Towards an Ecological
Conversion
THIRD PART
3. New Paradise: Bethlehem.
The manger new Eden. As we can imagine
the crib as a head lie down of domestic animals. Such a simple and unclean
place, but peaceful where there is more biodiversity presence. In our
ecological reading of the Gospel, we dare to say that this humble crib becomes
in new Eden, the paradise of the integrity. In the Luke midrashic elaboration
about manger the background are Jr 14:18 where God visiting his people remind
in manger as a traveler, and Is 1:3 the animals recognize their owner (cf.
Spong 1992, p.91). As it is well known that the traditional theology of the
Christian church used to compare Eve with new Eve-Mary, the former Adam with
new Adam-Jesus[6].
At the same time we can say, this is somehow where the prophetic dream Is
11:1-9 becoming reality, notwithstanding yet we find any sort of biblical
explanation that points out some relation between this prophetic dream and the
Jesus’ birth narration in the manger. Let us enjoy some wonderful and
ecological clues that are possible come out from:
*
Little baby in the midst of the (domestic) animals, who in his own
time was driven by Spirit and join with wild beasts in the wilderness for forty
days (Mk 1:12-13)[7].
Number forty (days, years) signifies
time of being mature. A mature person is able to overcome any kind of
temptations.
*
The humble and small manger is extended to marginal realities like
mountainside where the poor shepherds[8] used to remain keeping
guard over their sheep during the watches of the night expounded to the danger
of wild beasts and thefts (v 8).
*
The Angel in Hebrew word מַלְאָךְ,
“malach” meaning “angel” or
“messenger of God” (v 9) announced the Good News to the pastors saying: “Do not be afraid. Look, I bring you news of
great joy, a joy to be shared by the whole people. Today in the town of David a
Saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. And here
is a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger” (vv 10-12). In the midst of darkness of fear and poverty shone
the light of happiness. The text in which based Luke is in Is 9:5-6.
*
The angel and all hosts of heaven praised God with the words: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace for those he favours!” (vv 13-14), it
echoes to Is 52:7[9].
The heaven and earth with whole creatures were filled with God’s Spirit and
glorify to God, because the very deep creature identity is to live fully, that is
the glory of the author of live: God. The life of the pastors, animals and the
nature were deeply integrated and close to the source of life (cf. Müβig 2012,
p.25).
*
The shepherds said each other: Let us go and see! So they have gone to the “house of bread” Bethlehem and saw Mary, Joseph and the baby wrapped in
swaddling lying in the manger (cf. Ws 7:4-5)[10]. In the garden of Eden or
“delight place” the situation before fallen was full of admiration “this is bone of my bones, flesh of my
fleshes!” and then, looking to hide themselves from the reality as such,
they discovered their nakedness. Here the same there is happiness, but
especially “to see” not “to hide”, they saw three of them, and number three in
the Bible is divine number, they could say “this is so close to our own
situation of life – God with us” (Emmanuel).
And the shepherds became messenger of the “Good News”: “everyone who heard it was astonished at what the shepherds said to
them” (v 18).
*
The little baby, who was found, laying dawn in the merge,
continually is shining today’s reality. What was said a little baby would guide
to the true peace and harmony of the whole creation. If we do not lost sight
that the infancy narrations were to explain the public life of Jesus, so it is
enough clear that“He refused at any time
to Lord it over men, or to be a King, or to be a Leader, or to be a Reformer,
or to be in any way Superior to the creatures. He would be nothing else but
their brother, and their counselor, and their servant, and their friend” (Merton
1962, p.293).
*
As we have said, Luke’s Gospel has written in meditative style.
Mary, who is a clear expression of regaining woman’s dignity in this gospel[11], “treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart” (v 19).
The contemplative attitude from the depths of the heart to the new tree of life
and tree of wisdom is an urgent task for our humanity today. Thus “In Mary’s glorified body, together with the
Risen Christ, part of creation has reached the fullness of its beauty. She
treasures the entire life of Jesus in her heart (cf. Lk 2:19,51), and now
understands the meaning of all things. Hence, we can ask her to enable us to
look at this world with eyes of wisdom” (LS 241). So from the angels to the
pastors, from the shepherds to Mary, and from her to the entire world the Good
News shall reach to whole world.
The picture of garden
of Eden as background appears in many places in the gospels: Jesus in the
wilderness sharing life with wild beasts as already mention above (Mk 1:12-13,
Mt 4:1-11, Lk 4:1-13); Jesus in the Olive garden before been capture by violent
crowd, here the disciples were not able to keep awake (Mk 14:26.32-42, Mt
26:30.36-46, Lk 22:39-46); the risen Jesus meeting with Mary Magdalene who
confused with the gardener (Jn 20:11-18); Jesus recreating the new humanity or
community and blowing to his disciples the Spirit and giving peace and
happiness (Jn 20:19-23); Risen Jesus sending his disciples to announce the Good
News to whole creation (Mk 16:16); and so on.
4. Brief history of the Christmas Crib[12].
The Christmas Crib
dates back to St. Francis of Assisi. It was in 1223 that the first Crib was
celebrated in the woods of Greccio near Assisi, on Christmas Eve. There lived
in that town a man by the name of John (Messier Giovanni Velitta), a very holy
man who stood in high esteem.
Francis called upon
John about two weeks before Christmas and said to him, “If you desire that we
should celebrate this year’s Christmas together at Greccio, go quickly and
prepare what I tell you; for I want to enact the memory of the Infant who was
born at Bethlehem and how He was bedded in the manger on hay between a donkey
and an ox. I want to see all of this with my own eyes.” The man departed
quickly and prepared everything that the Francis had told him. The Friars who
had come from many communities, gathered around St. Francis as did the men and
women of the neighborhood. They bought candles and torches to brighten the
night. Francis arrived and saw that everything had been prepared. The crib was
ready, hay was brought, the ox and the donkey were led to the spot. Greccio
became a new Bethlehem. The crowds gathered and rejoiced in the celebration.
St. Francis, dressed
in deacon’s vestments, sang the Gospel. Then he preached a delightful sermon to
the people. It is recorded that after the Mass, St. Francis went to the crib
and stretched out his arms as though the Holy Child was there, and brought into
being by the intensity of his devotion, the Babe appeared and the empty manger
was filled with the radiance of the new born.
St. Francis’ idea of
bringing Bethlehem into one’s own town spread quickly all over the Christian
world, and soon there were Christmas cribs in churches and homes. The Moravian
Germans brought this custom to the United Stated. They called it Putz. The oldest
known picture is a “Nativity scene” dating from about 380 that was a wall
decoration in a Christian family’s burial chamber, discovered in the Roman
catacombs of St. Sebastian in 1877.
There is a legend
that at midnight on Christmas Eve animals have the gift of speech. This gift
was bestowed because the humble farm animals gave the infant Jesus His first
shelter, and warmed him with their breath, thus they were rewarded with the
gift of human speech.
Conclusion.
*
Our humanity in this XXI century is strongly called rethinks the
original human identity into the nature, not over all nonhumans. For this
endeavor, we need get rid over our mistuning anthropocentrism that harasses our
common home from paradise to dying planet; overcome our patriarchalism or
androcentrism that marginalize women, in deep sense to assume our nakedness,
that may open space to the transformative energy of the Spirit who may bring us
to the harmony with whole.
*
The proud hearted and economically powerful have to come down (Lk
19:1-10) and the lowly, poor and our mother earth lifted up (Lk 1:52, 4:18), so
that both opposites may meet in the same banquet and the same paradise and
share again the real happiness.
*
Christian communities we are invited to reread the Gospels and
whole Bible from the ecological[13] or integral perspective
and let it transform us our mindset, our relations with the nature and God, our
actions making them less destructives but creative and liberating. It is urgent
to overcome the culture of margination or exclusion either exclusion of the
animals or poor people, because every creature has its dignity to be respected;
it means go beyond any cultural, religious prejudices, that still promoting
fragmented culture and believes.
Finally, our coming
back home start in our personal emptying (kenotic) process of life, that may
have social transformative effects as well, thus we can be able to set out the
ecological culture:
Ecological
culture cannot be reduced to a series of urgent and partial responses to the
immediate problems of pollution, environmental decay and the depletion of
natural resources. There needs to be a distinctive way of looking at things, a
way of thinking, policies, an educational programme, a lifestyle and a
spirituality which together generate resistance to the assault of the
technocratic paradigm. Otherwise, even the best ecological initiatives can find
themselves caught up in the same globalized logic. To seek only a technical
remedy to each environmental problem which comes up is to separate what is in
reality interconnected and to mask the true and deepest problems of the global
system (LS 111).
[1] Hendrickx, Infancy Narratives, p. 37 Matthew’s narration
on infancy was based in Isaiah 40-55 as Midrash typology. However, R. Brown, Birth,
p. 190 suggested different source from Numbers 22-24 on Balaam and Balaq
history to represent the Magis and Herd’s intension, might be too the Saba’s
Queen in 1K 10:1-3; the history on Joseph in Gn 37-50; history of Mosses and
Pharaoh in Ex 1:15; about star in Ex 13:21.
[2] According Michael D. Goulder (1989, p.147) three of the
synoptic gospels have narrated the passion, death and resurrection event
because liturgical reasons.
[3] To see Spong (1992, pp. 23-26, 91).
[4] The same opinion has Fray Marcos (2016) in his
commentary on fourth Sunday of Advent (published in webpage Fe Adulta).
[5] As Wolfhart Pannenberg (1978, pp. 141-150) and Emil
Brunner (1952, pp. 352 y ss) pointed out in their written.
[6] Irenaeo, Haer, iii, 21, 10; cited by J. Spong
(1992, p. 129).
[7] It is important remember that Luke’s infancy narrative
is an instruction to the Jesus’ public life.
[8] Elizabeth Johnson (2011): “shepherds were not considered desirable company. They were poor,
illiterate, and thought to be dishonorable because they could not be home at
night to protect their women. They were also considered thieves because they
grazed their flocks on other people's property. They were outcasts of polite
society, usually ranked together with sailors, butchers, camel drivers, and
other despised occupations.”
In https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1157. In the same way Goulder (…256) points out the negative
consideration on shepherds.
[9] According Spong (1992, p.96) this is the only place
where the recipients not glorifying but the angels.
[10] Even it is not related to historical midrash as a
sources for Luke’s narration, in the birth of Kings Mitra and Osiris the there
were present the shepherds.
[11] The Magnificat in Luke’s Gospel
(1:46-55) is a modelic and prophetic canticle that the author has put in the
mouth of Mary.
[12] Read more in http://www.catholicdoors.com/misc/christmascrib.htm
[13] Ecology like economy, ecumenism, etc. comes from Greek
word Oikos which means home, house.
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