Don’t bother looking for the story of Jesus’ birth in the Gospel of Mark. It isn’t there. Or, for that matter, in John. You won’t find any angels, any shepherds guarding their flocks by night, any wise men, or anything else ordinarily associated with Christmas.
Mark teases us with a title, “the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ,” and then launches straight into Jesus’ baptism by way of a prophecy from the 40th chapter of Isaiah. John waxes philosophical about creation itself (“In the beginning was the Word…”) before likewise shifting the scene to the banks of the River Jordan, some 30 years after the events of that night in Bethlehem.
What does that mean? As skeptics are fond of pointing out, if the story of Christmas is more than a happy myth, why don’t two of the four Gospels seem to have heard about it?
For starters, arguments from silence prove nothing. The institution of the Lord’s Supper, for example, is never mentioned in the Gospel of John, despite the fact that it indisputably happened and was an integral part of Christian worship for decades before John put pen to paper (see 1 Corinthians 11:17ff, which was written by Paul circa 51 AD).
More importantly, Mark and John were trying to do something different than Matthew and Luke. Matthew wrote his Gospel for a Jewish audience, to show how Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecy, including prophecies of his miraculous birth. Luke said that he was trying to write a complete and “orderly account” of Jesus’ life (1:3), from birth to his ascension into heaven.
Mark and John, by contrast, were writing their Gospels to demonstrate who Jesus was. Mark is most concerned with what Jesus did – miracles and signs that proved Jesus to be the Messiah, the Son of the living God (8:29). And John’s ambitions are grander yet. He wrote to show that Jesus is the eternal Word of God made flesh, one in majesty and power with the Father, through whom all things came into existence (1:3).
Mark and John may not provide much inspiration for Sunday School pageants or living nativity displays. We’re probably not going to read the first chapter of Mark’s Gospel during a candlelight service on Christmas Eve. But they do something much more important: they remind us that the baby in that manger isn’t just a symbol of peace and love. He’s God incarnate, the beloved Son of the Father, who surrendered his glory and accepted the humiliation of our existence, in order to save his people from sin and death.
The story of Christmas is the story of the salvation of the world. It didn’t begin there in Bethlehem. Nor did it end when the shepherds and wise men packed up and went home. It’s older than creation itself, and won’t be complete even when those who belong to Christ stand before him in Glory. Praise God.
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