It seems like a third of the world puts Christmas away the evening of December 25. After all, they have already put up with Christmas for a month or two. Celebrate the holiday before it gets here so we can get it out of the way.
Another third hangs on, but only through January 1. If you put two holidays a week apart you might as well go the distance.
The world not withstanding, Christmas arrives on December 25th and sticks around through January 6th. In fact, it seems that when the early church first celebrated Christ’s birth, it was the January date that got celebrated. This was the date that was attached to the arrival of the magi. Their coming seemed best to announce the Son of God to the world far beyond the community of the clans of the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Celebrating the birth of Jesus came as an afterthought, and Christmas Day was added.
So we are between these two significant events, but we aren’t quite sure how to deal with the twelve days in between, other than counting partridges in a pear trees. That’s a difficult bind in the years of Matthew’s Gospel. Luke gives us the pre-birth announcements to Mary and the back story of John the Baptist. Matthew gives us the announcement to Joseph. Luke tells us about the birth and the announcement to the shepherds. Luke also gives us the eighth day visit to the Temple for Jesus’ naming and circumcision. Matthew tells us about the astral discovery of the birth by the magi and their travel to find Jesus at some point in time after his birth, certainly not arriving at the same time as the shepherds. Then Matthew hits his readers with the unthinkable activity of the despotic king Herod, which forced the holy family into exile in Egypt and resulted in the killing of an unknown number of boy babies.
It is hard to fathom the human destruction that Herod caused, especially when we still have the angelic “Glorias” ringing in our ears and our eyes are just beginning to settle down in the aftermath of the Christmas Eve galactic glow.
When we blend the Matthean and Lukan stories together – a dangerous exegetical gambit – we realize that the holy night was not particularly silent. The birth of Jesus is played out on a political backdrop that is not silent, hardly holy, and seeming all too contemporary.
The Roman government was forcing people to go back to their patriarchal home towns and be enrolled. The enrollment may have been for taxing purposes, but the data would be helpful in keeping surveillance on and policing troublesome citizens who might undermine the imperial authority of conqueror Rome. George Orwell’s “Big Brother” watching is not a phenomenon of our time.
Another layer of reality at the time of Jesus’ birth was the duplicitous machinations of Herod, the puppet local king who wasn’t even really Jewish. He played the imperial system, cozying up to the Roman leaders on the one hand and playing his own dangerous game of cruel governing on the other. Either way Herod was always looking out for himself.
That’s the world Jesus was born into. There was nothing idyllic about it. Take away our technology and our world looks a lot like Jesus’ world.
That’s why the words from Isaiah are important in the midst of a joyous celebration happening in the near frantic, pained world of 2017. A cynical editorial cartoon this week has the traditional grim reaper taking the old 2016 away as baby 2017 comes in. 2016 says to 2017, he [the reaper] “has been in charge all year.”
Yet we, as Christians, know better. Yes, the world is filled with violence, arrogance, hate, and a lot more things we say are evil and despicable. We can’t say that we are innocent. We benefit from the mis-weighted values that operate in the world and unhealthily direct its goings and comings.
Isaiah knew that was the case in his own time. He preached to exiles laboring as indentured slaves under a foreign regime. And he preached to newly released captives whose heads were filled with visions the wonderful good old days. Except when they got back to Judea, it was anything but the halcyon heaven they dreamed of.
Today’s Isaiah passage begins with observations that declare that God has been behind the terror that was used to bring the recalcitrant people to repentance. The people had failed join God in the work of righteousness. And God had punished the very nations that both had led Israel astray and had been used by God as means to bend the people’s will to reverence and obedience.
On a momentary positive note, Isaiah speaks of a God who has delivered and will again deliver God’s people from exile. With the reminder about what God did to bring an end to the Egyptian enslavement, Isaiah places front and center the truth that God desires freedom for all people. God stands with humankind to work for our liberation.
The hallmark characteristics of God’s relationship with us are love and mercy. Isaiah points out in bold print the reality that God's people were living in physically limiting conditions which contributed to their spiritual diminishment, and it was from all of these conditions that God released them. And it is from physically and spiritually limiting conditions that Jesus became flesh and took up residence in the midst of human community.
As the Hebrews in Egypt needed release from slave-bondage, as the Israelites in Babylon needed release from their captivity, as the people of Jesus’ time needed release from aggressor occupation, so today’s human beings of every race, tribe, and clan need release by the power of God’s forgiving and empowering grace from the stranglehold of sin. That sin takes many forms: personal bullying and violence, crushing addictions, personality spectrums ranging from narcissistic egoism to poor self-esteem, and lust for power, to name a few.
Isaiah casts many visions of what God will do. There is the prophetic word about a virgin conceiving (7:14) and the promise of a shoot growing from Jesse’s stump (11:1). There is the proclamation that a great light has shone on people walking in darkness (9:2). There is the declaration to Jerusalem that her compulsory service has ended, that her penalty has been paid, and that the Lord’s glory shall appear (40:1-5). Isaiah’s four servant songs in chapters 42, 49, 50, and 52-53 explain the activity which God will undertake to accomplish the reign of justice, righteousness, and shalom.
Then there is verse 64:1 in our English translations: “If only you would tear open the heavens and come down!” That is exactly what we celebrate with Christmas. This heaven rending was a vital part the gospel writer Mark’s theology about Jesus’ baptism: Jesus saw the heavens split open, the Spirit descended like a dove and a voice declared that Jesus is the dearly loved Son (Mark 1:9-11). The imagery is again highlighted at his crucifixion: When Jesus died the curtain of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom, indicating God’s activity in removing what separated the human from the divine (Mark 14:38). For us, this means that we don’t have a God in absentia. We have a God who rubs shoulders with the least, the last, and the lost.
The Hebrews author notes that Jesus is not ashamed to call the people being made holy brothers and sisters (2:11). The author says,
“Since the children share in flesh and blood, he also shared the same things in the same way....He had to be made like his brothers and sisters in every way. This was so that he could become a merciful and faithful high priest in things relating to God, in order to wipe away the sins of the people.” (2:14, 17).In casting the role of high priest on Jesus, the Hebrews writer notes later that we
“have a high priest who passed through the heavens....We don’t have a high priest who can’t sympathize with our weaknesses but instead [we have] one who was tempted in every way that we are, except without sin” (4:14-15).Isaiah does not give his hearers a candy-coated picture which says that all is right with the world. He acknowledges that the world is far from right. Yet in the midst of all that seeks to smother peace, hope, love, joy, and grace, an unquenchable ember of holy radiant light shines. Isaiah sings:
I will recount the Lord’s faithful acts; I will sing the Lord’s praises, because of all the Lord did for us, for God’s great favor toward the house of Israel. God treated them compassionately and with deep affection. (63:7)Human fickleness is outmatched by God’s faithfulness. That’s a promise that remains unshaken for today and for 2017. The Light of the world will shine. The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it.
Thanks be to God.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2017 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
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