Preaching and Praise

Luke 2:8-20

Angels and shepherds occupy center stage on this Christmas day. They provide interpretations of and model responses to Jesus’ birth.

The stage is not the emperor’s palace nor the Jerusalem temple. It is a “nothing-place,” fields “in the region” of Bethlehem (2:8). Shepherds were of low social status. They had no social prestige or power. They were suspected of being dishonest in letting flocks graze in fields belonging to other people.

An angel preaches the first Christmas sermon that announces good news of a savior born in David’s city, Christ/Messiah the Lord (2:9-11). The language of “good news” and “savior” was used for emperors and their actions. But in the midst of the empire, in David’s city, another “savior” is born. Jesus is “anointed” to carry on David’s agenda to transform the unjust status quo.

A host of angels praises God, and announces divine favor and peace (2:14). The Roman empire declared it brought peace through conquest. Angels pronounce a different peace comprising just societal structures and access to resources.

The shepherds respond by becoming godly disciples. They discern a word from God (2:15). They go to Bethlehem. Like missionaries, they bear witness to what the angels have told them (2:17-18). They praise God and celebrate the word about Jesus (2:20).

That’s a Christmas celebration comprising proclamation of God’s justice-working actions and a celebration of what God is doing.

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Giving Birth in a World Out of Joint

Luke 2:1-8

We often celebrate Jesus’ birth in very individualistic and spiritual terms. Jesus has come to forgive my sins or be my friend or help me when things get tough.

Interestingly, these are not the emphases of these verses. Here the focus is on visions of a different world.

Jesus’ birth occurs in the context of an imperially exploitative act (2:1-3). Emperor Augustus orders a worldwide census. This counting of residents asserts power and political control to secure a world that benefits only elites at the expense of the rest. Emperors counted people in order to tax them. That was a means of transferring wealth and resources to elite control.

The reference to the census encapsulates the unjust Roman imperial world into which Jesus is born. Joseph and Mary are subjected to and cooperate with the Emperor Augustus’ decree.

While the census asserts the emperor’s control over people’s lives, something subversive happens in the midst. The divine purposes send Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem, David’s city (2:4-6). Recall the angel’s words of 1:32-33 that Jesus will inherit David’s forever reign in the midst of Rome’s rule. According to Psalm 72, that reign is about justice for all, especially for the poor and needy. It resists oppressors, protects against those who use violence, and ensures peace and food security for all (Psalm 72).

That’s the gift of Christmas. It offers a vision of a different world, a transformed world of just living for all. The vision also functions as a summons to work for such a world.

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Mary: From Puzzlement to Praise

Luke 1:39-56

What is God doing in the world, if anything? Has God given up on us? Does our human sinfulness thwart God’s power and purposes (Rom 3:1-3)? Being committed to the ways of Jesus can be perplexing. Mary is perplexed, yet reassured, by the angel to embrace the divine purposes. She identifies herself as God’s “slave” and aligns with God’s word (1:38).

The scene with Elizabeth also foregrounds the divine word (1:39-45). The angel’s declarations have come into being. Elizabeth is pregnant just as Gabriel had declared to Zechariah (1:8-25). Mary is also pregnant, though Luke’s narrative does not elaborate how this has happened (1:42).

Elizabeth adds her witness to Mary as mother and faithful believer in “what was spoken to her by the Lord” (1:42, 45). God’s word is presented as efficacious, powerful, and trustworthy.

These events show God at work in the world, actively accomplishing the divine purposes. Luke’s Gospel begins by addressing Theophilus. The opening prologue assures him that the Gospel account provides security or certainty that God is faithfully carrying out God’s purposes in the midst of the destructive power structures of the Roman empire.

Mary responds with praise (1:46-56). The hymn stops the story’s forward movement to reflect on what has happened. Verses 47-50 celebrate God’s favor or mercy to Mary, even though the divine word has landed her in a difficult societal location.

Verses 51-55 broaden the focus to God’s actions among people. God is constructed as delivering the powerless from the exploitative powerful, and providing for the hungry and needy.

These actions express God’s faithfulness to the word spoken to Abraham to “bless all the nations of the earth” (1:55; Gen 12:3).If we are to “keep Christmas with you all through the year” as a song puts it, we are to live out this commitment to good life for all. We do so—according to these opening chapters of Luke’s Gospel—with the assurance that God is working for these ends and that we are to live as partners with God in this task.

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