God's Anointed is Born (Luke 2:1-21).

Backstory: God had promised Abraham multiple descendants and a homeland to bless the world (Genesis 12:1-3, 15, 17). His descendants ended up enslaved in Egypt, but God rescued them through Moses. They took full possession of their land under Israel’s king, David. They were to be God’s ‘holy nation’ (Exodus 19:4-6) and yet, instead of being a ‘light to the nations’ they became idolatrous like the other nations. The nation was divided, the North was scattered and the Southern kingdom were taken into Babylonian captivity for 70 years. Because God was determined to bless the world through Abraham and make a ‘Son of David’ king over God’s people forever (2 Samuel 7:12-14) they returned to their land under the Persians. However, they remained dominated in their own land and at the time of the Roman Empire they were longing for God to send a ‘conquering king’ to liberate them (Isaiah 42:1-9, 61:1-3)! 

What does this story tell us about Caesar Augustus? ¹ We are told that Caesar Augustus, the Roman Emperor, issued a census be taken of the entire Roman Empire. Caesar Augustus simply issued a decree and everyone’s life was radically disrupted. Everyone had to return to their ancestral homelands in order to be registered in order to build Caesar’s empire by taxing the common folk under Caesar’s reign.

What so we learn about Joseph and Mary and Mary’s son? ⁴ Joseph's life was altered by the census so that he had to travel from Nazareth in Galilee to the Judean town of Bethlehem. Joseph went to Bethlehem, because he was from the line and town of Israel’s King David. Joseph took Mary to whom he was pledged to marry and who was expecting a child. The visitation of an angel had convinced Joseph to marry her since the child was from the Holy Spirit (Mt.1:20). So Joseph took Mary to Bethlehem to be registered and ⁶ while they were in Bethlehem of Judea, Mary gave birth to her firstborn, a son (Luke 8:19-20, Acts 1:14). Mary, a common peasant woman, wrapped this 'royal baby of supernatural origin' in cloth and laid him in an ‘animal feeding trough’ because there was no special guest room available for him.

⁸Now there were shepherds nearby Bethlehem who were watching over their flocks at night when an angel appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them. The angel reassured the terrified shepherds that he was bringing good news of great joy for all people. The ‘good news’ was that in the town of David a Savior, Christ the Lord, had been born. This child was God's promised anointed king; the Son of David’. This newborn child was in fact the ‘Savior and the Lord' and the arrival of Israel’s Messianic King was ‘good news for all people (2 Sam.7:12-14).  

¹² The angel said that the sign for shepherds was that they would find a baby wrapped in cloth and lying in a manger. Then a great company of angelic being appeared saying, ¹⁴ “Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth on those on whom his favor rests.” ¹⁵ Then when the angels left, the shepherds went off to Bethlehem to see what the Lord had told them about. There they found Mary and Joseph, and the baby wrapped in cloth and lying in a manger. ¹⁷ This was the sign told them by the angel and therefore the shepherds spread the news they had been told about the child. Now everyone who heard this was amazed, ¹⁹ and Mary treasured this in her heart. Then the shepherds returned to their fields, glorifying and praising God!

The story contrasts God’s Messiah, God’s savior and Lord, with the Roman emperor, Augustus Caesar, at the height of his power. Augustus, the adopted son of Julius Caesar, was the first and greatest Roman ruler who took control after a great and bloody civil war. After Augustus conquered his rivals he claimed to have brought justice and peace to the world. Augustus declared his dead adoptive father to be divine making Augustus the ‘son of god’. In the Roman Empire story it is Augustus who is considered the ‘lord of the world’.  

Now, by contrast, this story tells us of a baby born to a ‘lowly couple’ in an insignificant Israelite town. However, according to scripture, this child was the promised ‘Son of God’. While Augustus was building his empire at the expense of the ‘common people’ and yet God used these circumstances to reveal the world’s true ‘Savior’ and ‘Lord’. It is this child that brings true justice and lasting peace into the world. Augustus issues a decree and the empire is rearranged so that Jesus ends up being born in the ancestral town of Israel king David. This child is the beginning of a confrontation between God’s kingdom and the kingdoms of this world. The story challenges us to align ourselves with one of two different ways of being king and two alternative kingdoms. The story presents this ‘vulnerable child wrapped in cloth and laying in a manger’ as ‘God’ King’ whose kingdom is in direct opposition with the kingdoms of this world.