Today’s scripture reading reminds me of Christmas hymns like “Angles We Have Heard on High” in which the angels “sweetly sing o’er the plans” (UMH, verse 1; p.238) or “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing” … “glory to the newborn King” (UMH, verse 1; p. 240). Songs like these beautifully capture the drama and pageantry of Heaven heralding the arrival of Emmanuel, God Incarnate. The song “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” however, captures a completely different sense of that night, when the whole world was silent, completely unaware that the “Everlasting Light” (UMH, verses 1,4; p. 230) had come to abide with us.
For me, the real beauty and power of Christmas is how it is as mundane and secular as it holy and sacred … how it is as much temporal as it is eternal … how it is as physical as it is spiritual … how it is as worldly as it is heavenly … and this is by design.
To answer our prayers … to save us … God took on flesh and became as one of us. And like us, He lived in and experienced this world in exactly the same way that we do. For example, He didn’t just snap His fingers and appear “in the flesh” … He came into the world in the very same way that you and I and every human being from the beginning time of came into this world … through a woman. Jesus came into this world … our world … in the exact same way that every Buddhist, every Muslim, every Christian, every pagan, every atheist came into this world. Every person alive today came into this world in the same way … every person alive today has a mother and a father.
While “birth” is a miraculous thing and could be considered by some as a “sacred” event, it’s a very mundane part of the human experience … and before you get mad at me because you think I’m down-playing the miracle and drama of birth, the word “mundane” means “earthly, worldly rather than heavenly or spiritual.” We’ve come a long way since Jesus’ time but births still take place in secular places like hospitals or homes … sometimes in taxi cabs or wherever … once the baby decides it’s time, amen? But it doesn’t usually happen in churches or temples. You can’t get more “mundane” that being born in stable, amen?
The point I’m trying to make here is that the first Christmas took place in a very worldly, mundane, secular setting. There was no priest, no rabbi, no prophet, no preacher found anywhere in or near that stable that night. The angels appeared to the shepherds in the field … but they, along with what they do, tending and guarding sheep, was considered extremely mundane and common.
The trivial can play a tremendous role in history. Never underestimate the impact of the seemingly insignificant. When the Persians invaded and conquered the Holy Land in 614 A.D., they did not destroy the oldest church in the world …the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. They attacked and destroyed every other Christian holy site except this one because of one tiny detail … over the doorway of the Church of the Nativity is a golden mosaic depicting the Wiseman offering their gifts to the holy family. The Persians weren’t impressed by the holiness or religious significance of the mosaic but by the fact that the Wiseman were Persian … and the only way that you could tell that the Wiseman were Persian was by their headdress and the way that they were dressed. This trivial secular detail saved the Church of the Nativity and the site of Jesus’ birth was preserved.
The book, “The Ugly American,” is about an ugly-faced American engineer by the name of Homer Atkins. He was sent to Vietnam to build dams and roads. While he was there, he solved a century old problem by designing a bicycle treadmill pump. No longer did the women have to carry water in pails up the hillside to water the paddies. At the same time, his wife Emma noticed that almost every woman over 60 had a bent back. As she observed their daily routines, she noticed that the brooms that the women were using had very short handles and that the women had to bend over to use them. She found out that the reason they made the handles so short was because wood was very expensive and in short supply.
After doing some research, Emma discovered that there was a certain type of tall reed that grew wild there. The reed was not only long but was as strong as wood. She tied some coconut fronds to the bottom of the reed and then invited some of her neighbors to come over and see the new broom that she had invented. It caught on. Years later, when Homer and Emma were back living back in Pittsburgh, they received a letter from the villagers, part of which went like this …
"In the village of Chang 'Dong today, the backs of our people are straight and firm. No longer are our bodies painful and bent. You will be pleased to know that on the outskirts of the village we have constructed a small shrine in your memory... At the foot are these words: 'In memory of the man and woman who unbent the backs of our people.' "
A bicycle-powered water pump and a longer handle on a broom had a significant impact on the life of a whole people.
In the same way, the Christmas story is filled with “significa” … small events whose impact seems small and trivial at the time but eventually have a huge, possibly life changing impact in the world or in our lives. In one of her poems, Stella Fisher Burgess attempts to capture this sense of “significa” in the Christmas story:
A cradle was a lowly thing … And held of little worth
Till Jesus in a cradle slept … When first He came to earth.
A woman was a chattel owned … To pamper, scorn, or sell
Till Jesus proffered Living Truth … To one at Jacob's well.
A child? Just one more mouth to feed! …
Not held in high esteem
Till Jesus made a little lad …The center of his Theme.
The lowliest death there was to die … Was nailing to a tree:
Aloft his followers hold the Cross - Symbol of Victory!
The doctor, historian, and writer of the Gospel of Luke was a man of detail, and he recorded a number of things for us that you could call “Christmas trivia,” which, in time, moved from the ranks of “trivia” to “significa.” For example, his mention of Emperor Augustus and the census of the Roman empire in the opening verse of chapter 2 … a fact that has greater significance to the Christmas story than we realize.
There have been few leaders in history who have been so loved by their followers that they celebrate their birthday with festivities that last two days. Caesar Augustus was just such a man. He is considered by many to be one of the greatest leaders in the history of the world. His birth was considered to be the most important birthday in the world until it was surpassed by the birth of Jesus. People from all ranks of life and all corners of the Roman empire would bring money and expensive presents to the capital to celebrate his birthday. Emperor Augustus would then use his birthday money to promote religion in Rome.
You see, the Emperor Augustus was a deeply religious man in a world that had gone sour on religion. The average Roman citizen had become skeptical of religion and abandoned their gods. Augustus was determined to bring about a moral and religious revival in his empire, so he restored 82 temples in the city of Rome and either restored or built temples and shrines all over the Roman Empire.
Get this! He fought to strengthen the traditional family. Much like today, people were choosing to remain single longer or not get married at all and the result was a noticeable decline in the number of newborn Romans being added to the empire. Augustus passed laws that made promiscuity a crime and rewarded men who married and had three children. He fought immorality on the stage and promoted positive, uplifting, inspiring role models in the popular culture. Sound familiar? He was fighting the same battles that we are fighting in our culture today.
He was far from perfect and did some brutal things during his 44-year reign as Emperor of Rome. Still, history remembers him as a man for the people. He was just and merciful and did all that he could to meet the needs of the poor. He sold government surplus at very cheap rates … and sometimes he just gave it away. He was able to establish an empire where there was peace and prosperity for 55 million people. He did not believe in fighting wars just to prove that he was stronger, like many rulers before and after him. He described men who take great risks in battle for some small advantage as men who fish with a golden hook. Nothing they could catch would be worth the loss of the hook.
He was a man of peace. Whenever he conquered a nation, he would allow the leaders to continue to rule, forming friendly relationships with them by means of intermarriage. Whenever Augustus returned to Rome after a fighting a war or touring his empire, his homecomings were events of great celebration. The people and the Senate agreed that he should be given the title that we gave to George Washington … The Father of His Country. With tears in his eyes, Augustus responded: "Fathers of the Senate, I have at last achieved my highest ambition. What more can I ask of the immortal gods than that they may permit me to enjoy your approval until my dying day?" His wish was granted.
Here’s what we need to consider this morning. While he was briefly mentioned at the beginning of chapter 2, Augustus played a major role in God’s plan to redeem the earth. It was Augustus’ decree for a census that led to God’s Son being born in Bethlehem … a place and event that God had promised hundreds of years before it actually happened.
Think about this for moment. Jesus was born and grew up in a world that had been shaped and molded by Augustus. Believe it or not, it was a world where peace was more widespread than war; where an attempt was made to practice justice for all; where the Mediterranean world was one. The roads and Roman army made it possible for people to travel throughout the empire in relative safety, which greatly added to the speed and distance with which the gospel could be shared. Augustus is not only remembered for the month that he named after himself … August … but also for the part that God gave him to play in the greatest story ever told.
Jesus was 19 years old when Augustus died in 14 A.D. Jesus may have never met Augustus or knew him personally, but Jesus lived and minister in the empire that Augustus helped to create and maintain. From the time that He was born until He was 19, Jesus was a citizen of the empire that was ruled by Caesar Augustus. As a citizen and a carpenter, Jesus had to render unto Caesar taxes, which supported Caesar Augustus and the work of the Roman empire.
Augustus played a role in the birth of Jesus, and in the kind of world that Jesus would grow up in … and Jesus played a role in Augustus’ life by inspiring Luke to include him in the Christmas story. There were dozens of possible ways that God could have fulfilled His promise that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, but He chose to use Augustus and make his name famous for the rest of history.
Caesar Augustus may not have known about Jesus but he knew another Jewish king … Herod … who was a friend of Augustus. When Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 B.C., Herod sided with Mark Anthony and Cleopatra to take over the control of Rome. When they failed and Augustus became the new emperor, Herod brought large gifts to Rome and pleaded for Augustus to forgive him … which Augustus did. Herod eventually won the favor of Augustus and they became close personal friends. Because of his connection to Augustus and Rome, Herod was able to persuade Augustus to give the Jews some special privileges in certain parts of the world. Augustus, therefore, knew about the Jews and their religious practices. We know this because we have some of the letters that Augustus wrote himself. In one of them, he wrote to Tiberius, saying: "Not even a Jew fasts so scrupulously on his Sabbaths, as I have done today. Not until dusk had fallen did I touch a thing, and that was at the baths, before I had my oil rub, when I swallowed two mouthfuls of bread." Herod’s two sons … Antipas and Archelaus … grew up in Rome. When Herod died, it was Augustus who settled the disputes between them. He divided the Kingdom, giving them each a part to rule. Archelaus was the king over Judea when Joseph and Mary and the child Jesus came back out of Egypt.
The close contact and communication between Augustus and Herod raises the possibility that Augustus might have at least heard of the birth of a rival king in Bethlehem. As you may recall, Herod’s response to Jesus’ birth was to kill all Jewish male children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and younger. That sort of thing makes news, so it is probably safe to assume that if Augustus didn’t hear of it from Herod, he likely heard about the slaughter of the innocents through the grapevine.
All of this does not prove that Augustus knew of the birth of Jesus, but it does show the fascinating relationship of all the people involved in the Christmas story. The coming of Jesus was so humble and quiet, and yet it was an international event that involved the most powerful man in Rome and the most powerful man in Judea whether they knew it or not. The entire Roman empire was involved even though no one could know the impact of what was going on in the most mundane setting of all … a stable in Bethlehem. Augustus would not live long enough to learn that the birthday of this obscure child born in an obscure part of the Empire would become the greatest universal celebration the world would ever know.
It was no accident that a man like Augustus was on the stage of history at the time of the Incarnation. It was in the fullness of time that God sent forth His Son to be born of a woman. God selected this time and this place, and in His providence He knew that a man like Augustus was going to be the ruler of the earthly kingdom when He took on flesh and came into our humble, mundane world. God had it all planned. Even the secular world was uniquely prepared for the coming of His Son. It was a unique time in secular history and would become the most unique in sacred history. The two are not in opposition, however, but are united by the providence of God. God used the secular decree of Augustus to fulfill prophecy … and thus we see that God is not only the God of the sacred but the God of the secular as well. It is a challenge to try and recognize God in the secular realm, for He is as often found in the “significa” as He is in the grander things of time and space, amen?
Another piece of “significa” that demonstrates God’s use of the secular to highlight the sacred is one that is often missed in the Christmas story. In verse 7, Luke says that Jesus’ earthly mother wrapped Him in a piece of cloth and laid him in a manger. That piece of cloth was the first garment that the Son of God put on. It was not a beautiful royal garment or some special cloth anointed by a priest. It was just a common, ordinary piece of cloth. As we all know, there is nothing “sacred” about a diaper, right? Let’s face it, Jesus may have been sinless, but he was still “fully” human, amen?
What a powerful symbol. As Mary wrapped her baby in an ordinary piece of cloth, so God wrapped His son in ordinary flesh … the same flesh that He wrapped us in. Because of their sin, Adam and Eve knew that they were “naked” and covered up their nakedness with fig leaves. Although Jesus was without sin, He came into this mundane world and covered up His nakedness because of our sin and our shame.
You may have never noticed this before, but Jesus never wore a sacred garment in his life. You ever notice that? No crowns of gold, no purple robes, no rings of gold. The fanciest robe He had was a seamless robe, which the soldiers tossed dice for at the foot of the cross. The closest He came to wearing a “royal” robe was when His Roman tormentors draped a piece of purple cloth over His bloody shoulders and mocked Him (Matthew 27:28; Mark 15:17; Luke 23:14; John 19:2). And yet, on the Mount of Transfiguration, God showed us that it wasn’t the garment that made the man but the man who made the garment, amen? God transformed Jesus’ ordinary robe into something magnificent.
Here’s some more “significa” that you may not have ever considered. People where awed by Jesus’ wisdom and teaching and called Him “rabbi” … but He never became a priest. In chapter 28 of Exodus, God instructed Moses to make special garments for the priests. These garments were to be both dignified and beautiful; as precious as the garments of royalty. Why does the Bible attach so much significance to the priests’ garments? Because their quality was such that they elevated the wearers … Aaron and all his descendants … to the high levels of sanctity required from those who come to serve before God in the Temple The priests’ garments themselves possessed a certain holiness; powerful enough to sanctify all those who merely came in to contact with them (Priestly Garments - Temple Institute).
Think about that for a moment. Jesus didn’t need holy or priestly robes to sanctify or elevate Him, amen? Jesus wore the typical garments of that day and for the same reasons … to cover up His nakedness and to protect Him from the elements. He was wrapped up in cloth right out of the womb and then wrapped up again in cloth before he was laid in the tomb … but He has been wearing the garments of divine royalty ever since, amen?
The mention of this little piece of cloth at Jesus’ birth makes it clear that Jesus would need all of the secular care that any other baby born of earthly parents would need. He needed to be kept clean and warm, and so Mary had to do everything for Jesus that any mother would have to do for her child. The “significa” of Mary wrapping Jesus in a cloth makes the reality of the Incarnation come alive. It lets us know that God was fully human when He dwelled among us.
Let's look at another trivial detail … no room at the inn. This tiny bit of Christmas “significa” has generated centuries of speculation about the inn keeper … but the real significance has to do, not with the inn keeper per se, but with the fact that Jesus got no special privileges when He was born. He had to endure the world and all its inconveniences just like we do. In fact, Jesus had to put up with a lot more of the world and its problems than most of us have, amen? It is easy to get sentimental about the first Christmas because of the Christmas songs and idyllic Christmas cards but the fact is that Jesus came into this world during the rush hour … and it was a chaotic mess. There were no special express lanes open for Him and His parents … no free ride or free lunches. He had to deal with this world like we do and make the best of it.
Back in the old days, before there was the internet or cell phones and major interstate highways like I-95 or I-75 or I-10, traveling was a bit of an adventure, remember? You had to find food, gas, and lodging as you went along. Most of the towns you passed through rolled up their sidewalks at 8 o’clock. There were times when you weren’t sure that you’d find a gas station or a restaurant, a grocery store or a hotel open. It got pretty tense and intense at the time, amen? Tired from driving all day and all stressed out from hunting for food and lodging, you were willing to check into any old dive, am I right? Multiply that feeling a hundred times and you can imagine how Joseph and Mary felt and how happy they were to find some place for the night … even if it was a stable behind an inn. The “significa” of the inn being full and Jesus being born in a stable paints a picture of Jesus’ ministry. “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests,” Jesus told a man who wanted to follow Him and become one of His disciples, “but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head” (Matthew 8:20).
God does not give His children special privileges in this mundane, secular world and He didn’t give any to His Son Jesus either. Jesus had to work ... He had to eat … He had to find shelter … He had to pay taxes … He had to do everything that we have to do to survive. Therefore, says the Bible, we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, our hardships, or our struggles. The inn keeper wasn’t picking on Mary and Joseph. He, like Mary and Joseph, like us, was simply dealing with the circumstances at that moment.
The first Christmas was commercialized because, well, there was no Christmas yet but they were in Bethlehem to register for Caesar Augustus’ census, so everything was crowded and probably marked up to take advantage of the situation. If Joseph were a Roman or Jewish dignitary, the inn keeper might have kicked out one of his “lesser” guests to make room for them … or, if Joseph were wealthy, he might have been able to bribe the inn keeper or pay someone to keep them in their home … but that was not what happened. Like us, Mary and Joseph had to make do … and Jesus came into this world whether Mary and Joseph or the world was ready for Him or not, amen?
Jesus was away from home most of His life but He is still looking for a place to stay in our lives.
Oh, my brothers, are we wiser,
Are we better now than they?
Have we any room for Jesus
In the life we live today?
Room for pleasures-doors wide open
And for business, but for Him
Only here and there a manger
Like to that of Bethlehem. (Anonymous)
There is no point in trying to idealize the first Christmas because the whole idea behind that night’s “significa” was to make it clear that Jesus was born into the same fallen secular world that we live in and, like us, He had to deal with the world that He was born into, amen?
The trivial details of that first Christmas remind us that we will find our greatest pleasures in the commonplace things of life. There will be inconvenience in this life … untimely travel, bad weather, no room, missed connections, diapers … the list could go on and on … and we cannot escape the realities of this fallen world any more than the Christ-child and His earthly parents could.
God is still working in the midst of our world and in the midst of our lives. Look for God in the trivial, and the secular, and be thankful for the blessings of the commonplace. Do not demand of God what His only Son never got but surrender to Christ and ask Him to fill you with His Spirit, that you might see the “significa” in our lives today as we do in that first Christmas, amen?
