The Christmas story plunges us, whether we like it or not, into the world of politics: that is, the way in which societies are governed, for good or ill. The birth of Jesus Christ took place “in the days of King Herod of Judea” (Lk. 1:5), we’re told; or “while Quirinius was governor of Syria” (Lk. 2:2), as we hear in our reading tonight. The names of the rulers define a certain political geography; they are markers of political order and administration. The Gospel writers take us there at the very start of the story.
The registration carried out under Emperor Augustus, recounted in our Gospel, was a political act, the prelude to taxation. Here’s the rub: historians and commentators have a hard time confirming the occurrence of this registration: its particulars and parameters in the historical record are not clear. In a way, this is beside the point: because this indeterminate registration is a stand-in for all political power, with its ambition to move peoples around and more generally to command the worldly order. Again, for good or ill; though whether for good or ill, God is at work in it. The providential order of God can never be overcome by imperial caprice.
King Herod was frightened at the birth of the Messiah because he recognized the threat to his own rule. When the wise men came from the east to worship the newborn king, Herod, a seasoned political operative, quite cleverly turned them to his own purposes. He sent them on to Bethlehem to be his spies. “Go and search diligently for the child… so that I may also go and pay him homage” (Matt. 2:8): a statement of political cynicism and calculation if there ever was one. But as we know, Herod’s purpose was murder, the removal of a competitor.
“In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered” (Lk. 2:1). Against this political backdrop the birth of Jesus Christ comes like a lightning bolt, illuminating the world in an instant. The Son of God appeared at a particular time, for what might seem just a moment, as hard to grasp as lightning. To see the bolt itself you have to be looking at just the right spot in the heavens, oriented by prophets and sages. Yet the flash lights up the earth, including the geography of everyday life. The thunderclap that follows shakes up the whole world.
Herod was right to be worried. The message that the angel brings to the shepherds challenges any political agenda ever conceived. “Do not be afraid; for see– I am bringing you good tidings 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” (Lk. 2:10-11). “Lord” and “savior” is quite deliberate wording here, for in the Roman world, only the Emperor was lord and savior. The angel is interjecting a new concept, of a higher loyalty; and the notion that the birth of this child inaugurates a new world.
The birth of Jesus Christ, and his death and resurrection, has placed the love of God and the love of neighbor irretrievably on the political agenda. God’s distinguishing characteristic is love, and Jesus’ characteristic action is his self-offering sacrifice of himself on the cross. Not a deed of political calculation or the exercise of power in coercion, but the free-will offering of oneself for others. The Christmas Gospel announces that vengeance and spite have had their day. Caesar Augustus, and King Herod, were excellent practitioners of politics, what Bismark called “the art of the possible,” but the birth of Jesus Christ has changed the agenda forever. The love of God and love of neighbor is now an agenda item that cannot be ignored.
The Gospel transcends politics because it recasts the way the world is ordered within this larger framework. As W.H. Auden wrote in his long Christmas poem, “For the Time Being”: “We who must die demand a miracle. / How could the eternal do a temporal act, / The infinite become a finite fact? / Nothing can save us that is possible…”. This is God’s loving action, from before time taking place in time, that changes everything.
“In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered” (Lk. 2:1). Truly, nothing that is possible in worldly terms or in the art of the possible can save us, but the birth of Jesus Christ is the miracle that comes from outside our frame of reference to transform the world. Tonight, like the lightning bolt from heaven, we catch a glimpse of it as it flashes and illuminates the earth. Its thunder continues to echo in our ears, shaking us up and changing up the world we live in. “Peace on earth; good will toward men” (Lk. 2:14): an impossible gift that is ours tonight through the birth of Jesus Christ.
