Two millennia later, the Christmas story of a vulnerable family still resonates

This Christmas night, Luke’s Gospel presents the image of an anointed and holy child between two world-spanning powers: The Roman Empire and the heavenly host.

The Gospel reading begins with Caesar Augustus and ends with a heavenly army gathered across the angel of the Lord. Each powers claim supernatural authority and each promise peace on earth. Between them is a homeless family in desperate need of shelter, “because there was no room for them within the inn” (Lk 2:7).

Caesar Augustus (r. 27 BCE – 14 CE), one of the crucial illustrious leaders in western history, presided over an era of ostensible peace. His authority was total; the known world responded to each certainly one of his decrees (see Lk 2:1). He held together the Roman Empire through military might, taxation, a pantheistic religion that focused local devotions on Rome, and a rule of law that threatened crucifixion to any rebel. The ability of contemporary democratic leaders pales as compared to Caesar’s. Later Roman emperors even used titles just like those Isaiah gives the Messiah: Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Perpetually, Prince of Peace (Is 9:6).

One reason that the Christmas message continues to resonate after two millennia is that a vulnerable family guides the world to choose from good and evil.

In contrast to Rome, Luke introduces the “heavenly host,” a divine army that, to the peasant shepherds, manifests the “glory of the Lord.” This divine force is sort of all-powerful but its awesome display reveals that it shouldn’t be of this world. Furthermore, the main target of the heavenly army is the homeless child, “wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger” (Lk 2:7). The true Prince of Peace and God-Hero began his path through our world among the many homeless and within the broken a part of the human family, yet his destiny is to rule over the powers of heaven and earth, between which he’ll function a bridge. 

In our first reading, Isaiah prophesies that a pacesetter of such extravagant power will arrive on the scene. He’ll smash the yoke of misery and can restore a broken human society (Is 9:3). A Messiah might be with us and may have Caesar-like power to drive the gloom away. But God’s hero involves us, in line with Luke, as a vulnerable child and not using a place for the night. The concrete reality of the kid’s poverty is the place to begin of salvation history for individuals who consider.   

One reason that the Christmas message continues to resonate after two millennia is that a vulnerable family guides the world to choose from good and evil. The armies of heaven don’t use their powers to force goodness, and the facility of “Caesar” and the state cannot reach the deepest self. “Jesus Christ,” writes Titus within the second reading, “gave himself… to cleanse for himself a people as his own, wanting to do what is sweet” (Ti 2:11-14). It’s inside the story of a homeless infant that one can discern the trail to goodness and find enthusiasm for it. The kid is poor, yet he can also be the one about whom we are able to sing with an undivided heart, “Glory to God in the very best and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests” (Lk 2:14).