Special Edition! Christmas Eve

Luke 2:1-20

            In addition to the forthcoming post on this Sunday’s Lectionary texts, I decided to do an extra posting on the Christmas Eve Gospel text, Luke’s story of the birth of Jesus. 
I am struck by how very politically subversive this text is.  Luke writes this in the style of a Roman historical narrative, setting everything in the context of what was happening in the Empire.  And yet his message is that, through events centering on this seemingly insignificant family in a backwater of said Empire, God is working on a scale much grander even than the Roman Empire.  Notice how he sets it up: verses 1-3 establish that no less a personage than the Emperor himself had decided there should be a census of his Empire – or as he regards it, “all the world.”  (Emperor Augustus clearly thinks himself pretty important.)  Verses 4-5 then tell us that, as a result of that decree from the Emperor way off in Rome, Joseph down in Nazareth has to haul ass (donkey) with his pregnant wife Mary all the way to Bethlehem.  Subversive Point #1: the Emperor has unknowingly sent the holy family to the city of David, just where the new king ought to be born.  While in Bethlehem for the census, Mary goes into labor.  And Luke tells us that “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 for them in the inn.”  I thought the detail of the “bands of cloth” (more familiarly the “swaddling clothes”) was interesting – why this detail?  I couldn’t find a satisfying scholarly answer, but Luke’s point seems pretty clear: these are not the kind of people who can either hire out their parenting duties or buy their way into a room at the inn, so it’s bands of cloth and a manger for them.  This provides the perfect segue to verses 8ff., where Luke introduces us to the shepherds “living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night.”  Subversive Point #2: turns out, these are the people to whom God’s angel announces the birth of the Messiah – not Emperor Augustus, or Quirinius, or frankly just about anybody else.  A couple of nice details in the next few verses:  1.) “Heavenly host” can also be translated “heavenly army” (as compared to the Empire’s legions); and 2.) The title “Savior” is apparently rarely used in the Gospels but was common for the Emperor!  (Subversive Points #3 and #4, anyone?)  And honestly, it never occurred to me what an unlikely “sign” of God’s activity “a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger” really is.  The story finishes, verses 15-20, with the shepherds fulfilling their role as proto-apostles –  "going with haste,” “making known what had been told them,” “glorifying and praising God.”  Luke’s point throughout: through people like this poor family from Nazareth and these shepherds living in the fields, God is changing the world.  Makes a census look pretty small-time, doesn’t it?