Christmas Eve
And so it begins. The story of an unlikely Kingship, beginning in an unlikely place: Bethlehem, a little backwater of a town. And as the author of Luke would like us to believe, it appears that the powers of the world are at their peak. What’s the very first sentence, after all? “In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered.” We don’t know why he suddenly decided this. But he did. And because he was the emperor, he could. He was, after all, God incarnate in the eyes of the nation that he ruled. And what’s the first thing that the Emperor Augustus does? He decrees that there should be a census and forces Mary and Joseph to journey to Bethlehem. He forces them to depart from their home to journey, most likely on foot, all while Mary is quite pregnant. But again, because the Emperor is the Emperor, he can do whatever he wants.
This is the power of empire. The power to command anything and the power to back it up. This is the power of empire, to force any decision upon the ruled through the use of violence or at the very least, the threat of violence. The powers of empire are still alive and well in the world today. There are those who are weak, and there are those who are powerful. There are those who are willing to use any tool at their disposal to exert their power, and there are those who become the victims of that power.
The words of the angel to the shepherds show us what a radical departure the Kingship of Jesus is from the way of the world. “Do not be afraid; for see – I am brining you good news of great joy for all people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” While the title “Messiah” was strictly Jewish in origin it was overtly political in nature, because it was believed during this time that the Messiah would overthrow Roman rule. And the titles “Savior” and “Lord” were titles that belonged to Caesar. To ascribe those titles to someone other than Caesar was an offense punishable by death. Which seems to have been pretty much the standard punishment for nearly everything in the Roman Empire. In other words, even in his birth Jesus is already challenging the powers of the world.
And how does this new kind of King exercise his power. Certainly not by force. Remember, it’s empire-fueled power that allows Caesar Augustus to force everyone to return to their home towns. “…[The] shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.’ So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger.” The nature of Jesus’ power is not to drive people away, but to draw people together.
As I said, the Kingship of the man whose birth we celebrate this evening was not your typical Kingship. The creation of community around Kingdom of God moments is what the gospel of Luke is all about. It used to be thought that the writer of Luke must have been a physician, because he placed so much emphasis on the healing stories of Jesus. What the healing stories are really about is restoration. And I’m not just talking about someone’s health being restored. In Jesus’ day, being healed of illness meant being restored to one’s community and to the Temple. It meant being permitted once again to enter into the presence of God. The power of Jesus is not the power of empire, violence, death, and control. The power of Jesus is the power of life and restoration; a power that directly opposes and subverts the power of empire.
107 years ago, on June 29, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg were assassinated, plunging the world into the War to End All Wars, World War I. On December 24, 1914, 107 years ago, on this very day, something amazing happened. In many places along the Western Front, hostilities ceased. It was not universal. There were still areas where fighting continued, but those instances of continued fighting were seldom. And in some instances, the Christmas truce was nothing more than a respectful lull in the incessant shelling, so that soldiers could remove their dead or wounded comrades from the battlefield.
But in many, many places it was much more than that. The troops on both sides, weary of months of trench warfare, cautiously crept over the parapets and out into the middle of no-man’s land. They exchanged cigarettes and cigars, cookies and chocolate, souvenirs. And famously, there were even some soccer matches that took place. They talked with each other, they sang Christmas carols. And then, at the end of the day, they went back to their trenches. For those men, it was a true Kingdom of heaven moment; a moment when God broke through into the world. The hatred and degradation of war, the power of violence was, at least for a few hours, subverted by the power of the Kingdom of Heaven.
You would think that the story ends there, but it doesn’t. Because something interesting happened as a result of what came to be known as “The Christmas Truce”. Again, this wasn’t everywhere, but in those places where the contact between opposing troops was prolonged and more intense something happened. Their commanding officers became frustrated, because the soldiers weren’t as eager to fight and kill one another.
A German soldier wrote:
“The English started a Christmas song…, and we sang "Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht". This was something moving: between the trenches the most hateful and fierce enemies stand around a Christmas tree and sang Christmas carols. I never will forget this sight for the rest of my life. One can see that humans survive, even when we don't know anything other any more in these times but killing and murder......I will never forget Christmas 1914.”
“To this day, some comrades still cherish the pictures of English front soldiers with Christmas wishes, written in no-man’s land, as a precious memory. Max Herold from the
8th Kompanie still has 3 of them, one of them states: ‘Wishing you a very happy Christmas and to a speedy ending to the war. L.A. Praer, 15. Devonshire.'”
Company-Sergeant Major Frank Naden of the 6th Cheshire Territorials: "Next day we got an order that all communication and friendly intercourse with the enemy must cease but we did not fire at all that day, and the Germans did not fire at us." (Evening Mail (Newcastle) January 31, 1914) Suddenly, the promise of peace on earth seemed a little less far-fetched.
The Manchester Guardian's Paris Correspondent wrote on January 6, 1915: "The sequel was more interesting than the event itself. The French and German soldiers who had thus fraternised subsequently refused to fire on one another and had to be removed from the trenches and replaced by other men."
They had to replace the men at the front, so that they could continue the war. The powers of the empire were effectively hindered by the power of community in Christ.
Now if Christ has the power to slow the wheels of war, what does Christ have the power to do in our lives? It seems with each passing day, we hear another story about all the things that divide us. And the fact of the matter is that we permit it to happen to us. The message of politics today is that it’s us against them and if the enemy has his or her way, they’ll ruin America. Most media outlets have become echo chambers for very specific points of view. You don’t need canon and trenches to separate people from one another, to destroy the bonds between us.
As we become more fragmented, we need the power of community in Christ all the more.
Because if we’re not careful, we each find ourselves in our own private no-man’s or no-woman’s land. We drive to work. We sit in our cubicle. We do our work in our cubicle. We eat our lunch in our cubicle. We drive home. And we retreat to the family room and sink into a TV-induced coma. Or we seal ourselves off in Facebook and think that it’s being social.
Or it could well be that our homes have come to feel like hermetically sealed chambers from which there’s no escape, because we don’t even go to an office anymore. Office, home, leisure-time: It all happens in the same place, now, for many of us. It’s like living in a human Habitrail.
One evening one of our daughters had a friend over and we invited him to stay for dinner.
When everyone was still living at home, dinnertime in our household was lively. There was a lot of discussion around the table, a lot of sarcasm, a lot of teasing, and a lot of laughing.
The dinner itself that evening was nothing special. Believe me. It was a cheap, Weis Markets, store-brand brand frozen pizza. And not knowing any better because we’d never had the “pleasure” before, we did nothing to doctor it up. To be quite honest, it was one of the worst pizza’s I’ve ever consumed. And while I was finishing up my last piece of cardboard with tomato sauce and cheese, this friend said, “This is one of the best meals I’ve ever had.” It was later that our daughter told us that common mealtimes were pretty rare in this young man’s family; That whenever someone got hungry, they would grab something from the fridge or the cupboard and throw it in the microwave.
The power of community in Christ is such that not only can it slow the wheels of war, but it can transform a terrible pizza into the best meal ever. It turns water into wine. It makes people whole again. It has the power to change people’s lives and in so doing, to change the world.
As we gather together this Christmas eve, we gather around the mystery of Christ. The mystery of God made flesh. They mystery of God choosing to take on human form, to live in our midst, to be the embodiment of divine love among us. We gather around the mystery of a God who chose not to abandon human kind for something better or easier. God chose to enter into this complicated, fragmented, difficult world in order to heal the brokenness that permeates it. God chose to enter into this world, so that all humanity might be drawn together by the mystery of Christ. Born in a manger, crucified, and raised to new life; That all might have life, and have it abundantly. AMEN