return home. The return journey is presented with a certain solemnity: “He went to the land of Israel” (2:21).

An interesting comment, in the light of this situation, is the carefully argued position presented by Klaus Berger in his 2011 commentary on the whole of the New Testament: “Even when there is only a single attestation … one must suppose, until the contrary is proven, that the evangelists did not intend to deceive their readers, but rather to inform them concerning historical events … to contest the historicity of this account on mere suspicion exceeds every imaginable competence of historians” (Kommentar zum Neuen Testament, p. 20).