Jesus Was Born into the Middle Class

Today is Holy Innocents' Day. Right at the beginning of His life on earth, Jesus was at the place where hope and death meet.

By Published on December 28, 2015

Yesterday, we looked at why the Gospels make such a point of saying that Jesus was born of a virgin. But there is more to the story than the absence of a biological father. What kind of home was Jesus born into? Who were Mary and Joseph, this couple who go to Bethlehem, can’t get a room, have the baby, and “wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger.” What is that supposed to be about?

To begin with the actual scene, “manger” is the French word meaning “to eat”; a manger is a place where you put hay and similar things for the animals in a barn to eat. The swaddling clothes were used to wrap up the limbs of newborns so they wouldn’t injure themselves by moving too much. There are some today who believe there are benefits in this ancient and widespread practice, but it would be extremely unusual to hear contemporary Christians, even fundamentalists, arguing that this was the “biblical” way to treat infants and that every baby ought to get the same treatment. Compared to other world religions, Christianity is much less wedded to a set of cultural practices or ritual observances defined by its holy book; the “imitation of Christ” has almost always been understood as an imitation of His moral qualities rather than as a call to eat what He ate or wear what He wore.

Jesus was born in a shed, not at home, not in a palace, not in a hospital. (Not that anyone was born in a hospital in those days, or that any mothers had anesthesia. Something we affluent moderns in societies often forget about history is that until the 19th century, childbirth everywhere was incredibly painful and incredibly dangerous. Women giving birth entered a dark and terrifying tunnel of danger and pain whose presence shaped the life of rich and poor alike in ways that people living in modern, technological society can never fully comprehend, though many women in poor countries understand it all too well.)

At one level, the whole born in a manger thing is a message about the equality of everyone in God’s sight. He didn’t send Jesus into a palace. But when enthusiastic preachers talk about this scene as attesting to God’s identification with the poor, they get it wrong and they miss the real point of the story.

Mary and Joseph weren’t staying in the stable because they were poor. Poor people didn’t travel. The problem was that the inn was all sold out; Mary and Joseph happened to turn up at a “peak travel” time without a reservation. The inn did the best it could by them, but with all the regular rooms committed, management could only offer the use of an outbuilding. There would have been plenty such in those days built to store supplies and house animals; between the animals that the inn would use for work or food and those accompanying travelers, the various sheds and barns attached to an inn would see a lot of use.

If the Christmas story had taken place in the United States today, the story might read that the hotel was full, so management found Joseph and Mary a spot in the security office of the parking garage. When the baby was born, they would have wrapped it in Pampers and laid it on the desk.

So far as we can tell, Jesus was born into something that corresponds, sort of, to the modern American concept of the “middle class”: more affluent than the average worker (and much better off than the poor), but not particularly fancy or polished. The Family had connections; Mary’s cousin Elizabeth was married to a priest who participated in the temple rituals. The Family had money to travel as far as Bethlehem and could have paid for a room if there had been one. Joseph was a carpenter, a skilled workman at a time when such work was more valued than it is now. No one would mistake this Family for a family of privilege or wealth, but in their home Jesus would be unlikely to go hungry and would have the chance to learn to read and get an education. This is a living standard well above that of most people of the day.

 

Read the article “Jesus Was Born into the Middle Class” on the-american-interest.com.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Like the article? Share it with your friends! And use our social media pages to join or start the conversation! Find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, MeWe and Gab.

Inspiration
The Scarcity Mindset
Robert Morris
More from The Stream
Connect with Us