Our text for this morning is Luke 2:1-7, the story of the birth of our Lord, Jesus Christ. You’ve probably heard it many, many times before. Can there be anything new in it, any way that this ancient text relates to our world today? Let’s see. I encourage you to open your Bible to it as Linda reads and to pray that God would help you see new things, even here. You can find it on page 58 of the New Testament section of your pew Bible. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.
“In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”
Luke tells us about two different kings in this short account. They represent two very different worlds and lives.
The passage opens with the Roman Emperor, Caesar Augustus firmly in control. He needs a better idea of how much tax money he can get from each district, so he gives an order for everyone to go back to their home towns and be counted. Where is Augustus as he announces his decree? Probably a beautiful throne. And what kind of a room is he in? I’m sure he was in a palace with every comfort and convenience that could be had. And what happens when he gives a command? People jump; even people hundreds of miles away. And you know that people weren’t happy about the inconvenience of having to be counted. They knew it would probably lead to more taxes. But they went. Augustus had all the power. He was in the driver’s seat.
Augustus was one of the greatest of all the Roman emperors. It might make for a more dramatic sermon to say he was a terrible emperor, but it wouldn’t be true. Augustus was about as good as they got. After decades of civil war, he unified the Roman Empire and brought peace. He did it by defeating Cleopatra’s boyfriend, Mark Antony. He passed legislation to encourage family life. He organized a fire department and a police department for the city of Rome. He cut the size of the armies way down. Rome’s military budget was bleeding the nation dry. He treated the veterans well, giving each one land of his own. Towards the end of his life he boasted that he had found Rome made of bricks and left it made of marble.
People talked about Augustus as a prince of peace and they spoke of the 41 years of his reign as Pax Augustus, the Peace brought by Augustus. He personally wasn’t into the emperor worship stuff, but many people talked about him as a savior and a god. A record has been found of one of his birthday celebrations that described his birthday by saying that “the birthday of the god has marked the beginning of the good news through him for the world.” It sounds like something about Jesus from the Bible, doesn’t it? “The beginning of the good news through him for the world.”
Let Augustus symbolize for us the very best of the human political endeavor, the very best in his time in our feeble human efforts to live better, to be better.
Couldn’t we all get caught up in supporting a leader like this, strong, wise, who can deliver the goods of a healthy economy and world peace? If somebody made the offer, we might be tempted to trade Augustus for some of the leaders we have now.
Wouldn’t it be exciting to see him go by in a grand royal procession, surrounded by the brightest and best that Roman culture could produce?
And then we have this other king. Where is Jesus in this story? In a manger, a feeding trough. At this point he doesn’t look like a king at all. He’s just a little baby. His parents are poor peasants, nobodies. The best bed they can come up with for him is a manger, a feeding trough for livestock. When Augustus ordered that his parents needed to jump, they jumped. They traveled 90 miles with Mary in her pregnancy. The pictures show at least Mary riding on a donkey. We don’t know if she had one or not, but that’s the best we could imagine for folks as poor as they were.
People did everything that Augustus said. But when poor Mary and Joseph asked for a decent place to deliver their baby, they got the bare minimum.
Augustus had the most skilled servants all around him. Mary and Joseph had animals outside the door, wanting to get back into their shelter. She didn’t have any hospital or trained doctors to help her.
Dr. John Dickinson was one of our neighbors when Kathy and I lived in Nepal. He was an amazingly devoted servant of Christ, working very long hours with a very heavy patient load, without access to a lot of the fancy equipment that doctors have back in the west, and certainly not the salary he would have back in the west.
He was good friends with Sir Edmund Hillary, the first person to climb Mount Everest. In fact, when I had the chance to take an extended trek in the Himalayas, Dr. Dickinson had a pair of hiking boots that used to belong to Sir. Edmund Hilary. He offered them to me to use on my trek. And I thought that would be pretty cool to climb the mountains in Sir Edmund Hillary’s boots. But they were one size too small, and I’m sure they would have given me blisters on the first day and then I’d have to carry them the rest of the time and would certainly come to hate them. So I just used my regular running shoes.
Dr. Dickinson and his wife had a Nepali woman who cooked for them. And when she became pregnant they kept telling her that she should go to the hospital to deliver her baby. She went into labor one night and walked up to the hospital. But the gate was locked for the night and she couldn’t read the sign that said to ring the bell to be let in. So she sat down, delivered her baby herself on the street outside the hospital, and walked home happy that she had done what Dr. Dickinson said and went to the hospital to deliver her baby. Women have been delivering their babies heroically for centuries.
Augustus ruled the Roman Empire for 41 years. We can’t even be sure how long Jesus’ public ministry lasted, but it was probably only about three years. And most of those who heard of him thought it ended in total failure.
How can we dare to compare them? Because Jesus was the very Son of God, on a stealth mission from heaven. He didn’t come to demand our taxes, but to win our hearts. He didn’t come to control, but to set free. He didn’t come to sit among the high and lofty people of society, in the seats of power. He was much more concerned with the poor shepherds. He hung out with lepers and other social outcasts. If he came to earth today, where might we find him? If he walked this earth today I think we might find him in an AIDS clinic, the PADS shelter for the homeless, a public housing project, or a shelter for battered women.
When Luke first wrote down the story, and wanted to establish the right time in history he had to use the reign of Augustus in Rome and Quirinius as governor in Syria as points of reference. But now if you look up Augustus in the history books they date his reign as 27 B. C (before Christ) to A. D. 14 (in the year of our Lord). The tables have turned. Now the span of Augustus’ life is defined by Jesus.
One of our months is still named after him… August. But we go through it every year without any idea of where the name came from.
We are now in the Christmas season. Probably half the population on earth would have at least some idea that Christmas is a time to honor Jesus. Hundreds of millions will be honoring his birth in this season. Hundreds of millions name him as the Lord of their life. But most of those who have even heard of Augustus know of him as a footnote in the story of Jesus.
And of course, Augustus never really had a chance to beat out Jesus because Augustus was a mere mortal and Jesus was the very Son of God.
But the Bible is clear that Jesus emptied himself of all his divine prerogatives while on this earth. And so the comparison that we have is really between the wisdom of God’s ways and the very best of human wisdom.
We invest so much in our feeble efforts to make this world a better place. Every election brings announcements and promises of reforms, wonderful new programs, prosperity and paradise on earth. And what always happens? If you ever need a good laugh, watch how many of our candidates promise that they will increase military spending, cut taxes and lower the national debt at the same time. We all know what happens to our family budgets if our paychecks go down and our spending goes up. It doesn’t get us out of debt.
Sure, we may make some improvements, and I’m a firm believer that the political process has an important place. Justice needs to be upheld. Our safety needs to be ensured. The weak need to be protected from the oppressors. Our children need to be educated and the roads cared for. In fact, in January I’m hoping to set up some congregational discussion times to help us think through some of the key issues of our next presidential election.
But no matter how high the dreams are, we human beings always mess it up. There is always a Saddam Hussein. Our brightest and best leaders always have their own Achilles heals. Every generation has a Bill Clinton whose personal life undermines the good he intends. Every generation has its packs of wild dogs that mindlessly attack anyone who gets in the way of what they want in the political process. Every generation has hordes of powerful people who are willing to trample the common interest for their own selfish gain.
Programs to order our lives that come from the outside can only go so far. Augustus organized and built Rome for 41 years with all his energy. But the time came when it all collapsed.
How much wiser is the wisdom of God. The God who comes to us is not content to rule by decree, shouting commands from a distance, content with outward conformity. He goes straight for the heart.
He refuses to stand above us, apart from us. He came as a little baby in the humblest of families, lower on the social ladder than any of us in this room.
He is not content to rule by fear. So he went to incredible lengths to make his entrance into this world in the absolutely least threatening way possible, as a baby in the poorest of families.
He comes to rule by love, in our hearts, so that we freely and joyfully choose to follow his ways.
Augustus could slow down wrongdoing a little by making people afraid to break the law and then severely punishing those who did. Jesus came to defeat sin, by so filling our hearts with the love he has for us that it will be the most natural thing in the world to love and serve others. He came to so fill our hearts with his love that it won’t occur to us to do wrong. And when we do fail that same love gives us confidence to come and receive his forgiveness and move on.
Look inside and ask yourself who you have followed in the past weeks, perhaps all your life. Have you been most impressed by those who hold the external power and riches? Have you been entangled in the cycle of hope and disappointment that is so inevitable for a political process run by human beings?
How easy it is to miss the quiet workings of God all around us.
Open your heart to this gentle and wise king, Jesus the Christ, who has come to rule in our hearts, to fill us with God’s love, to set us free. AMEN
