The Gospel of Luke, chapter 2
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Whereas the providence which divinely ordered our lives created with zeal and munificence the most perfect good for our lives by producing Augustine…for the benefaction of mankind, sending us a savior who put an end to war…and whereas the birthday of the god marked for the world the beginning of good tidings through his coming…
Good news isn’t always good news for everyone.
The hurricane we were expecting in Houston washes up on another Gulf shore: we go about our day gratefully, while others are awash in chaos and destruction. Or victory for our team, or our product, or our patient means someone else goes without. It’s tempting to think that when we get good news, everyone else will feel the same about it. The Roman Empire’s provincial assembly honored Caesar Augustus with the above proclamation on his birthday, where good tidings are proclaimed for the entire (known) world.
Except that Roman rule didn’t mean goodness for everyone, or even many: 80-90% of the Empire were living at subsistence level or below. While in some places there was some semblance of what we call today a middle class, the overwhelming majority of people were living in agrarian poverty. The elite population, where one might think to look for newborn royalty, made up less than 5% of the total residents in the Empire. And for the first people to hear Luke’s nativity, the tale of a baby born under a bureaucratic census in an overcrowded house, greeted by shepherds turned in from the fields, would have sounded like a life many of them knew and lived.
So when Luke composes the heavenly announcement to those nighttime shepherds, he parodies common Roman announcements of victories and celebrations. Did you catch how closely the Angel of the Lord parallels that provincial birthday card?
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 Savior, who is the Messiah Lord.
So what’s the point of these allusions? Is it just one giant in-joke for us to puzzle out millennia later? I don’t think so. There’s a distinctly theological value at stake: only God—not Caesar Augustus, not Rome—creates peace. But don’t miss the more subtle point: peace isn’t present! If harmony, justice, and righteousness between people and in the land existed, then the blessing pronounced upon even the least of the people of Israel would make no sense. No, the shepherds, Israel, all of God’s people on earth need to hear that message because it is so radically absent. And the announcement is given in the form of an Imperial proclamation to expose just how powerless the world’s kingdoms actually are.
If Almighty God is truly both the King of Israel and the Ruler of the universe, and if the way the world actually is at the present moment is severely out of alignment with God’s intention, character, and purpose—both of which are inherent in the story Luke the Evangelist is telling us so far—then what’s next? The current situation is untenable. Faithful people of God expect action! Swift, unambiguous, Divine action.
Such action is precisely what’s promised in these first two chapters, by Zechariah and Elizabeth, by Gabriel and Mary, and finally by Anna and Simeon in the concluding verses: these two aging prophets have now seen the salvation of Israel and the revealing light of the Gentiles in this baby presented in the Temple. And more: this is a sign that means the rising and falling of many in Israel (and beyond, Theophilus would likely add!).
The whole world is about to change as God acts decisively in the anointed life and saving work of Jesus. That is good news that can be good for everyone…if we let it.
What forces today promise peace, goodness, and salvation?
Can they actually deliver it?
And where do you see the gap right now between
the world God wants and the world as it is?
Read, reflect, and respond in the comments below!
Roman provincial assembly quote, statistics on life under Rome, and the translation of 2:10-11 are all found in Karl Allen Kuhn, The Kingdom According to Luke and Acts (Baker, 2015). “Shepherds” (1985) image is a serigraph by John August Swanson.
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