Only One Savior
But the angel said to them, “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, the Lord.” (Luke 2:10-11)
Ask yourselves this night which of these active characters in this familiar story you are. Are you shepherds first filled with fear, then with joy, leaving here and going back to your regular lives praising God but doubting if any of it means something for the rest of your life? Are you Mary, searing all these words and images in your mind, and trying to make sense of it all and fit them into your little life? Are you Jospeh, perhaps a bit concerned about what happens if the shepherds go telling everybody about a Messiah being born? Or, are you the apostles on a mission who first read this Good News according to Luke, who got the message and understood their marching orders? “Enemy‐occupied territory — That is what this world is,” C.S. Lewis wrote. “Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage. When you go to church you are really listening‐in to the secret wireless from our friends.”[1] Listen on this holy night, and consider carefully which character you might be in this perhaps-too-familiar story.
Jesus of Nazareth wasn’t the only Savior whose birth was heralded in those days. September 23rd was a holiday throughout the Roman Empire, celebrating the birth of a man who was called “Savior” on many monuments. He had born about 60 years earlier with the name Gaius Octavius Thurinus. Later he took the name of his uncle and adoptive father and became Gaius Julius Caesar. At the time of Jesus’ birth, the Roman Senate had added Augustus, “the Great.” Thus in those days he was Caesar Augustus. Eventually, the great Emperor died — perhaps poisoned by his wife Livia to make way for her son Tiberius. His cremains were entombed in a mausoleum of marble to last for all time — until the year 410, when German “Vandals” sacked the so-called eternal city, broke into the mausoleum and scattered the ashes of Caesar Augustus to the four winds.
“Earth might be fair and all men glad and wise / Age after age their tragic empires rise / Built while they dream and in their dreaming weep / Would Man but wake from out his haunted sleep.”[2] Some build empires; others tear them down, neither ever realizing that all their efforts will eventually be nothing more than ashes scattered to the four winds. The census that Luke, writing at least two generations later, attributes to Caesar, was intended to enable the taxation of the Jewish people. When King David had suggested a similar census several centuries earlier, enough bad things happened to persuade David that such control of the land of Israel belonged to God alone. This census around Jesus’ birth inspired an armed rebellion, which the Roman legions put down with their usual ruthless efficiency.
Joseph and Mary don’t rebel against the imperial census, but they do sabotage it. They comply with the registration. But if they’re going to be registered anywhere, it will not be in their current residence of Nazareth. Let the record show that their home is the city of Joseph’s ancestor, David. Thus, does Caesar Augustus actually serve God’s plan for the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed Liberating King, to be born in the city of the great King, he whom the Angelic messengers call our supreme Lord, our Anointed Liberating King, our Savior, not Caesar but this child whose first throne is a feeding trough. Is that underground enough?
Strangely, only Luke among the four Gospelers called Jesus “Savior.” Without Luke’s Gospel, we’d never get asked by some Christians, Have you been saved? What exactly are we being saved from? Allow me to suggest that this helpless baby King saves us from the fears, drives, urges that push us to create empires, fortresses of wealth and power, towers of higher truth that assure us of our righteousness against others’ error. But this helpless baby King doesn’t save us by building bigger armies and bigger fortresses and higher towers. No, this Savior reaches into every heart ready to trust that so it goes with everything but love: “Ashes to ashes, dust into dust / Kingdoms will crumble, bridges will rust / Mountains will disappear, rivers will dry up / And so it goes with everything but love.”[3]
So, which character are you, listening-in to the wireless? Are you the shepherds who return to the fields, consoled with hope but telling no one else what they have seen as though nothing has really changed? Are you Mary, collecting all the strange things you’ve heard and seen this holy night and mulling it over and over? Are you Jospeh, perhaps taking too much responsibility upon yourself to protect this child? Or are you willing and ready this holy night to become an apostle of love, sabotaging the empires of division and violence? What have you heard this day? Who are you this day?
The Rev. David Kendrick
December 24th, 2024,
Vigil of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ