Thinking Outside the Crib
Luke 2:4-7
INTRODUCTION: What was God thinking? Why did God choose the time and place He did for the birth of his son, the savior of the world? To quote Victor Hugo in Les Miserables, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” What he said about eighteenth century Paris, France, could just as easily be said about Israel at the pivotal turn from B.C. (before Christ) to A.D. (Anno Domini, the year of Christ’s reign).
The world was a rambunctious, rancorous, rancid mess. Most of the civilized world was under the rule of Rome and its Caesars. The Jews had it bad. These were the ‘stars’ of the Old Testament, God’s “chosen people.” But by this time, the mighty had fallen. Hard. Several times.
At one time, they were the preeminent nation on earth. Now they were relegated to a dusty outpost astride a modest trade route in the Roman Empire. Foreign troops occupied their land. Their economy was bobbing along unproductively. Government at every level took advantage of them. They had virtually no middle class. Their was a large chasm separating the upper and lower classes. And they hadn’t heard any decent preaching in 400 years.
Israel was a divided nation - part of it was inhabited by the Samaritans, the Jews from the ten tribes that had intermarried with the people who had conquered them. That would include the Medes, the Persians, the Babylonians. They were considered mongrels, dogs, by the Jews of the remaining two tribes, Judah and Benjamin.
The provinces of Judea were ruled by the Herods, a despicable family that was notoriously known for their inbreeding and consummate desire to rid themselves of any challengers to their rule - from within their own family circle as well as from outside their family tree. They weren’t nice folks.
Unless you were a senator in Rome, a scholar in Alexandria, or a member of the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, the world was a pretty rough place a little more than 2,000 years ago. By today’s standards - even in the middle of our economic recession - those people had it bad, worse than most of us.
I. HOW DO YOU FIX SUCH A MESS?
In order to fix such a mess and to bring the presence of God back into the midst of His chosen people, you have to understand the back story. In the world of drama, every character in a play, or in a television show or movie, has a back story. This is what happened before they came on the scene in the movie.
Most movies or plays or television shows, are what is called “slice of life.” You jump into action that is already underway. During the early part of the show, the writers reveal to us, the audience, what was going on before. Some television show jumpstart this exercise by commencing the show with a brief synopsis of what happened over the course of the last couple of episodes. They always preface it with the familiar phrase, “Previously on _________.”
The back story of Jesus’ birth was chapter one of Luke. The end of the back story begins in chapter 2, verse 1: “In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. And everyone went to his own town to register.” (2:1,3)
Now we know what lead Joseph and Mary to leave their home town, Nazareth, and travel to Bethlehem. Yes, it was also to fulfill the prophecy about the Messiah being born in the city of David, but there had to be an overwhelming reason for a woman nearly nine months pregnant with her first child to leave her home and travel several days to a faraway city, and this was it.
If you or I were going to fix this mess, we would probably start by sending brigades of elite special forces to throw out the occupying army. We would call in our Council of Economic advisors to jump-start business, pump up the tourist and convention trade, and recapitalize the central bank.
We would commission ambassadors to write new treaties with neighboring countries and put a trade czar in charge of drumming up reciprocal relationships with crafts people from Asia and Gaul. We’d dispatch a healthy Billy Graham to preach a great revival. And for sure, we would elect the wisest, strongest, most experienced warrior/ CEO/politician to manage all the redevelopment.
II. WHERE DID GOD BEGIN?
But this isn’t what God did. Instead, God sent a baby. Of course, Jesus was no ordinary baby. But the Bible says he was as fully human as the rest of us are, and that he was fully divine as his Father in heaven is. Just the same, he was still a baby, born like any other baby of that time. “While they were there, the time came for her baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.” (2:6-8)
I think we all realize that it didn’t happen as quickly as it seems from Luke’s telling of the story. Midwives had to be found in a strange town where no one knew Joseph and Mary, and they didn’t know any-one either. Water and rags had to be obtained - no one knew anything about modern sanitization methods so I’m sure they just grabbed what was handy. God did the sterilization so that Jesus wasn’t contaminated or open to illness upon his birth. And like most first births, it didn’t happen quickly - Mary was probably in labor for some time.
After the baby was born and cleaned up, he was handed to his mother to hold and nurse. When he had fallen asleep after suckling his first mother’s milk, they took him from her and laid him in a manger so that Mary could rest. What a trip! What a night! What an experience. Memorable every step of the way.
Leave it to God to think outside the crib. No conventional political or commercial wisdom for the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (who, come to think of it weren’t exactly the prototypical nation-building patriarchs you’d choose if you were hiring for the job.
No, God took on the shape and substance of a baby to turn the world upside down. Before Jesus ever left heaven for the limitations of infancy, he knew how this would turn out. Of course, Jesus the holy baby probably didn’t know it, but the eternal Jesus, the Word who spoke the world into being, understood the life that baby would lead.
He would grow up as any child of his day did. Eventually he would be potty trained. Eventually he would be weaned. Eventually he would thrill his parents with his first steps. And would fall down, get a scape in the dirt and gravel of the road, and need the loving attention of his mother. Eventually he would be taken to his father’s wood shop and learn the names of each tool and how it was used to shape and build furniture that would be sold to support his family.
All too soon he would travel with his parents annually to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover. And one day, he would stay at the temple longer than usual and engage the religious elite of the Sanhedrin on matters of the Law and Prophets, and amaze them with his learning and understanding.
III. THE GOD OF SURPRISES
Do you like surprises? My family like surprises. For many families, surprise is valued at the time of gift-giving. I surprised Anita with her Christmas present a couple of days ago. Ask her.
Surprises work when there’s no peeking. The element of surprise is lost when the recipient knows what the gift is. Bet you used to pick up those presents under the tree and give them a little shake, didn’t you? I did. My sons did. Varonika does. We have to watch Kili or she’ll just open them up. She’s still learning she has to wait until Christmas day.
Surprise is a metaphor for God’s response to all Earth’s heart-ache. God sprung a surprise on the whole world that first Christmas morning. The Jews wanted a big, burly, handsome, Messiah ready to gather an army and defeat the hated Romans. God sent a baby from a poor carpenter’s family. Surprise!
A little more than 2,000 years later, the world seems even more messed up now than it was back then. Despite our progress, despair is having its day. The gulf between the rich and poor is greater. The tyranny of despots and kings is even more ferocious. The gap between wish and hope seems almost beyond reaching.
So now we have waited for Christmas on a violent, forlorn planet, near one of the hardest years in memory. Let us expect surprises from God. We can’t plan them or manipulate them. Most likely, we won’t understand them. We merely accept them, love them, and ‘faith’ them. This Christmas, we have sorely needed a divine surprise. Let’s see if we will get one.
