The BBC adaptation of the Nativity finished last night, and I thought it was a beautifully conceived mini-series. Written by Tony Jordan (Eastenders, and Life on Mars) who researched the historical and theological background over four years, it struck the right balance between the discourse of historical drama and soap opera. Tatiana Maslany as Mary was compelling and convincing, both in her confusions and then her growing certainty of the mystery that had engulfed her. The men, Joseph and her father, perhaps understandably rejected her story as fantasy, and their hostility was grudgingly tempered by enough humanity to send her away, and accompany her as far as Bethlehem. Herod was suitably psychotic, just the kind of egomaniac who would have children slaughtered to secure his own security! The Magi were an attractive combination of the comic and and the mystic, otherworldly and well versed in the real-politik of Herod. The portrayal of astrology as a life study and serious epistemology in its own right was sympathetic and I think an authentic depiction of the best science and mathematics of the time.
The climactic scene of the birth was a remarkable sequence of old, old story and original juxtapositions. Joseph, turned away in Bethlehem by his family so long as he insisted on staying with Mary; his frantic search in crowded streets for a midwife or at least a woman to help Mary; the accidental desperation of kicking in the door of the stable; the labour of Mary, lonely, primal and anguished, and the pivotal moment when Joseph took her hand as the baby is being born; the coincidence of the stars reflected in the convergence of Magi and shepherds; the midwife donating her blue outer garment, signifying much that would come to be revered in Mary. These are thoughtful interpretive moves that gave freshness to familiarity, and depth to a story often enough reduced to shallow thought and surface sentiment.
On the critical side I have a couple of serious reservations. Rabbi Jonathan Romain, and adviser to the BBC on religious themes, took serious exception to the portrayal of a Rabbi refusing sanctuary to Mary when she and her mother fled into the synagogue to escape a stone throwing baying mob. I think Romain is right. The Torah provides for places of sanctuary, and requires compassion and mercy be shown in sacred space - such a response of mercy would have been more typical of Jewish religious ethics of the time, at least at their best. Rabbi Romain saw the scene as anti-Jewish, and likely to have a negative impact on Jewish-Christian relations. I'm surprised if he is an adviser to the BBC that he wasn't shown the scene much earlier and asked to comment. The refusal to help two life-threatened women did jar, and for me was inauthentic, an unfair caricature of a religious tradition that has always understood mercy is woven into the very texture of law.
My other comment is about why there wasn't a fifth episode. The omission of the flight to Egypt, against the background of the Herod's mad power paranoia, and the Slaughter of the Innocents, sanitises a story in a way that is morally and theologically misleading. There are enough holocausts still happening in our world, enough recurring slaughters of the innocent, for us to be able to locate such atrocity within the very story that points to a promised end to such normalised cruelty. Not for nothing is the Wonderful Counsellor and Prince of Peace prophecy of Isaiah 9 contrasted in the same text with the burning of the trampling boots of the soldier and the blood soaked garments of war.
The birth of this child is a threat to the world's power structures, from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, from Nazareth to Rome, from Washington to London, and beyond. The birth of this child is a statement by God, reiterated wherever innocent lives are rendered dispensable and redefined as collateral damage, from Bethlehem to Egypt, and from every site of murder and cruelty in the pursuit of power. The birth of this child triggered the ensuing political madness of power paranoia, and this also is part of the story. Not for Christmas cards of course, but for those who follow the One born in the stable, and do so with theological and moral seriousness, there is the call to see and name the cruelties and atrocities of inhumane power systems and unjust structures and merciless economies.
(The image above is from the pulpit of Siena Cathedral, a detail of The Slaughter of the Innocents.)
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