Marginal Christianity

Did you realize there are three stories of Jesus’ birth in the New Testament?  There’s Matthew’s and there’s Luke’s and there’s . . . John’s.  No not the John of the Fourth Gospel but John the Seer of book of Revelation fame! Yes, he too has a birth story of Jesus.  It’s found in the twelfth chapter of his visions of the “revelation” of Jesus Christ (1:1).  In it he takes us back behind the personal and historical dramas we find in Matthew and Luke (though, of course, they hint and allude to this in various ways in their stories too).  We might say that if -the John of the Fourth Gospel takes us back to find Jesus in the eternal being of God, and   -Matthew and Luke tell us of his actual birth from the perspectives of Joseph and Mary respectively, then -John the Seer takes us into the heavenly realm itself and reveals the cosmic meaning of what Matthew and Luke narrate for us.  In his enigmatic (to us) imagery and lurid detail the Seer e...

Did you realize there are three stories of Jesus’ birth in the New Testament?   There’s Matthew’s and there’s Luke’s and there’s . . . John’s.   No not the John of the Fourth Gospel but John the Seer of book of Revelation fame! Yes, he too has a birth story of Jesus.   It’s found in the twelfth chapter of his visions of the “revelation” of Jesus Christ (1:1).   In it he takes us back behind the personal and historical dramas we find in Matthew and Luke (though, of course, they hint and allude to this in various ways in their stories too).   We might say that if -the John of the Fourth Gospel takes us back to find Jesus in the eternal being of God, and   -Matthew and Luke tell us of his actual birth from the perspectives of Joseph and Mary respectively, then -John the Seer takes us into the heavenly realm itself and reveals the cosmic meaning of what Matthew and Luke narrate for us.   In his enigmatic (to us) imagery and lurid detail the...