Silent Night!

Matthew is quite unlike Luke in his presentation of the birth account of Jesus. In Matthew Jesus’ birth is shrouded in mystery! In his first chapter he presents Jesus ancestry in a manner that both offends the reader and compels him to decide one way or another about Jesus. He is the King in a manger—God become man—the response to the curse of God or he is none of these. Chapter one brings us to Jesus’ birth, and chapter two begins with: “Now when Jesus was born…”, leaving this silent night in which the birth had taken place without a word of explanation. Luke fills in the gap, but Matthew leaves the reader at the gap which turns out to be a kind of gate through which only the believer may pass through.