We are so familiar with the story of the birth of Jesus that this painting – by the artist Jan Gossaert – is all very familiar at a glance, when really it should really come as a bit of a surprise.
Surely this is how it was – this, or something like it. And yet when you consider the detail of the painting, this is not a straightforward interpretation of the story from Matthew.
This painting introduces many other elements that are improbable – impossible even – and all of which are not merely ‘mistakes’ on the part of the artist.
What are these ‘improbabilities’? Well, let’s consider

• This ‘stable’ is one of the oddest I have ever seen. These ruins are fairly imposing, and frankly would not offer much in the way of accommodation for any ox, ass or lamb.
• And Mary – for a carpenter’s wife, she seems to be doing rather well so sumptuously turned out is she. And a painting note here – the dress would have been painted in a blue pigment made from ground up lapis lazuli brought at enormous cost from the lapis mines of Afghanistan – so rare that it cost more than gold.

• And the baby – the Christchild – is naked and exposed to the elements at only a few days old – in what looks to be wintery Europe, and not first century Judea.
• The bystanders here are all togged up as if for a pageant – the Three Kings have put on their designer labels with their names on, and the shepherds are not exactly geared up for shepherding at any time of year.
• The gifts are held in exceptionally elaborate vessels, so one cannot exactly distinguish what they represent, and look like nothing that Jesus would have recognised.
• The angels are expected, but there is a dove here at the top which seems to be making an early appearance

And perhaps this is the clue to the interpretation here. I am sure that you are probably ahead of me by now, for this is not a depiction of the Christmas scene that we might expect illustrated on a Christmas card. Nor is it an Artists Interpretation.
No, this is an interpretation by the book. And the book naturally, is the Bible. But the painting weaves various stories together to illustrate more than just the visit of a few dignitaries to the baby Jesus.
It is a work which attempts to interpret the spirit of the story, and present the viewers – who would be before the altar – with visual theology.
Like Muslims and Jews – who share a lot of the same texts – Christians are people of The Word – a Word that has been poured over and interpreted for centuries now – but unlike these other faiths the earliest Christians can say that they have seen their God – Jesus was ‘the Word made flesh’, and it can therefore be said to be a religion of the image.

So let us now look at this work with the eyes of the faithful, in the full knowledge and experience of scripture and see what is revealed.

• The gifts are enclosed in what looks to all intents and purposes to be objects that might be found in Gossaert’s day. Gaspar’s goblet, which he has handed to Mary, is more properly a ciborium in which the host (the consecrated wafer used in the Eucharist) is kept. Here – not wafers – gold coins, one of which the Christchild is handing back – a gesture symbolic of the priest (and Christ was our Great High Priest according to the book of Hebrews) administering Holy Communion. And gold was the tribute paid by kings to a king. Jesus is the ‘King of Kings’ and He will be redeemed – not with gold – but with his own body crucified – shown here naked at birth as he would be at death. Christ the King – Christ the Saviour and Redeemer.

• The dove here – as so often – is used to represent the Holy Spirit – part of the Holy Trinity – in John’s gospel ‘I saw the spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon Him’ JOHN 1:32. The dove looks forward to Christ’s baptism – an event thought to have taken place on 6th January – also interpreted as the date of Christ’s first miracle and suggested as the date of the second coming. The artist is showing us here and in other picture elements the ways in which Jesus was revealed as Christ or God.
• And right at the back of the picture an angel announces the coming birth, an event plainly in the past in the forefront of the picture – so it is also to be read as a timeline showing multiple but related events. The foreground is the Twelfth Night, when the Wise Men visited, but the Shepherds who witnessed the birth are still shown in attendance.
• The capital on the column to the right of Mary shows the old testament scene of Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac – a story firmly connected with Jesus as the Lamb of God – the Sin Offering of the Old Testament embodied in the Offering of Jesus life for all sin.
• The birth of Christ is immediately at the start of the New Testament – a culmination of the Old – the moment when the Law is fulfilled and replaced by the new Covenant. Law replaced by Grace, and Christ’s Church – here embodied for a Catholic audience by Mary rises out of the ruins of the old ...
• ... and Gaspar’s sceptre bears the tiny figure of Moses and the Ten Commandments – ‘For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ’ JOHN 1:17
• And there is more – much more. Other related themes are included. There are 9 angels representing 9 heavenly orders – seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominations, virtues, powers, principalities, archangels and angels – or they could represent the fruits of the spirit – love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. One of the angels holds a scroll on which is written Gloria in excelsis Deo – Glory to God in the Highest.
• The original setting for the painting was a chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary, so the painting must have the purpose of glorifying her – and indeed it does with her brilliant blue gown – blue being interpreted as the heavenly, royal or spiritual colour.
• And while we are on the subject of colour, the white cloth held by Balthasar represents humility, innocence, purity and rejoicing among other virtues and shows the words of a hymn composed in her honour.
• Mary is also the Queen of Heaven, the Virgin Mother of Christ and Bride – the Bride being the church itself, Christ the bridegroom – the allegorical interpretation of the Song of Songs – and here she becomes the throne of mercy also

• the Christchild sitting in her lap as on a throne – an altar on which Christ’s redeeming work is remembered by the breaking of bread and the drinking of the Communion Cup.

A good deal of thought has gone into this – and maybe the artist himself was unaware of some of the myriad interpretations that his doctrinal exposition was revealing. I am sure he would have covered most of them.

Jan Gossaert’s painting is a Biblical thesis – on the surface a statement of the Adoration by the Three Wise Men of the infant Jesus – but behind this a rich and powerful exposition of some Biblical truths. But are they truths?

The angels, shepherds and stable are only mentioned in Luke’s gospel. No one anywhere mentions the ox and the ass, nor are the visitors described as ‘kings’. Somewhere along the line, visual artists have drawn their own interpretation from the scripture, and we have learned the vision, and forgotten the words.

But just as the Bible writers – guided by the Holy Spirit – weaved their tales and prophecies and references to reveal the mystery of Christ, so Artists have used some of their own conventions and devices to give visual form to Christian ideas.

The donkey or ass had an interpretation as a beast of burden – and notably was ridden by Jesus when he entered Jerusalem towards the end – the beast of burden bearing the greatest of all burdens – He who was to bear the sins of all mankind. So it would be appropriate to show the ass as present at the birth of Christ as a reminder of the end of the story and ‘cross-reference’ within the picture – and who is to say there wasn’t a donkey there anyway?

And shepherds? They’re plausible too. The shepherd would always be present at the birth of The Lamb. And was not Jesus that ‘great shepherd of the sheep’ according to Paul?

We must at all times remember that – even if the events described in Scripture are literally true (and we have no sure way of knowing), that in itself is unimportant. It is what the spirit of the words says to the spirit in us that counts. Christ himself speaking to the Christ in us. And if the Holy Spirit speaks Truth to us from a painting then God’s work is being done to bring us closer in our relationship to Jesus.


This is possibly the most densely meaningful of all the pictures I have encountered so far, and I owe a great indebtedness to Neil McGregor, the Glasgow-born Director of the National Gallery in London, whose book ‘Seeing Salvation: Images of Christ in Art’ I have liberally borrowed from, and which first started me on a rewarding spiritual trail of interpreting religious works of art.