The “nativity story” is more than just a story, it’s a “nativity proclamation.”
This is the third in a series of blog posts about the songs of the nativity story found in the Gospel of Luke. Click here to read the previous post.
Eight marvelous proclamations of the coming Messiah are presented, seven from Luke and one from Matthew. Some scholars believe the language of all eight have poetic characteristics, but in most of our Bible translations only four of these are type-set in metric form.
What’s the difference between the four song proclamations and the other four? The four that are not widely recognized as songs are embedded in dialog situations. We tend to be more familiar with these four “dialog” proclamations than the “song” proclamations because they are embedded more deeply into the pure narrative than are the songs.
The four dialog proclamations are:
- Gabriel’s announcement of the coming forerunner to Zechariah.
- Gabriel’s announcement of the coming messiah to Mary.
- Elizabeth’s blessing of Mary when she greets her.
- Joseph’s dream of the Angel of the Lord telling him to take Mary as his wife (Matthew.)
The dialog proclamations tend to be less demanding of the reader than the song proclamations. When Mary sings “he has filled the hungry with good things,” does that mean he created a welfare system? When did he do that? Is he a social welfare Messiah? This is obscure to us until we understand the Old Testament passages that this teenage country girl is drawing from. And this is true of most of these song proclamations — they are rooted in the Old Testament prophecy of the Messiah and the New Covenant that he will inaugurate.
Over the next four weeks we will look more closely at each of these four song proclamations to flesh out the monumental portrait that God paints for us of his Son. Let’s begin to consider the nativity not to be just a marvelous story of Christ’s coming, but monumental proclamations that paint a marvelous portrait of Jesus Christ.
To read the previous post click here. To read the next post click here.
Glorious Films 