Luke 2:1-7
In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 All went to their own towns to be registered. 4 Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. 5 He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no place in the guest room.
In those days…
In those days the people of Judea lived under Roman occupation. Mary and Joseph, the shepherds all the people in our Christmas story lived in a region that was oppressed by their governing bodies, constricting their ability to live how they wanted to. It was a system of control through rulers who did not really care about their welfare.
In those days they had a king named Herod who was ruthless in his ambition to have more, to be all-powerful, and he would achieve it by any means, even if he had to massacre innocents and send wisemen after a baby. In those days they had a governor named Quirinius who was an extremely wealthy person, yet who in his leadership reorganized taxes so that the empire could take more from a people who were already heavily taxed. In those days they had an emperor named Caesar Augustus who deified himself, made himself God, to which all those in his empire were made to worship.
In those days the people of Judea struggled just to live. Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, all the people in our Christmas story lived surrounded by a culture who saw them as worthless, class divisions that put them at the bottom, economic struggles that created anxiety and fear.
In those days they lived amongst a dominant Greco-Roman culture that tried to enforce its own language, customs and religious practices on them, telling them how they must speak, what they must do, and how they must believe. In those days they had a hierarchal class system, where priestly and ruling classes were at the top, landowners and traders in the middle and everyone else a working-class people at the bottom. In those days, those working-class shepherds and carpenters mostly lived in poverty, struggling to make ends meet, being exploited for every last coin as they were told to pack up, travel across the region to their hometowns for a census that was finding ways to collect even more in taxes from them.
In those days the people of Judea were exhausted, fearful, and waiting, waiting for when it would all change, waiting for liberation and restoration, waiting for times to just get a little easier.
It is in those days that God showed up.
In all of that hardship God was there, showing up in a manger, in a barn, in poverty, in the vulnerability of an unexpected pregnancy and birth, in the voices of angels and the hopes of wandering shepherds, God was there.
In these days, thousands of years later, we too have our own challenges. In these days we have challenges with our governing systems, in these days we have challenges to find harmony in our societies, in these days we have challenges to make ends meet.
But in these days God also shows up.
In all of our hardship, God is here, showing up in our candle light, in our community gathered tonight, in our pain, our fear, our vulnerability, in the voices of those who gather around our Christmas tables and in the hopes of tomorrow that gleam in the eyes of our young ones, God is here.
There is something at work in our world, a source of life, a vibrant energy, a light of the world, a God, whatever you may call it, it is present always in our lives, calling us to connect with it, inviting us to share it with love to those around us. And that ever-present thing, being, God, is the miracle of Christmas, why we rejoice every year on December 25, that whether it was in those days or in these days or in the days to come, no matter the circumstances, God always shows up, waiting for us to welcome the sacred love of the universe into our hearts, into our community, and into our world. So wherever you find yourself this Christmas, may there be some room inside you to welcome that loving spirit anew.
Thanks be to God who blesses us eternally with the miracle of Christmas. Hallelujah! Amen.
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