Christmas Eve  |  Luke 2:1-20

Our story starts out in a time and place. Specific. Logged for historical purposes, right, like the kind of thing we want to hold onto, lock in place. Connect. But the evangelist isn’t just interested in historicity. People who write history books aren’t even the ones only interested in these things. Historians want a motive — the why. They want to explore why the story happens that way, what people were up to. 

This is why we notice these opening sentences and mark them: 

“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.”

The emperor wants to do a first-ever census. The emperor of what? Rome. The Empire. Conquerors and rulers of the known world. What’s a census? A counting of all the people. What is a census for? Taxation. Now, we normally don’t think about taxes on Christmas, and don’t worry, that isn’t the point of this homily, either. (Go ahead — let out that sigh of relief.) The evangelist centers the birth of Jesus, the Savior, Messiah, Lord under the supremacy of empire. Within the known, conquered world. As the light of freedom shining in the darkness — and we are in the darkest nights of the year.

The Empire Revealed

This isn’t an accident, right? It isn’t mere background, either. It is the soil from which the gospel grows. People under the yoke of empire, which has control over everything they know of. That’s the starting place. A place of overwhelm and dominance. Of people not knowing what to do — feeling powerless. Controlled. Helpless. No way to trust anyone or anything. Just more toil for the capricious whims of the powerful.

This is the illusion of empire, isn’t it? The power is real, of course, but the feeling of universal, limitless power is the illusion. That they control everything, 100% of the stuff 100% of the time and there is nothing you can do about it. 

This is why the glimmer of hope is so powerful. It undermines the primary effect of the empire’s scheme to overwhelm the population. To feel as if there is literally nothing that can be done. Literally no one else that is against it. That you, dissenting voice, are alone. Except that you aren’t. And the Messiah is proof. His greatest gift is not becoming empire to defeat empire — it is revealing the charade of empire. The child announcing to the crowd that the emperor has no clothes.

Just as much as I know we did not come out tonight to hear about empires and economics, that what we want to hear about is the baby in the manger, I assure you that this is what draws the shepherds from the fields. This hope of changing the material conditions of the people and for their place in the matter. 

We, like them, are responding to a message of hope.

A Bigger View of Family

On Sunday, we had Matthew’s telling of the story, which gives Jesus authority through Joseph’s line, in granting Jesus a lineage to David that only comes through blood. It is a powerful statement about the will of God to change, even the God-given rules that order our world.

Both of these stories about the birth of Jesus expand our vision of family, of laws and boundaries, of what it means to be faithful. Because Joseph and Mary are family before they are married. We act like this makes sense to us in the 21st century, like such a statement isn’t still revolutionary. As if we aren’t burdened by the paradox of authority and rules, of order and yes, empire.

We have two definitions today. One we might call the legal and the other we might call “the real”. We do this with a lot of things, by the way. There’s the legal/literal/technical definition of the thing — are they married? No. So they don’t count as married in the eyes of the state. But, we might say that, in the eyes of God, they are.

Notice how this messes with our thoughts when we think about God-given laws, like, say, the sacrament of Holy Matrimony? When we actually get married in the eyes of the church, the law, and God. Uh oh.

This is why we say: 

“The sacraments are outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace, given by Christ as sure and certain means by which we receive that grace.”

In this way, marriage affirms a grace God has already given. In other words, we can be married before we get married. We can be family before we’re legally family.

Born As Light Into Darkness

Empires, economics, defining marriage? I get it! This is not what we’re used to doing on Christmas! But stick with me. We’re collecting information, and pulling it together. And we’re almost there! 

This is the world Jesus is born into, the family he is born into. He is born to a young woman who just last chapter sang a song of God’s power to destroy earthly empires. He is born to a step-father that God has declared gets to be the real dad — who will protect Mary and his son in Bethlehem and as they flee to Egypt as refugees. 

And when we read this story, centered in the middle of that empire, in the middle of a culture that would condemn them, in the middle of a religious tradition that would destroy the sense of family that God has affirmed, can we now see where the real power comes from? Why this story of the Incarnate Word blisters the assumptions of the mighty and destroys our excuses for personal, individual virtue?

For two thousand years, we have shared a story of God’s revolutionary grace, centered in God’s transformational power and desire to affirm love and hope and faith in the midst of selfish fear-pedlars and power-mad tyrants. This is the Christmas miracle — that we might actually hear it.

Love Each Other

Tonight, let that revolutionary spirit out — that spirit of love and hope and faith. That light that shines when all we expect to see is darkness. It is here among us. It shines out tonight like a beacon to the workers who are at the hospital or on patrol or cooking Chinese food or slinging quesaritos and Baja Blasts at the Taco Bell drive-thru. 

And it draws something special out of us. The kind of thing we know we’re supposed to do all year long, but it just comes so easy now. To wish each other well. To want the best for all of the people we meet. The person in the pews around us or the one who sells us our Fuego Takis and a Diet Mountain Dew on the way home. Or maybe it’s Reece’s and Peace Tea. Whatever it is, we wish each other a Merry Christmas and a happy holidays — and we mean it. We actually want that for them.

And for today and the next couple of days, we will be in this spirit. And those of us who are obstinate about our 12 days of Christmas will be pushing this well into January — long after the abandoned trees begin to dry out on the curbs of our neighbors’ homes.

But for a moment, we all tap into the revolutionary message of love. And we will see just how much this is about reflecting God’s love for the world out into the world. That God’s love and our love are all mixed. That God’s love for our neighbor and our love for our neighbor are the same. And that love rules more than tyrants, that we all are fed when we start feeding each other. That, in virtually every conceivable way, we are in this life thing together.

Hold onto this tonight. Hug the people you have permission to hug. Long for the joy and hope and love of Christ to soak the souls of the people around you tonight. For the Prince of Peace is here to save us. To reveal God’s dream of love to the world: to show us that this love has been here for two thousand years. And we get to join in. To let love rule over everything, that we all might be free. Not just us, but all of us.