wordsout
The
sailing of the ark < 1
of 45 >
1
Andrew,
another year has stripped
the leaves, like misconceptions, from the trees;
the
last page of the kitchen calendar
prepares to drop, announcing the advent
of
that season when, according to good scholarship,
Jesus couldn't have been born. The resurrection
waits
on the other side of winter, and in
this month that asks for no apologies
the
winds of daily living have laid bare
the root and branches of our faith—what
is
it
that remains when it has shed
all that's deciduous, its stark wooden
outline
raised against the backdrop of this grey,
late-century, turbulent post-Christian sky?
that
season when...Jesus couldn't have been born
It is unlikely that Jesus
was born in the winter. Neither Luke nor Matthew's account gives any
direct
clue, other that the grazing of sheep outdoors. It has been argued that
this was
not unlikely in a mild Palestinian winter. Calculations based on adding
fifteen months to the date of the conception of John the Baptist
(according to Luke, this occurred when his father Zechariah was serving
in the temple as one of the priestly division of Abijah, the month of
which is known) place Jesus' birth in the spring.
.