My family is looking forward to the Avengers 4 movie coming out in a few months. This past November 13th, a day after Stan Lee of Marvel Comics died, I listened to an interview with Brad Meltzer (by Glenn Beck on The Glenn Beck Radio Program), author of many children’s books, including a book on comic books. Meltzer talked about how Stan Lee may have been our time’s closest thing to Walt Disney. His comics taught principles to live by, they taught us to be good to others because it’s the right thing to do, not out of expectation of a reward. In keeping with this, comic books have been effective in our country because they have been tailored to particular time periods and those time periods’ needs. Superheroes have often come on the scene when people have felt powerless. And so comic books thrived in the Great Depression, in WWII, in the Cold War when people felt powerless against nuclear missiles, and then after a gap, in the last couple of decades. People in these time periods didn’t necessarily get the hero they wanted, but they got the one they needed. The Great Depression had the heroes of tarzan and flash Gordon; people needed to be transported to a different place like the jungle or the 25th century because life around them was so tough. During WWII the country was afraid as the enemy encroached upon our shores; and then in stepped very powerful Superman to save us. After 9/11 many people were saying we’d never laugh again. The movie that broke through the public consciousness was Spiderman. We weren’t a country of invincible supermen anymore; like Spiderman we were vulnerable but wanted to give it everything we had. And ever since we’ve been in a superhero movie boom where even the bad movies make 100s of millions of dollars. Most of these movies have been based on Stan Lee’s Marvel Comics. The success of these movies shows that we’re still starving for heroes. We need to see that good is going to triumph over the very real evil that we face. This is where Marvel Comics have shined. Stan Lee’s heroes are real, with real issues. In the case of Spiderman, it was his fault his uncle was killed; Ironman before he was Ironman was a rich and self-centered drunk who could care less about the world; and Thor may have been the god of thunder, but his origin story was that his father Oden banished him from his home planet so that he could be humbled because he was so full of himself. Lee’s heroes resonate with our stories and teach us about ourselves and our needs today. Thus Stan Lee himself said long ago that he was trying to teach us to be real heroes living in the image of God.
I thought of Stan Lee and his comics as I prepared for the sermon this evening from Luke 2. As Luke narrates the birth of Jesus, he shows how Jesus fulfills the Old Testament; but Luke also more so than any other Gospel shows the Roman audience of the time how Jesus was of benefit to them in a way that they could understand, as a sort of hero. Accordingly, Luke in our text lists the name of the hero Jesus in a way that Luke’s Roman audience could understand. We’ll use that name as our sermon title: A Savior, Who Is Christ the Lord.
The title A Savior, Who Is Christ the Lord is a very Greco-Roman way of describing Jesus, as we’ll see in a moment. But first we should say that Luke as a good historian writing according to general standards within the Roman Empire gives us the most complete account of all of the events surrounding Jesus’ birth and how these fit into Judaism. First, our text mentions a census that causes Joseph to come to Bethlehem, which Luke calls the city of David. This recalls king David being from Bethlehem and also recalls David conducting an ill-conceived census at the end of his life just before appointing his son to be king. Jesus is the true king and son of David. Next our text records the birth of Jesus and emphasizes that Jesus as the Messiah was born in a manger. The scholar Raymond Brown says of this,
This manger is not a sign of poverty but is probably meant to evoke God's complaint against Israel in Isaiah 1:3: “The ox knows its owner and the donkey knows the manger of its lord; but Israel has not known me, and my people has not understood me.” Luke is proclaiming that the Isaian dictum has been repealed. (“Meaning of the Manger, the Significance of the Shepherds”)
The next part of our text is the appearance of the angels to the shepherds in the field. This episode likely again recalls King David, who was a shepherd in Bethlehem when he was called to be king. Finally, our text records what the shepherds did. They come to the manger to see the sign of the baby in swaddling cloths lying in a manger. This seems to fulfill another passage from Isaiah, the very familiar one from Isaiah 7 where a sign will be given to Israel as a virgin will conceive and bear a son, and will call his name Immanuel. Our text concludes with many people wondering at the sign of Jesus’ birth, including the virgin herself, Mary.
Thus Luke in our text harmonizes with Matthew’s account of Jesus’ birth as Luke emphasizes that Jesus as a king like David is the Messiah. Luke is an accurate Roman historian. But Luke also stresses other things than Matthew. Matthew emphasizes the demonic character of King Herod at Jesus’ birth as Herod schemes to try to kill Jesus. But Luke has chosen parts of the story that he can springboard off of to portray Jesus as a hero that Romans will understand and love. Luke sort of gives Jesus the superhero name A Savior, Who Is Christ the Lord. And in giving Jesus this name, Luke especially is comparing Jesus to the most powerful man on earth, Caesar Augustus. Luke does this so that the people will understand who Jesus is. He does not so much set up Jesus as a rival to Caesar Augustus but rather shows how Jesus is a spiritual ruler who truly and spiritually fulfills the propaganda about Caesar Augustus.
To begin to contemplate these things, consider these words again from Raymond Brown:
In 29 B.C., one hundred years before Luke wrote this Gospel, Augustus had brought an end to almost a century of civil war that had ravaged the Roman realms; and at last the doors of the shrine of Janus in the Forum, thrown open in times of war, were able to be closed. The Age of Augustus was propagandized as the glorious age of pastoral rule over a world made peaceful by virtue—the fulfillment of Virgil's dreams in the Fourth Eclogue. In 13-9 B.C. there was erected a great altar to the peace brought about by Augustus, and this Ara Pacts Augustae still stands in Rome as a monument to Augustan ideals. The Greek cities of Asia Minor adopted September 23rd, the birthday of Augustus, as the first day of the New Year. He was hailed at Halicarnassus as the “savior of the whole world”; and the Priene inscription grandiosely proclaimed: “The birthday of the god marked the beginning of the good news for the world.” Luke contradicts this propaganda by showing that paradoxically the edict of Augustus served to provide a setting for the birth of Jesus. Men built an altar to the pax Augustae, but a heavenly chorus proclaimed the pax Christi: “On earth peace to those favored by God” (2:14). The birthday that marked the true beginning of a new time took place not in Rome but in Bethlehem, and a counterclaim to man-made inscriptions was the heraldic cry of the angel of the Lord: “I announce to you the good news of a great joy which will be for the whole people: To you this day there is born in the city of David a Savior who is Messiah and Lord” (2:10-11). (“Meaning of the Manger, the Significance of the Shepherds”)
Augustus Caesar was a savior, that is he helped fill the role of savior as known in the Roman Empire of his time, helping save people from certain misfortunes but not from death. And Augustus was a Christ, that is he was an anointed king. And Augustus was a lord as known at his time, a master who has great power, in this case power over the Roman Empire. Augustus had some positive features and could even be called a hero in certain respects, even if Luke and we also know that he was ultimately a dictator. But only Jesus was the true Savior. Although Matthew explains that Jesus saves people from their sins, only Luke among the Gospels calls Jesus by the noun form of this, the Savior, and a beautiful one at that. And only Jesus is truly the Christ. Matthew’s hearers would know Jesus more by the Hebrew name Messiah, but Luke’s Gentile readers would know him by the Greek equivalent of this, the Christ, the long-awaited offspring of the virgin who would crush the serpent’s head. And only Jesus is the true Lord. While there were many lords in the Roman Empire who had great power, Jesus is the true Lord, the true Kurios, who has power over the whole universe; just as Yahweh (which the Greeks translated as kurios, or Lord) occurs some 6000 times in the Old Testament, Jesus is the true Yahweh as the word kurios, or Lord, occurs all over Luke and Acts.
The Greeks and Romans valued their heroes. They had Plato’s hero Socrates, they had the journeying hero Odysseus from Homer’s The Odyssey, and even in certain respects Augustus Caesar was a hero, as we’ve seen. Our country has had its comic book heroes, especially since the Great Depression. The enormous popularity of Stan Lee’s Marvel Comic movies over the last couple of decades must tell us something. We seem to be looking for something genuine, something that has stood the test of time. We’re choosing our heroes from decades ago. In our country today we seem to be looking for something that reaches us in our weaknesses, that helps us overcome those weaknesses, and will help good overcome evil. I’m not the first to say it, but in many respects our world today is hauntingly reminiscent of Jesus’ time. We live in a cosmopolitan world. We live in a powerful country, although thankfully it doesn’t have an emperor, and hopefully won’t for a long time. We’re looking for heroes in a world that seems increasingly confusing. Into the Roman Empire of Caesar Augustus, God in his unfathomable love sent his Son as a tiny baby to bring that love and goodness into the world. That same God continues to give this world this same love. The humble hero in the manger that arrived on the scene 2000 years ago continues to offer himself to us today. He is not Spiderman, Ironman, or Thor. He is not Socrates, Odysseus, or Augustus Caesar. He is much greater than all of these. And he calls on us to trust in him to bring God’s love to the world and overcome the darkness. The infant in the manger is the true superhero; he has the ultimate origin story; his true superpower is love; and his name is A Savior, Who Is Christ the Lord.
