You know that your Christmas celebration has a little Marty McFly in it, right? Right?
So JUST in case you don’t get the reference to perhaps the greatest time travel movie of all time, Marty McFly was the main character in Back to the Future. Marty’s a high school student who’s friends older, eccentric scientist friend, Doc. And Doc’s been tinkering with a time machine, and while checking it out, Marty accidentally activates it, gets sent back 30 years, and accidentally screws up his parents meeting each other. So Marty’s got to find a way get his parents together, AND find a now younger Doc with even more primitive technology, AND convince Doc he’s from the future, AND find a way to get…yeah…back to the future.
And that, my friends, is what you have in your Christmas nativity scene. Well, sort of.
The year is now 1223 AD. Italy. Dude named Francis gets permission from the pope to set up a manger with hay and a couple animals, invites the villagers, and preaches a Christmas sermon.
Now I wouldn’t go placing any bets on the accuracy of that historical account, but there you go. But the whole idea of a Nativity scene did catch on. And it makes sense -- a lot of art over the years has been created with telling Bible stories in mind, so it’s not surprising that telling the Christmas story would be among them.
But, Houston, we have a problem: there probably weren’t any wise men in the picture.
Now let’s time travel back there. It’s year zero, so to speak. We know the story best from Matthew 2:1-2 which goes:
After Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of King Herod, wise men from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star at its rising and have come to worship him.” Mt 2:1-2, CSB
Now you know how it goes from here. Old King Herod gets his royal undies in a bunch, probably because he wasn’t having anything to do with any rival kings. AND we know that he was aware at some level of Jewish prophecy, because he shoots ‘em a text message and asks where this king was supposed to be born. Then he asks the travelers the exact time the star had appeared.
Here’s putting two and two together. These wise men have been traveling, probably from Persia. In other words, they weren’t out in the waiting room waiting for their turn to see the kid with grandma and cousins and whoever else showed up to congratulate the new parents and see the kid.
So they pay a visit, are warned in a dream not to go back and tell Herod where the kid was, and Herod gets miffed. He orders that all the boys in Bethlehem who were two years old or under are to be killed.
Alright, put your Marty McFly thinking cap on…why two years?
Your guess is as good as mine, but it wasn’t two weeks. Herod was trying to make sure he snuffed out the threat to his power base. I mean this guy’s living the good life, and as Machiavelli put it, the purpose of power is to hang on to power.
And therein lies the problem. The shepherds were in general vicinity. So were Joseph. And maybe some animals. And maybe even some strangers who’d also been looking for a place to stay when they, like Joseph and Mary, came to Bethlehem to be counted for the census.
But the wise dudes bearing gifts? Probably not.
As we close in on Christmas, it’s useful to keep the main thing the main thing: that the Bible is God’s inerrant, unified story that all points to Jesus. Reason and human stories and traditions aren’t wrong, but they should all be subordinate to the Bible and subject to verification. It’s part of why I read the Bible with you every single day, because I’m as imperfect as the next person.
One final thing: you might wonder if I’m suggesting that you throw out your Nativity sets. Not at all! Use it, and even the wise men, as part of telling the story.
Just don’t forget the part about Marty McFly.
Roger Courville, CSP is a globally-recognized expert in communications, an award-winning author and speaker, and a passionately bad guitarist. ForTheHope equips on-the-go professionals with biblical principles to engage marketplace relationships with competent humility. On Twitter can follow him @RogerCourville and/or his podcast @JoinForTheHope, or get all updates by email subscription at www.forthehope.org.