Christmas Again

Luke 2:1-5

Luke 2 is THE Christmas story. It is the story with the angels, the shepherds, the manger, the stable, the innkeeper, Mary, Joseph, and the babe wrapped in swaddling cloths. It is the sentimental favorite as we tell children the story of the first Christmas. Matthew carries a dark undercurrent with blood, violence, and strange visitors from the East. John is esoteric theology. Luke is a storyteller. Luke wants anyone and everyone to find their way into the arrival of Jesus. But as the actual nativity scene opens it is as if the stagehands weren’t ready for the curtain to rise. There is still a lot of plot to set up. There is still scenery to set. So, we get a paragraph of detail. 

But God is in the details...

1.

We are given a specific time frame―the reign of Caesar Augustus (27 BCE-14 CE), specifically when Quirinius was governor of Judea (ca. 6 CE). Jesus was born in a very real time and place. We know the people in charge. More specifically, it was when Rome ordered a census for tax purposes. The historical records exist. 

Of course, they don’t really―there is no record of any census. Moreover, because there was nothing even remotely akin to modern birth records with certificates, etc., Luke could well have named any Roman ruler anytime in what was presumed to be the era of Jesus and been just as accurate. 

The more important insight is to see Jesus and his parents as utterly ordinary. They lived in real time in a real place dealing with real everyday issues, demands, conundrums, etc.―i.e., God is very much in tune with our real lives. Immanuel means God with US―i.e., every ordinary person. He is not the treasure or gift to a privileged few. He came to bind all people―every person breathing―to God in the midst of their actual everyday lives and loves.

2.

The census came with some ardent demands―each person had to return to their ancestral home place―not necessarily where they were born, but where the family traced their genealogical roots to the source. 

For most of us, that would be a potentially difficult task. If we apply the standard that Luke suggests was that of Rome, then I would have to head to Wales to find the ancestral Watkins home. Once there, I might find I still have further to go to find the deepest roots of the patriarchal wing of the family.

Joseph has to make the trek to Bethlehem, not an easy trip from his residence in Nazareth. He goes under compulsion. He goes as a cog in the Roman machine. The irony of the census is that he really doesn’t count for much. He is removed from the family center. He is just one of the cousins. There are probably many others far closer to the actual trunk of the family tree who will be returning to places of honor, or even be the hosts, the actual carriers of the name. 

Catch the meaning―Jesus came for the Least of These. He came for those for whom life is always answering the beck and call of others with far greater power. He came to liberate them. He came to raise them up from the dregs. That is the real and actual power of redemption―i.e., we better think twice before disparaging migrant caravans of desperate families trekking north―it is for them that Jesus came!

3.

Mary is just an add on―a detail almost lost in the narrative.

As a young woman, she counts for nothing. As a mom-to-be but unmarried, there is a shadow of stoning hanging over her. Leaving Nazareth may actually be safer, since the Levitical codes demanded that she be stoned to death on her father’s doorstep. But she is just a piece of Joseph’s baggage. No one cares about her line and lineage. She belongs to Joseph in every level of meaning that word carries. 

Yet, she is the actual implement of God for the transformation and transcendence of the world. She is the one through whom God chooses to enter human existence. Ironically, Joseph is actually the baggage on that journey. He literally has nothing to do with any of the revelatory messianic work to be done other than be more or less the chauffeur. Like “Green Book,” the recent movie about an African-American pianist and his White driver, the presumed man of privilege is actually the tool, while the object of cultural scorn is the hero and focus of the story. Luke’s Nativity IS Mary’s story. Note that―God is with the Least of These. Every detail of Luke’s narrative hammers that point home. 

Therefore, if we are to have anything to do with redemption and God’s holy work, we need to abandon any and all privilege. Our stance is to be one of radical hospitality, including radical generosity and radical compassion. Jesus is a revolution in the world order. To be of Jesus is to join the revolution.

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Now, the stage is set. Now, at last, we are ready to witness the actual entrance of God into the human realm as the infant messiah.