JESUS, the Son of God, was born poor, in poverty, in a stable. When Mary and Joseph presented him the Temple, they offered the offering of the poor (Lk.2:24). Apart from this actual poverty, Jesus was, more importantly, born into the "remnant" of Israel; he was one of the "Poor of Yahweh."

We should not exaggerate the material poverty of Jesus' birth, for that would draw attention away from the more important notion of the "Remnant of Israel." The notion of poverty is closely associated with the notion of this Remnant. In the history of the Jewish people, there were many times when their lack of faithfulness to God brought disaster on them, so that they were taken away into captivity. During the time of their captivity, many also lost faith in God, but a small group, (a Remnant, or Remainder) stayed faithful, kept the word of God and his promise alive in a hostile world, and came back to the land of Israel to begin all over again. It is against this background that we can best understand Jesus' poverty and the poverty which he preached in the Beatitudes: "Blessed are the poor in spirit." Luke provides us with a theology of the Remnant. The Remnant consists of the eight people whom he names: Mary, Joseph, Zechariah, Elizabeth, John, Simeon, Anna, and Jesus who was born in their midst. They are all, in their own way, faithful to God: