Christmas Meditation 2014

In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favours!”

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them. –Luke 2:8-20

In the midst of imperial domination, while Caesar Augustus was imposing more taxes and implementing a census made to demonstrate that Rome actually owned its subjects, Luke draws our attention to where God was acting and, most importantly, with whom.

Word came to those most brutalized by the empire: landless, homeless youth in a cold and dangerous field, fighting off wild dogs and with no fire to shake the all penetrating cold of the night. Shepherds were the epitome of the dispossessed. They, in their poverty, and also by their profession and by their work, were considered by the laws of the land as utterly despised and untrustworthy. Shepherds, along with thieves and women, could not give testimony in a court of law. Those not dignified enough to be witnesses according to the laws of the empire were chosen to see the true reality–the place where God was really acting. 

What these dispossessed witnesses saw was even more amazing as every attribute of the so-called divine Roman Emperor was given to an outcast family and their new born child: the Gospel of Life, the power to truly change and transform. The ushering in of God’s Kingdom (the same word as “Empire” in Greek) came only with taking on the Empire of Death; not by mobilizing a military force of equal might but by mobilizing the hope of the dispossessed through the love of God.

And today? Certainly the Empire is still with us, in many ways even more powerful and intrusive. Political, military and economic systems function to reward the rich while exploiting and enslaving the poor. But we have an advantage the shepherds didn’t, even as they were witness to the miracle birth: we know the end of the story, that God, through Jesus Christ and his sacrifice, has triumphed over Death and its agents.

Perhaps even more miraculous is that we are now an intimate part of God’s loving, grace-filled plan for this world. We are now a part of this story begun so long ago in that stable in Bethlehem. May this joyful news be with you this Christmas season and into the next year as we together continue to hear the poor and dispossessed and work to share the truth that God’s Kingdom of Life is stirring and moving as hope takes hold.