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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