by Tim Dolan
As we are emerging from the darkest time of the year, celebrating the birth of the light and the 'Star of Bethlehem,' I wanted to bring forth a story from antiquity that would have been widely known at the time of Christian beginnings that you haven't heard about, but will find to have familiar elements to the Matthew account. Of the three sects of Judaism of the time, the Essenes actively prepared and looked for a miraculous world savior to be born in Palestine. (The Pharisees and Sadducee were the sects who were not in agreement with them.)
First, however, let's turn our attention to the initial pages of the first gospel of the New Testament where we are confronted with scandalous circumstances surrounding the conception and birth of Jesus. Some key elements: The young bride, Mary, unexpectedly comes up pregnant, Joseph is greatly agitated and contemplates the drastic action of divorce, an angel resolves the question by confirming the Divine source of her conception. In the Old Testament the only time you read of special powerful beings being born it was the result of the evil angels messing with women of earth. They were referred to as the Nephilim or Watchers, sons of heaven in Genesis.
Now, from the Book of Enoch I'll offer an excerpt that would have been foremost in the minds of the first readers of Matthew:
“His body was white as snow and red as a rose, and he had hair on his head that was white like snow, and his thick curls were beautiful. And when he opened his eyes, the whole house shone like the sun — or even more exceedingly...
And his father, Lamech, was afraid of him and fled and went to his father Methuselah, and said to him, 'I have begotten a strange son. He is not like a human being, but he looks like the children of the (evil) angels of heaven to me... His eyes are like the rays of the sun, and his face is glorious. It does not seem to me that he is from me, but from the angels, and I fear that some awful thing may take place upon the earth in his days. So I am beseeching you now, begging you in order that you may go to Enoch, our father, and learn from him the truth, for his dwelling-place is among the angels.'”
Enoch, of course, does confirm that the miraculous child is of God. In our traditional story of the vulnerable child we feel much resonance, but in this new old version we can take courage that the forces of darkness and oppression that seemed to have increased to a near hopeless degree in our age are destined to be overcome by this wonder child. The Book of Revelation hints that he is to be the great dragon slayer in the ultimate triumph of Light.
Now as we approach Christmas and especially Epiphany may we carry this imagination of the Wonder Child, hair white like snow with thick beautiful curls, opening his eyes as the whole house shines like the sun — ore even more exceedingly!