The four gospels are like the four voices of a choir, singing the song of Jesus in tight harmony. But the composition is so careful and clever that by putting them all together we miss the intricate detail of the individual melodies and counter melodies. Each one is exquisite and unique alone, while contributing to a majestic symphonic masterpiece. But sometimes we hear them all mushed together through little cheap white ear-buds, we forget the detail in each one – which in this series we hope to glimpse a little of.

The start of Matthews gospel contains some of the most treasured moments in the nativity play, but read alone, forgetting the ‘rest of the story’ that you’ve heard so many times it is fresh and compelling. Why not take a moment of your day to read the first two chapters of Matthew – it’s less than 1500 words, it will only take about 6 minutes to read.

The two chapters can be summarised like this:

1. Ancestors of Jesus
2. An angel visits Joseph (and Jesus is born)
3. Magi come to find the king of the Jews
4. An angel tells Joseph to run from murderous Herod
5. They return to Nazareth

Notice that the only angels are in Joseph’s two dreams, there’s no journey to Bethlehem written about – the journeys are the escape to Egypt and the return to Nazareth. In fact the ‘main characters’ seem to have quite a small part – neither Mary, Joseph or Jesus are named more that half a dozen times between the two chapters. It’s all happening so that the prophets’ words come true and at the direction of the angelic dreams.

Matthew gives away the emphasis of his gospel telling by giving the detailed ancestry of Jesus right at the start of the book. Matthew, over and over, show Jesus coming in the light of all the Old Testament, and this list of people includes so many of the ‘heroes’ of the Jewish faith by tracing Jesus back to King David and back to the fathers of the Israelite nation, to Abraham.

But then Matthew does something unexpected. Jesus is born exactly as the prophets said he would be, but the only ones looking for him are Persian ‘Magicians’. We call them ‘Kings’ or ‘Wise Men’ because it’s not neat to think of them as priests of a foreign religion, but this is exactly the shock value Matthew wants us to see. Herod wanted to be thought of as ‘King of the Jews’ but didn’t appreciate the importance of this baby. His advisors, who are well read enough in religion to tell the Magi where to find Jesus are either too unbelieving or too scared of Herod to do anything but advise. So for Matthew, this distinctively Jewish good news starts with hated foreigners getting it right. The only ones who really understand Jesus and worship him are high-ranking priests in another religion entirely, while the ones who should understand are slaughtering children.

Matthew’s first couple of chapters are all about validating who Jesus is and how he will be rejected by some but surprisingly found by others who we wouldn’t expect. Though Matthew begins with Jesus’ Jewish heritage and ancestry, it is outsiders who see the King of the Jews and even worship ‘God with us’. Jesus’ childhood in exile in Egypt is the final hint that if the Jews don’t accept this message it will go to the rest of the world, outsiders, people who will see Jesus for who he really is.

May we not be so busy this Christmas; organising services, buying, wrapping, cooking and talking about the ‘real meaning’ that we miss the ‘God with us’. And no matter how much we know of the history and ritual of worshipping God, let’s not forget that those with no experience can sometimes find Jesus more easily than we can.