One of the wonderful things about working on a book about how women navigated theological debates in the early twentieth century has been the opportunity to learn about so many faithful Christian women. One who was new to me was Helen Barrett Montgomery.
Montgomery served as president of the Northern (later American) Baptist convention during the years 1921–1922, the height of its fundamentalist-modernist controversy, the early twentieth-century split between theological and sometimes social conservatives and liberals that still reverberates today. In common with fundamentalists, Montgomery held to historic orthodoxy on the divinity of Christ and belief in evangelism and personal conversion. In common with more modernists, she embraced the importance of social reform in bringing about the Kingdom of God.
Press surrounding Montgomery’s election touted her as the first female denominational president in Christian history. This claim may have been a bit overblown, but it was the first time a woman had served as president of one of the leading American denominations. The convention elected her because of her leadership of the Woman’s American Baptist Foreign Missionary Society, which had presented $450,000 to the denomination’s mission funds at the 1921 convention. Women’s organizations that prayed for, educated about, and raised money for missionaries were wildly popular in most Protestant denominations at the time, and constituted the primary form of “women’s ministry.”
Montgomery was not only the Baptist women’s missions leader; she was probably the most recognizable name among all the stateside women involved in these missions organizations. Montgomery thus more than had the chops for denominational leadership on her own merits: she was an exceptional speaker, author, organizer, theologian of missions, and scholar of the New Testament, publishing her own translation a couple years later in 1924.
So, for the fourth day of Christmas, I want to share the Christmas story from Montgomery’s translation of the gospel of Luke, focusing on how women play such a strong role in the narrative. I find that reading the familiar story in a different translation helps me experience it anew, and I hope it does the same for you:
Luke 1: 5-7: Elizabeth
In the reign of Herod, King of Judea, there was a certain priest, named Zachariah, belonging to the class of Abijah. He had a wife named Elizabeth, who was a descendant of Aaron. They were both righteous in the sight of the Lord, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the law, blameless. Now they had no child, for Elizabeth was barren, and both were far advanced in years.
[Luke 1: 9-13, 16-17]
Now while Zachariah was acting as priest before God in the due course of his class, it fell to his lot, according to the custom of priesthood, to enter into the sanctuary of the Lord and to burn incense. And the whole multitude of the people were without, praying at the hour of incense. Then there appeared to him an angel of the Lord, standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And as he saw him Zachariah was troubled, and fear fell upon him. But the Angel said to him. “Do not be afraid, Zachariah, because your petition has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John….And [he] shall win many of the sons of Israel to the Lord, their God. “He shall go before Him in the wisdom and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, and so to make ready for the Lord a people prepared for him.”
Luke 1: 23-60 Elizabeth and Mary
As soon as his term of priestly service was ended he went home; and after those days Elizabeth, his wife, conceived, and she hid herself five months, saying, “This has the Lord done for me. He has now deigned to take the away my reproach among men.”
Six months later the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee, called Nazareth, to a maiden betrothed to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. Her name was Mary. The angel went in and said to her. “Joy to you, highly favored one! The Lord is with you.” Mary was greatly agitated at his word, and was revolving in her mind what this salutation could mean, when the angel said to her, “Fear not Mary, for you have found grace with God. “And behold, you shall conceive in your womb and bear a son; and you shall call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give him the throne of his forefather David, and he shall reign over the House of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.”
And Mary said to the angel. “How can this be? For I have no husband?” “The Holy Spirit shall come upon you,” said the angel, “and the power of the most High shall overshadow you, and therefore the holy offspring which is born, shall be called the son of God. And behold your kinswoman, Elizabeth, she also has conceived a son in her old age, and this was the sixth month with her that was called barren. For no word of God shall be void of power.” Then Mary said. “Behold I am Lords slave. Let it be to me as you have said.” Then the angel departed from her.
Soon after this Mary set out and hastened unto the hill-country to a town in Judah; and there she came into the house of Zachariah, and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard her salutation, the babe leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth herself was filled with the Holy Spirit, and called out with a loud cry. “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is your unborn child! But why is this honor done me, that the mother of my Lord should come me? For behold when the sound of your salutation reached my ears, the babe leaped with joy within my womb. And blessed is she who believed that the Lords words spoken to her would be fulfilled.”
And Mary said, “My soul doth magnify the Lord, My spirit exults in the God, who is my Saviour, For he has regarded the humiliation of his slave, And from this hour all ages will count me blessed. For he who is mighty has done great things for me; And holy is his name. His mercy is unto generations and generations on those who reverence him. He has showed strength with his arm. He has scattered proud in the imagination of their hearts; he has put down princes from their thrones, and has exalted those of low degree. The hungry he has filled with good things, But the rich he has sent empty away. He has helped Israel, his servant, that he might remember mercy, As he spoke to our forefathers, to Abraham and his offspring forever.”
So Mary stayed with Elizabeth about three months and returned home. Now when the time of Elizabeth’s delivery was come, she gave birth to a son; and her neighbors and kinsfolk heard that the Lord had magnified his mercy toward her; and they rejoiced with her, and came on the eighth day to circumcise the child. They were about to call him “Zachariah,” after his father, when his mother said, “No, he is to be called John.”
Luke 2: 1-19: Mary
In those days Augustus Caesar issued an edict for a census of the whole inhabited world. This was the first census, When Quirinius was governor of Syria. And every one went to be registered, each to the town to which he belonged. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to David’s town of Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David. He went to be registered along with Mary, who was espoused to him, and was pregnant. But while they were there the days were fulfilled for her delivery. And she gave birth to her firstborn son; and she wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.
And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night. When suddenly an angel of the Lord stood by them, and the glory of the Lord shone round them; and they feared with a great fear. The angel said to them, “Have no fear, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be for all the people. For unto you born this day in there is born in David’s town a Saviour, who is the Anointed Lord. And this is a sign to you; You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling-clothes lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the Heavenly army praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, And in earth peace among men who please him.”
Now when the angels had left them, and gone away to heaven, the shepherds said to one to another, “Let us go now even to Bethlehem, and see this saying which has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us,” so they made haste, and came and found Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in the manger. When they had seen, they made known about the words which had been spoken to them concerning the child. And all who heard it were astonished at the things which were told to them by the shepherds. But Mary treasured up all those words, Often pondering on them in her heart.
Luke 2:21-24, 36-39: Mary and Anna
When eight days had passed, and the time had come to circumcise him, he was called Jesus, the name given him by the angel before his conception in the womb. And when the days for purification according to the law of Moses had passed, they took him up to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord, as it is written in the law of Moses, Every firstborn male shall be called holy to the Lord. And they also offered a sacrifice as commanded in the Law of the Lord: A pair of turtle-doves or two young pigeons….
There was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in age, having lived with her husband seven years, after her girlhood, and then being a widow even for fourscore and four years. She departed not from the temple, but worshiped with the fasting and prayer, night and day. She came up at that very hour, and gave thanks to God, and spoke of the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.
As soon as all that the law required had been done, they returned to Galilee to their own town, Nazareth.
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