The Birth Narratives

As our class has moved into the birth narratives as given by Matthew and Luke, we can see some interesting things about the story. From the two different stories we can see the emphasis that each of the authors had. Matthew spends a significant amount of space establishing the royal liniage that Christ has, tracing his genealogy back to Abraham, thus showing the fulfillment of the prophecies given to Abraham, about how all the nations of the Earth shall be blessed because of his seed. For this reason I think Matthew includes the story of Magi, they are bringing kingly gifts and the story reinforces the idea, to the Jewish audience, of Christ' royal right to the throne was it was being validated by those outside of Israel.
Matthew also show many other fulfillment events, often sighting scripture from the old testament and showing how it was fulfilled in Christ. Matthew also wants to draw our attention to the fact that the story of Moses was a type and shadow for the life of Christ. We see this in the several places, Christ is a promised Deliverer, male infants were slain by a the ruling monarch, the child had to be hidden, in both of the cases, in Egypt; for Moses in the house of Pharaoh, and Christ to escape the jurisdiction of Herod.
Luke on the other, who is writing to Gentiles who have little to no knowledge of Jewish prophecy, focuses on the miraculous events that happened during Christ' birth. He shares two stories of miraculous conception, first with Elisabeth, who was barren and then conceived after an angelic pronouncement, the second is the virgin conception of Christ. Here you can tell that this is a marvel to Luke who was a medical doctor, and was fascinated by these events. Luke would also discuss the humble circumstance in which the Lord entered into the world, and the angelic choruses that announced his arrival to the shepherds in the field. I think that Luke, focused on this story for two reasons, first, the heavenly manifestation of angels would be something that Gentiles, who were accustomed to the idea of God making is presence known in grandiose ways, and could understand that more readily than fulfillment of old Jewish prophecy. Second Luke's use of the shepherds is his version of drawing a parallel, who better to greet the Shepherd of our souls then those of the humble profession who are a type and shadow to His great work. I feel that while these two witnesses tell two very different kinds of birth narratives, both of these accounts are important to us. They show us the many facets of what Christ can mean to different people, how he, like many of the parable that he taught, can have many levels of meaning to those that believe in Him.