The Messiah Luke Celebrates

The Messiah Luke Celebrates

The Messiah Luke Celebrates: The Good News Who Shows Us the Way to True Peace
(Luke 2.8-14)
A meditation by Dave Shull
Spirit of Peace United Church of Christ
Sammamish, Washington
The Second Sunday of Advent – December 4, 2011

I’m spending these first two weeks of Advent looking at how the gospels of Matthew and Luke talk about the birth of Jesus. I’m drawing on the work of two Jesus scholars (Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, The First Christmas, HarperOne, 2007) who say that the way Matthew and Luke tell the story of Jesus’ parents and Jesus’ birth shows us who they believed Jesus was.

Last week, we looked at the gospel of Matthew. We saw that the Messiah Matthew celebrates is the new Moses, coming to give the people a new law. We also saw that Matthew believed Jesus was Emmanuel – the Hebrew word that means God-with-us.

Today we look at how Luke tells the story of Jesus’ birth. And what that shows us about who Jesus Christ is for Luke.

Every time I hear the story of the angels coming to the shepherds to announce Jesus’ birth, I think of “A Charlie Brown Christmas”. And the amazing way Linus tells this story. It’s so simple. And innocent. Like it seems it’s supposed to sound.

But in first-century Palestine, in the Roman Empire, the story Luke tells is anything but simple and innocent. Luke’s story is political dynamite. Because the titles Luke gives to this baby are titles that can only be used for the Roman Emperor. The Empire could charge anyone who tells this story with treason. “A Charlie Brown Christmas” would have a little different feel to it if, as soon as Linus finishes telling the story of Jesus’ birth, some toga-clad security forces had burst into the school and hauled him off.

Listen for a word from God.

There were sheepherders camping in the neighborhood.
They had set night watches over their sheep. Suddenly, God's angel stood among them and God's glory blazed around them. They were terrified.
The angel said, "Don't be afraid. I'm here to announce a great and joyful event that is meant for everybody, worldwide: A Savior has just been born in David's town, a Savior who is Messiah and Master. This is what you're to look for: a baby wrapped in a blanket and lying in a manger."
At once the angel was joined by a huge angelic choir singing God's praises:
“Glory to God in the heavenly heights,
Peace to all men and women on earth who please him.”
(Luke 2.8-14, The Message Re-Mix © 2003 Eugene Peterson)

Luke couldn’t have chosen to write a story that was more in your face toward the Roman Empire. The Roman Emperor was the only one in the Empire who could be called Lord, Son of God, Bringer of Peace, and Savior of the World. But these are the same titles Luke uses in the story he writes about Jesus’ birth. And the same titles he uses in his gospel (Borg and Crossan, p. 57). So it’s clear Luke is telling the Emperor he’s got competition.

And it’s clear Luke is confronting those who are listening to his story with a stark choice. Which Lord, which Son of God, which Bringer of Peace, which Savior of the World are you going to follow? The throne isn’t big enough to hold both the Emperor and Jesus. So, Luke asks, for you, which is it going to be?

The stark contrast between the ways of the Empire and the ways of Jesus emerge most clearly when we look at one of the words in Luke’s story: peace. Of all the words in the story Michele just read, this might be the hardest for Jesus’ followers. I think this Advent it’s the hardest for me.

Empires and Jesus have very different ideas of how to bring peace. Empires and Jesus might both want peace. But how they get there is totally different. And that difference makes all the difference. Because we’re talking about ends and means. And what means we use to bring about an end we desire.

Like all empires, the Roman Empire had a clear sense of what peace was and how to bring it about. Peace came through the smart use of religion, war, and victory. When you can make religion, war, and victory work in your favor, you get peace (Borg and Crossan, p. 65).

It worked something like this: You ask the gods to bless you and your war effort, so you can try to convince yourselves and everyone else the gods are on your side. When you win, you get to define the terms for peace. You thank the gods again. Then when you decide you need to fight another war, the process starts all over again. For the Empire, “it was always about peace through victory, peace through war, peace through violence” (Borg and Crossan, p. 65). Nice and simple.

Then Jesus came along. A different kind of Bringer of Peace. He said the only way to create true peace is by doing what is just. He said the only way to true peace is through nonviolence (Borg and Crossan, p. 69). Peace through loving your enemy. Peace through doing to others what you would wish they did to you. Peace through forgiveness and mercy and making sure everyone has enough. That is how Jesus acts in Luke’s gospel. That is the Jesus the angel proclaims.

So the people who heard Luke’s angel proclaim this news of Jesus’ birth had to make a decision: which Savior will I follow? Whose vision of peace do I want to live for? And give my life for? For the people who heard Luke’s Christmas story at the end of the first century, it was a life and death decision. If they decided to follow the Savior Jesus, the Empire might kill them.

This Advent, we hear the angel’s words. And they call us to answer the same question. Which Savior will we follow? For we live in the 21^st-cenutry American Empire. In an Empire at war in Afghanistan. An Empire that’s fighting an open-ended, anything goes war on whatever the Empire defines as “terror”. So I hear the angel’s words. And I don’t know which Bringer of Peace I trust. I want to live the life Jesus lived … even if it takes me to dangerous places. I want to trust God like the Mahatma Gandhis and Martin Luther Kings I respect so much trusted God. People like this lived nonviolence. Not the nonviolence that gets equated with just letting your enemy do whatever they want to you. But the disciplined, practiced nonviolence that develops imaginative, shrewd ways to surprise our enemy with our creative resistance and our unyielding love. A big part of me knows violence can never bring true, lasting peace. Even if it seems to bring peace for a while.

And then I look at the world. And I know I could never tell someone they shouldn’t do whatever they feel like they need to to protect those they love. I look at people who seem to love to terrify others. Those who seem to have no conscience. And I wonder if nonviolence can ever help heal these people who, no matter what they do, are my sisters and brothers because they are children of God.

When it comes down to it, where to I put my trust? In this Risen, Living Jesus who says nonviolence is the only sure way to peace? Or do I trust the Empire … the Empire that has the guns and the drones and the money and the other trappings of power that our world recognizes and respects?

Where do I put my trust this Advent? Which Savior, which Bringer of Peace do you trust? What tensions, if any, do you feel around that?

I don’t think I’ll ever hear Linus read Luke’s words in the same way again.