and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”
Luke 2:1-20 relates the story of the birth of Jesus.
Luke begins his story of Jesus, not with accounts of powerful, influential people up in the palace in Jerusalem, but with old people at the temple, with poor shepherds out in the fields, with a peasant couple named Mary and Joseph. One could hardly imagine more ordinary places than to begin a story than Nazareth or Bethlehem.
Of all the evangelists, Luke is the most interested in the affairs of the Roman Empire. One interpretation of this political interest might be that Luke is simply trying to write like a good Greek historiographer. However, there is a more important theological issue at stake here for Luke — the birth of Jesus has implications not only for Jews in the backwater regions of Galilee and Judea but for the entire world. The baby born in tiny Bethlehem in the reign of Caesar Augustus would eventually spawn a movement that would reach Rome, the heart of the Empire. Luke wants to give a solemn chronological setting. He wants to contrast Jesus with Augustus. Barth may well be right in suggesting that the point Luke is making is not that Jesus is a contemporary of Augustus, but that they are contemporary to Jesus.[1] The writers of the Gospels distinguish their writing from myth proclaiming timeless truths by underlining the temporal limitations to which Jesus was subject. Palestine, Galilee, Jerusalem, and Rome provide a definite place in history for Jesus.[2]
The story is one of great glory and poverty, heaven and earth, God and humanity. The story overcomes the inertia of our history. Our history clearly recognizes the normal divisions between great political power and grinding economic poverty. It recognizes the difference between glory of heaven and the mundane nature of earth. It recognizes the transcendent power of God and the created, fallen realm of human existence. Yet, our familiarity with the words of the story masks the momentous, unexpected, and revolutionary nature of the event. It turns normal expectations upside down. Luke notes the power of the empire and the social conventions of the day. Yet, he places the action of God in a context of poverty and transition. The story brings together heaven and earth, human and divine, in a new way that overcomes old assumptions about the presence of God in human existence and a way that opens new possibilities for divine action and human response. Any faithful approach to this text will see to recapture the amazement and power of the story. I do not expect to share anything new. Rather, I hope that what I write simply reminds any potential reader of what they already know. I hope we hear familiar things.
Luke 2:1-7 present the setting of the story. Luke prepares the way with a straightforward, simple account. The importance of the historical references is that this is no “once upon a time” fairy tale, but an event amid human history. In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world ruled by Rome should register. Luke identifies it as the first registration. He also says that at that time Quirinius was governor of Syria. He became governor in 6AD. This conflicts with the information given earlier, that the birth of Jesus occurred during the reign of Herod the Great, who died in 4BC. The census Quirinius took in 6 or 7AD caused so much trouble, in part, because no one had done it before. Luke alludes to the near riots caused by this census in Acts 5:37. All went to their own towns to be registered. Quirinius did order this, providing Luke with an opportunity to explain how the known family origin of Jesus in Nazareth could fulfill the prophetic destiny of Bethlehem in Judea. Most of our information about the details of the census in the Roman Empire comes from Egypt, where the dry sands have preserved hundreds of personal census declarations on papyri. They took a census every 14 years, and its primary purpose was to update the government’s tax and conscription records. They required every head of household to file a declaration listing everyone who lived under his roof, including slaves. The people were to file this declaration with the chief tax official of the administrative district in which the head of household resided. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem. The reason he did this was that his lineage was from the house and family of David. Luke has just mentioned the Roman emperor, Augustus, and now he refers to the most honored king of Israel, David. Luke is thus like the authors of Mark and Matthew in associating Jesus with traditions about David and the Davidic kingship. The present passage is a wonderful example of the way in which Luke employs these two themes of Davidic kingship and imperial politics. Matthew 2:1 also has the family in Bethlehem, showing that both Gospel writers have an interest in associating the birth of Jesus with Bethlehem. Joseph registered with Mary. Their relationship was still in the engaged or betrothed stage. Yet, she was expecting a child. Luke will record the birth of Jesus briefly and simply. While in Bethlehem, the time came for her to deliver her child. She gave birth to her firstborn son, emphasizing the rights of Jesus within this family, wrapped him in bands of cloth, indicating this child receives proper care, and laid him in a manger (a feeding trough; Isaiah 1:3 refers to the crib of the master). The reason for this was that the inn (καταλύματι, but in Mark 14:14=Luke 22:11 it refers to the guest room where Jesus held his last supper with his friends), thus, a living space or inn used for the “upper room,” had no place for them. This information hints that the family of Joseph had no more room for them, so they stayed with the animals, and laid Jesus in the feeding trough. Christian tradition dating from the second century AD located the birth of Jesus in a cave outside Bethlehem. It attached a manger to the wall.
If we stopped here, we would have a warm, touching story of a young family at a crucial moment of their lives.
Country-music singer Faith Hill captures the strangeness and the terror of Mary’s experience with these lyrics:
“Teenage girl, much too young
Unprepared for what’s to come
A baby changes everything
Not a ring on her hand
All her dreams and all her plans
A baby changes everything …
The man she loves she’s never touched
How will she keep his trust?
A baby changes everything[3]
First-time parenthood is a life-changing experience for anyone. On that subject, Presbyterian minister and novelist Frederick Buechner has this to say (reflecting on the experience of his generation, when fathers were not so often present in the delivery room):
“When a child is born, a father is born. A mother is born too, of course, but at least for her it’s a gradual process. Body and soul, she has nine months to get used to what’s happening. She becomes what’s happening. But for even the best-prepared father, it happens all at once. On the other side of the plate-glass window, a nurse is holding up something roughly the size of a loaf of bread for him to see for the first time. Even if he should decide to abandon it forever ten minutes later, the memory will nag him to the grave. He has seen the creation of the world. It has his mark upon it. He has its mark upon him. Both marks are, for better or worse, indelible.”[4]
When God wants an important thing done in this world or a wrong righted, God does it in a unique way. God does not release thunderbolts or stir up earthquakes. God simply has a tiny baby born of humble home and mother and causes mom to ponder what has happened. Then — God waits. The momentous events of this world are not battles and elections and earthquakes and thunderbolts. The magnificent events are babies, for each child comes with a message that God is not yet discouraged with humanity but is still expecting goodwill to become incarnate in each human life.[5]
Those who believe in God can never in a way be sure of him again. Once they have seen him in a stable, they can never be sure where he will appear or to what lengths he will go or to what ludicrous depths of self-humiliation he will descend in his wild pursuit of humankind. If holiness and the awful power and majesty of God were present in this least auspicious of all events, this birth of a peasant’s child, then there is no place or time so lowly and earthbound but that holiness can be present there too. And this means that we are never safe, that there is no place where we can hide from God, no place where we are safe from his power to break in two and recreate the human heart, because it is just where he seems most helpless that he is most strong, and just where we least expect him that he comes most fully.
For those who believe in God, it means, this birth, that God himself is never safe from us, and maybe that is the dark side of Christmas, the terror of the silence. He comes in such a way that we can always turn him down, as we could crack the baby’s skull like an eggshell or nail him up when he gets too big for that. God comes to us in the hungry people we do not have to feed, comes to us in the lonely people we do not have to comfort, comes to us in all the desperate human need of people everywhere that we are always free to turn our backs upon. …
The child is born in the night — the mother’s exhausted flesh, the father’s face clenched like a fist — and nothing is ever the same again. Nothing is ever the same again for those who believe in God, and nothing is ever the same again for those who do not believe in God either, because once the birth has happened, it is no longer just God whom they have to deny, but it is also this event that they have to deny. Those who do not believe must also fall silent in the presence of the newborn child, but their silence can have only tears at its heart because for them this can only be another child born to die as every child is born to die, and no matter how bravely and well he lives it, his life can have no meaning beyond the meaning that he gives it, and then like all life it must be like a dream once it has been dreamed. For those who do not believe, all the great poetry of the birth — the angels, the star, the three Kings coming out of the night to lay their gifts in the straw — can be only like words that for all their beauty are written on the sand, not poetry that points beyond itself to the very heart of reality, which is beyond the power of time and change to touch.[6]
The warmth of this text gets warmer as we consider some of the Christmas carols that honor it. A young American clergyman approached Bethlehem on horseback on Christmas Eve in 1865. It is an ordinary city. In the fading light of the early evening, he paused just beyond the city's borders to watch from the hills. The scene moved him deeply. He saw narrow streets of Bethlehem lined with modest homes. He thought about the people who lived there. They depended on the land and their flocks for survival. He also pondered a mystery: In this city, the Savior of the world was born. In the stillness of that moment, Bethlehem became more than just another town. It became a place of wonder and mystery. From that experience, the young clergyman gave us one of our most cherished Christmas carols. His name is Phillips Brooks and he penned these words from that long‑ago Christmas Eve experience:
O little town of Bethlehem
How still we see thee lie
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight
I invite you to ponder with me a few other hymns.
Silent night! Holy night!
All is calm, all is bright
round yon Virgin Mother and Child,
Holy infant so tender and mild,
sleep in Heavenly peace!
sleep in Heavenly peace!
O come, all ye faithful,
Joyful and triumphant!
O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem;
Come and behold him
Born the King of Angels:
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
Christ the Lord.
God of God,
Light of Light,
Lo, he abhors not the Virgin’s womb;
Very God,
Begotten, not created:
Mary Coleridge authored a poem that I find interesting as well.
I saw a stable, low and very bare,
A little child in a manger.
The oxen knew him, had Him in their care,
To men He was a stranger.
The safety of the world was lying there,
And the world's danger.
I like this poem because it moves us away from too much sentimentality. This child is dangerous. You may need your world turned upside down, because of the captivity you experience. We think of Christmas as a time to come home, warm memories, and everything seems right with the world, at least for a few days. Yet, in another sense, Christmas is that time when God turns everything upside down. That might be why we keep revisiting this passage. We know our personal world and the world at large is not all that it could be. Take care as you gaze into the manger. Beware coming too close to this Savior. We must accept the risk as we draw closer to this manger with this child. The action of God is taking place in an unexpected way.
"Let the stable still astonish;
Straw--dirt floor, dull eyes,
Dusty flanks of donkeys, oxen;
Crumbling, crooked walls;
No bed to carry that pain,
And then, the child,
Rag-wrapped, laid to cry
In a trough.
Who would have chosen this?
Who would have said: 'Yes.
Let the God of all the heavens
And earth
Be born here, in this place'?
Who but the same God
Who stands in the darker, fouler rooms
of our hearts
and says, 'Yes.
Let the God of Heaven and Earth
be born here---
in this place.'"[7]
What I like about this poem is that it reminds us of the reality of what Luke described – a manger is a concrete trough out of which the animals ate and drank. Swaddling clothes, which sounds so cute, were the rags this young family laying around. What appear to us to be our most chaotic, congested, convoluted times are actually our "stable times.” For Christians, "stable times" are when we look around and see that however unpredictable, unmanageable and unimaginable our mess, the message of Christmas, Immanuel, God with us, is there even more. God takes a simple, humble, young woman and looks with favor upon her, and blesses her. She responds with faith in her stable time. Will we? Jesus was born in a stable -- a small, cramped, congested, messy place. A new-born baby was out-of-place, out-of-sync, amid the dusty animals, the mucky straw, the sneaking rodents, the spilled grain, all the usual smells, sounds, and sights found in a stable. Yet, the mess is the message of Christmas: There is no stable, no place in our world or in our lives that is too poor, too remote, too outcast, too "other," too messy, that we cannot find God there. Our temptation will be to go the way of the crowd. I invite you to separate yourself from the crowd. Learn from Mary what it is to be a disciple. We owe our adoration, worship, celebration, and gifts to Christ. Yet, none of it will be enough if we forget the basic message of Mary. I came across a brief prayer some time ago, and have lost the reference, but I think it captures a bit of what I want to say.
O, come let us Adore Him
But that is not enough!
O, come let us Worship Him
But that is not enough!
O, come let us Celebrate His birth
But that is not enough!
O, come let us Give Him gifts, simple and precious
But that is not enough!
O, What then is enough?
Listen
And
He will tell you.
Luke 2:8-14 present the story of the annunciation of the birth to the shepherds by the angels. Luke shifts our attention from Mary and Joseph to angels and shepherds.
The ministry of angels in the Bible is worthy of attention at this point. The appearance here takes place after the announcement in Luke 1. When Mary gives birth to Jesus, in the city of David, God has fulfilled the time, the last time has come, the will of God has begun to be done on earth as it is in heaven. The calling of Zacharias and Mary has found its meaning and content. Luke looks upon them as the head of the people of God of the last day. Now, the angelic appearance and message of the nativity story are a retrospective announcement of this Now. The angels, whom God has already called and placed in divine service, have no need of the message of this day. Rather, they are ambassadors, communicating the message of God. Joseph and Mary, who have responded to the divine call to service, have no need of their message. Hence, the angelic announcement does not take place near the cradle at Bethlehem where artists love to depict it. What has taken place in the inn speaks for itself. Where the Son of God is, the presence of heaven is already clear. The inn has no need of other visible or audible accompaniment. The angelic appearance and message are to those who are outside to the shepherds in the fields who are the first to join those whom God calls and who with them become the first human witnesses of what has taken place. The angel of the Lord comes unexpectedly to these shepherds, even as the angel comes unexpectedly to Zacharias, Mary, and in Matthew to Joseph. When Luke tells us that the glory of the Lord shined around them, it does indicate the cosmic reality and perceptibility of the announcement made to them. It denotes that they have to do with a heavenly experience, and therefore one that is new and strange to them as creatures of earth. Yet, there is no reason for amazement or terror. The light of God has entered their darkness. The point of the light is not to blind, but to illuminate, not to crush, but to liberate. Thus, it is good news of boundless joy. This is a “gospel angel,” a “good news” angel. The word of the angel is exclusively that of grace. “A savior, who is Christ is the Lord,” proclaims the meaning and goal of Israel. The radiance of God streams over the dark earth because a child is born. The intention of this heavenly witness is to move the people to find the child for themselves. Thus, the point is not amazement or fear, which could have paralyzed them. The angel directs the shepherds away from itself and toward the child. The heavenly multitude witnesses to the majesty of God, who has inconceivably condescended to humanity.[8]
The announcement to the shepherds contrasts with the edict of Caesar Augustus to the whole world. If we can overcome our own familiarity with the words of the story, we can recognize the unexpectedness of this beginning. In contrast to our modern, pastoral, rural, positive images of fields and flocks, in this period, shepherds were poor and an untrustworthy source of labor. Thus, Luke sends a surprising message about the nature of the action of God and Luke ties the child closely to King David, who began as a shepherd in the flocks of his father. Yet, it was to them that the angel of the Lord stood before them, rather than political or religious authorities. The response of the shepherds is a spontaneous faith. We learn that around Bethlehem, unsurprising given the association of King David as a shepherd (I Samuel 17:15), that shepherds kept watch over their flock by night. The shepherd was poor and an untrustworthy source of labor. We are going to learn of the surprising nature of the action of God, as Luke ties this child even more closely to King David. Thus, 9an angel of the Lord stood before the shepherds. Further, the glory of the Lord (δόξα Κυρίου)) shone around them. This indicates the cosmic reality and perceptibility of the announcement the angel makes to them. It denotes the heavenly nature of their experience. This makes the experience new and strange to them, since the shepherds are creatures of earth. They have a biblically typical response as they respond with terror. We can think of this experience in the way Rudolf Otto wrote of the mysterium tremendum, the experience of the holy. Yet, the angel, again in a typical biblical reaction, urges the shepherds not to be afraid. Light has entered their darkness. The point of this announcement is to illuminate and liberate rather than blind and crush. Divine radiance streams over the dark earth because of this child. Their terror would have paralyzed them. The angel clearly wants to move them on a journey in which they will see the child for themselves. Thus, the angel is there to bring them good news of great joy for all the people. We might even think of this as a Gospel or good news angel. The orientation of this act of God is to you, as in all humanity, and thus, to us as readers. Even the birth of Jesus reveals an orientation toward fellow human beings. Because of this news, human time is no longer lost time. The angel announces to us that born this day in the City of David is a Savior, a term Luke uses for Jesus, but not Matthew or Mark. Since it happened on “this day,” “this day” is a day of salvation. Human time is no longer lost time. Human time reaches its fulfillment. Further, this child is the Messiah, the Lord. We do not find this phrase anywhere else, although Acts 2:26 refers to him as Lord and Messiah. The word of the angel is exclusively that of grace. The angel proclaims the meaning and goal of Israel finding its fulfillment in this child.
Among divine works . . . nothing can be thought of which is more marvelous than this divine accomplishment: that the true God, the Son of God, should become true man.[9]
Further, the angel says they will receive a sign, for they will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger. Suddenly, the shepherds see a multitude of the heavenly host, the only time in the Bible that the angel of the Lord appears with the rest of the heavenly host. What they do is offer praise to God. Luke will end his gospel with the disciples offering praises to God as well. “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace (setting this child Savior, Messiah, and Lord against the age of peace Augustus supposedly brought) among those whom God favors (εὐδοκίας).[10] We should further note that Romans hailed Augustus as savior and god. September 23rd was “the birthday of the god that has marked the beginning of the good news through for the world.” Luke is saying that the true savior and the true bringer of peace has come in Jesus Christ. What happens here does not add to or enrich what happened in the stable. What happens here reveals the event to the shepherds. The presence of angels here will connect this story with the resurrection of Jesus at the end of this gospel. Thus, the heavenly praises offered here will find a response by the disciples at the end of this Gospel as they offer their praises to God.[11] The angels disclose the glory of the Lord and cause fear in human beings. The revelation of the reality of this birth occurs in the darkness of the field. The savior is there. Heaven offers its attention to this birth. This birth accomplishes the triumph of God above and the complete assistance of the human beings below, who are the objects of divine goodness. The shepherds receive the knowledge of the importance of this event. Darkness surrounds this child. Luke is bringing us into the mystery of who Jesus is from the beginning.[12] It suggests God embraces every aspect of our time without becoming identical with our time. Since God is in the highest and over the earth, all glory belongs to the one who is there. Yet, this also means that peace comes to earth. The God who dwells in the highest has turned toward humanity with good will. In this way, eternity secures time. Time has its meaning in this connection with God. Since Christ fulfills our time, our time is not godless time.[13] With this birth, the angel announces the fulfillment of our time, the last time has come, and the beginning of the will of God on earth as it is in heaven. Where the Son is we also have the presence of heaven. The angel makes sure that such lowly shepherds are the first human witnesses to what has taken place. The angel, as typical of the ministry of angels, points away from himself and toward God. It truly an amazing thing that, as the heavenly multitude witnesses to the majesty of God, the majestic God has inconceivably condescended to humanity.[14]
The orientation of God is toward the flourishing of each human being. I stress this because we might imagine loving humanity in general but loving each part of humanity might be difficult. Dostoevsky observed that he loved humanity deeply, yet he found he loved individual people less. When someone was close to him, he felt as if the person encroached upon his freedom. Thus, if he wants to love humanity, he will need to hide himself from individuals. When he sees the face of the other, his love ends. My point is that love from a distance is easy. However, put yourself in the presence of the other in all their weakness and darkness. Put yourself face to face with the one with whom you disagree so much. At that point, love can become increasingly difficult.
Yet, God has met humanity face to face, seen the weakness and darkness, and loved us enough to unite with us in Jesus Christ. Thus, let us reflect for a moment on what we are reading from the standpoint of classical Christian theology. This orientation of God toward the works of God, and especially toward those whom God created in the divine image and likeness, is fitting of the divine nature. God refused to allow death and corruption to reign. The Incarnation speaks to the consistency of the character of God to unite with what God has created. In another sense, though, this was not a large move for God to make. God was already immanent with creation. God is near to any part of creation, as the theological teaching on the omnipresence of God would remind us. Further, from the standpoint of the Trinity, the Son was in union with the Father and at the time fills all things. The Incarnation occurs against the background of this affirmation of divine transcendence and immanence. Yet, in Jesus of Nazareth, the Son entered the world in a new way, stooping to our level in self-revealing love. The solidarity of humanity is such that by becoming a single human being, the Son overcomes the corruption and death that exerts its power over every human being. Death loses its power. As Lord and Savior, the Son has come to face that which opposes human flourishing. He begins the restoration of human nature.[15]
The meeting between the angels and the shepherds has been a fruitful inspiration for Christian devotion and worship.
Angels from the realms of glory,
Wing your flight o’er all the earth;
Ye who sang creation’s story,
Now proclaim Messiah’s birth:
Come and worship,
Come and worship,
Worship Christ, the newborn King!
Shepherds, in the fields abiding,
Watching o’er your flocks by night,
God with man is now residing,
Yonder shines the infant Light;
Come and worship,
Come and worship,
Worship Christ, the newborn King!
Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the new born King,
peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!”
Joyful, all ye nations rise,
join the triumph of the skies;
with th’ angelic host proclaim,
“Christ is born in Bethlehem!”
Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the new born King!”
Sing, choirs of angels,
Sing in exultation,
Sing, all ye citizens of Heaven above!
Glory to God
In the highest:
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
Christ the Lord.
What child is this, who, laid to rest,
On Mary’s lap is sleeping,
Whom angels greet with anthems sweet
While shepherds watch are keeping?
This, this is Christ the King,
Whom shepherds guard and angels sing;
Haste, haste to bring Him laud,
The babe, the son of Mary!
Luke 2:15-20 present the human reactions to the birth of Jesus. The heavenly army recedes into the background as it responded to the birth of Jesus. The reaction of the shepherds now takes center stage. Thus, when the angels had left them and returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other that they would go to Bethlehem and see this thing (ῥῆμα), blurring the distinction between word and action. The word in the form of revelation from God is now an event one can see and experience. This word-event, this thing, has taken place, for the Lord has made it known to them. Therefore, they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph. Further, the child was in the manger, the sign of which the angel spoke. When the shepherds saw the fulfillment of the word of the angel, they made known what the angel told them about this child. This witness by the shepherds leads us to another reaction from those heard their witness. All who heard it responded with amazement (ἐθαύμασαν), a typical reaction (1:21, 63, and 2:33). However, as a further reaction to the witness of the shepherds, Mary treasured all these words or matters (ῥήματα) and pondered (συμβάλλουσα, which W. C. Van Unnik says can have the meaning of “coming to the right interpretation” of the events.) This reaction of Mary was in her heart. To close this story, the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, for the angel had told them what they would see. Such a response of people to Jesus will be common in this Gospel. It also echoes the response of the angels in verses 13-14.
We have been reading the story of the humility of God. God enters the world at the bottom, through a despised place like Nazareth and a tiny town of Bethlehem. Most of us would like a God of glory entering the world at the top. Jesus would become a man, giving the people a message of the humility of God and the identification of God with humanity. Such things do not count much among the ways of the world. Jesus went to the extreme in delivering his message, even to the humiliation of the cross.[16] In this story, we learn that the glory and majesty of God reveal themselves in the one who had nowhere to lay his head, the meek and lowly, a beauty that no one desires, the splendor of the lonely wanderer with nails through his hands and feet. All that we know of God we have seen in him.[17]
Let us use Mary as a model and ponder these matters a bit further. What do you see and hear in this story?
In one of the All in the Family episodes that aired many years ago, Edith and Archie are attending Edith's high school class reunion. Edith encounters an old classmate by the name of Buck who, unlike his earlier days, had now become excessively obese. Edith and Buck have a delightful conversation about old times and the things that they did together, but remarkably, Edith does not seem to notice how extremely heavy Buck has become. Later, when Edith and Archie are talking, she says in her whiny voice, “Archie, ain't Buck a beautiful person." Archie looks at her with a disgusted expression and says, "You’re a pip, Edith. You know that. You and I look at the same guy and you see a beautiful person and I see a blimp.” Edith gets a puzzled expression on her face and says something unknowingly profound, "Yeah, ain't it too bad." What we see and what we hear in life depends not so much upon the events but more upon the perspective that shapes the way we see and hear.
Many people missed seeing and hearing on that first Christmas night. Many people still miss Jesus.
Let us try this from another angle by focusing our attention upon someone not in the biblical story. Yet this person might be present in the imagination. I am thinking of one of the shepherds on that hill. He had been a youth on that fateful first Christmas night. Now, he is much older. He has a grandson who is sitting upon his knee. He recalls this story, even on this night:
A long, long time ago, when I was little more than a boy, I was out on the Judean hills one night with some other shepherds, keeping watch over the flock. And the angel of the Lord came upon us and the glory of the Lord shone roundabout us. And we were afraid. And the angel said, "Fear not...for unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord...You shall find the babe in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
The lips stopped moving. Silence. The little boy looks with wide, puzzled eyes into his grandfather's face and says, "But granddad is that all? What did you do when you heard the good news? Was what the angel said true? Was the Christ Child ever really born?" The old man shook his head: "I never knew. I never went to see. Some say that it is all a myth. Others say they found in Him the Light of God, the power of life. However, for me, I could never be quite sure. I never did go to see."[18]
Most of us have received repeated invitations to Bethlehem. Someone has invited us to see and hear in our hearts. It would be a shame if, after all these invitations, we would never see and hear for ourselves. We still have time to let Christ into our lives.
We need to know that God cares for dusty, real, and ordinary places like Bethlehem and Nazareth.
I conclude with a simple story.
Imagine a king who fell in love with a peasant girl. How could he tell her of his love? Of course, he could come in all his royal power and might, overwhelm her with his glory, sweep her off her feet, bring her to the palace, and live happily ever after. Then, would he ever know if she really loved him, or just the things with which he provided her. No, instead, the king decides to become a peasant himself, to dress and in every way become a peasant, and seek to win her love. Then he would know it was a genuine love for him, rather than only what he could do for her.[19]
[1] Barth (Church Dogmatics IV.2 [64.3], 160)
[2] Barth (Church Dogmatics III.2 [47.1], 441)
[3] Faith Hill, from her 2008 album, “Joy to the World.”
[4] Frederick Buechner, “Father,” in Whistling in the Dark: A Doubter’s Dictionary (HarperSanFrancisco, 1988), p. 51.
[5] Marian Wright Edelman, “Standing Up for Children,” chapter 3 of Paul Rogat Loeb, The Impossible Will Take a Little While (Basic Books, 2003), referring to Edmond MacDonald.
[6] —Frederick Buechner, “A Face in the Sky: Christmas Day,” Day1.org, December 24, 2019.
[7] Poem by Leslie Leyland Fields and is quoted in Jan Karon's book.
[8] Barth (Church Dogmatics, III.3 [51.3] p. 504-505)
[9] (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, Book Four: Salvation, Charles O’Neil, trans. [Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975], p. 147.)
[10] The traditional reading is “... and on earth peace, good will toward men.” However, evidence from Qumran and other manuscripts suggests that the eudokia refers to God’s good favor and that the passage should read with the NRSV: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors.”
[11] (Church Dogmatics III.3 [51.2], 446-447)
[12] (Church Dogmatics, III.2 [47.1], 479-80)
[13] Barth (Church Dogmatics, II.1 [31.3], 623-25) Barth will say that this verse is the strongest indication of what he means by the notion of the supra-temporality of God.
[14] Barth (Church Dogmatics, III.3 [51.3] p. 504-505)
[15] Athanasius, On the Incarnation, 6-10.
[16] (Carl E. Braaten, Stewards of the Mysteries [Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1983], pp. 27–28.)
[17] (Paul Scherer, Love Is a Spendthrift [New York: Harper, 1961], pp. 16–17.)
[18] (Clovis Chappel, quoted by Bill Schwein, December 22, 1991).
[19] (Soren Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments, 32-35).
liked the way you drew contrast between birth of Christ and a royal birth an d Augustus decree and God's.
ReplyDeleteThank you Lynn. I hope you had a wonderful Christmas!
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