Jesus and the Robbers

There's a Gospel called "The Latin Infancy Gospel" that doesn't appear in our Bible.  Scholars believe it was composed somewhere around the mid-seventh century and they aren't sure WHO wrote it or WHERE they wrote it from.

It's called The "Latin" Infancy Gospel because scholars seem to think it's a partial re-working of 2 other Gospels that also aren't found in our Bibles ...

ONE - The Latin version of the "Proto-Gospel of James", written in the late second-century (not long after the Gospels we have in our New Testament).

And.

TWO - the "Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew", written in the mid-seventh century.

Much like those other 2 Gospels, this Gospel contains stories of Jesus and Mary and Joseph that are clearly more legendary than they are historical.  Some of the events in the story closely resemble the events from Matthew and Luke's birth story while others seem to be completely out of this world.

Fake.

Clearly not historical.

Fabricated.

BUT.

Like we say ALL. THE. TIME. at the What If Project, who cares ... right?  Perhaps the point of all of these Jesus stories along with the birth narratives that we share and recite at Christmas time isn't to relay historical information to us, but to inspire us and deepen our own wonderings about the life of Christ so that we may be enlivened to live our lives just as the stories tell us that he lived his.

OR.

... to do even "greater things" than he did, as John's Gospel says.  

This can be mind-bending, I know.  Especially when for your entire life you were told that these stories are historical, that they are "true" in the sense that they really happened, that we dare not question their historical accuracy.

And so.

If you're not there yet, I understand.  Even if you never get there, I understand.  

Wherever you are, though, this story I came across this morning is super interesting and so I wanted to share it with you.  The writer of The Latin Infancy Gospel says that Herod was on a rampage to kill baby boys 2 years and younger because he got wind that a new king had been born.  Mary and Joseph were on their way back home when Joseph had a dream where an angel told him to take his family, instead, to Egypt because King Herod was searching for Jesus and wanted to kill him.

And so they headed to Egypt.

On the way, the story says, they came across some Robbers out in the desert who would often hide out looking for innocent travelers that they could jump, mug, and steal from.  The Robbers saw the Holy Family approaching from the distance and one of the Robbers stated that he was going to kill Joseph, steal all of their goods and food, sell Mary and her servants, and make baby Jesus a servant once he was old enough.

Quite a plan, right?

The Robber jumped out in front of the family, captured them, and led them back to his house. The whole way there, the story says, Joseph wept because he was afraid for the life of Mary and Jesus while baby Jesus just smiled.

"During all the time, the boy did not cease to smile at him (the Robber)."

And then the story says that …

"When it seemed fitting to him (Jesus), who makes both lions and dragons tame, who is merciful, and who with his might brought back the Israelites from Egypt after taming the fury of the Egyptian King - he suddenly turned the wold-like robber into a tame lamb.  He besprinkled him with the dew of his piety, to the point that the Robber showed the feelings of pure compassion and kindness towards those of whom who had earlier pronounced such a cruel sentence."

After that the Robber turned to Joseph and told him to comfort Mary and Joseph and promised that the family would receive nothing but good from him going forward.

I love this because here we see The Christ child transforming the cold heart of a troubled man ... and this is one of the many reasons why I align myself with the Christian faith and the teachings of Christ, because I firmly believe that The Christ has the power to transform human hearts.

I'm still fleshing this out ... this is new language for this once "Evangelical Poster Child", but bear with me.

The Christ - the force or the energy or the being or the ... whatever ... that has been rushing through the universe since before the beginning of time, the breath of the Divine, the One in whose image we are all made.  I believe that this Breath is all around us, pulsating through everything that has life and I believe that the people who knew and interacted with Jesus believed that this Breath was perfectly mirrored in him ...

In his life.

In his words.

In his actions.

In his teachings.

... And so I believe that when we look to the person of Jesus we come to know The Christ, we come to know the Breath of God, the Breath of the Divine, the truest and deepest and most central part of ourselves ... for that Breath of God or that Spark of God is planted like a seed deep within every single one of us.

Yes.

And so just as when that Robber looked at the smile of baby Jesus so I believe that when we look into the eyes of Jesus The Christ that jump off the pages of our Scriptures and when we look at his face in our minds eye and meditate and dwell on his words, his teachings, his life.

I don't know.

But I believe that things begin to shift and change inside of us.  It may not be a drastic in the moment change as happened with the Robber (those instances are rare) ... but I believe that when we stare into the eyes of Jesus The Christ, the Divine seeds that were planted inside of us at the beginning of time are watered and things begin to shift and grow so that eventually the hardness of our soiled hearts will break and begin to bring forth new life.  

Ahhh, yes.  

Looking into his eyes and meditating on all the stories of Jesus The Christ ... it awakens us, it reminds us of who we really are, of who we have been created to be.  

This, I think, is the good news ... the Good News of great joy that is for ALL the people.

Much love.

Glenn Siepert