For a child is born to us, a son is given us; upon his shoulder dominion rests. They name him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9: 5)
The Lord of History
"Bethlehem is a sad town", the Catholic mayor, Hanna Nasser, said a little while ago. Things have not substantially improved since then. The city of Jesus' birth has long been, and still is, powerless, entangled in the bloody conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
He whose birth we are celebrating at Christmas was also powerless. It was someone else who had the power: the Emperor Augustus, the ruler of the greatest empire in the world at that time. The Roman Empire, like all the empires of this world, needed a great deal of money, above all for its powerful military machine. For those purposes it required gigantic resources in terms of taxes, and the emperor had to know where he could get those taxes. That is why he had tax rolls drawn up throughout the whole empire, even in Israel, which was under Roman rule.
Many of the Jewish people refused to pay taxes to the emperor. They joined various liberation movements, which carried on either passive or active resistance to the authorities of occupation - and, indeed, which were not afraid of engaging in terrorist activity. These enthusiasts, who were called "zealots", repeatedly attempted to shake off the yoke of the occupying power. The Romans took cruel revenge, and many of the zealots ended up on the cross.
Joseph was not one of them; he obeyed the emperor's orders and, without much comment, did what had to be done. Even though his wife was in the later stages of pregnancy, he undertook, along with her, the wearisome journey - on foot or on a donkey - to Bethlehem, the city from which King David came, "because he was of the house and lineage of David".
Joseph, a poor man though from a royal family, had to submit to the emperor's rule. Yet the emperor, for his part, was subject to God's rule. Only God is almighty, and the emperor has only a delegated power. His life, like any man's, is in God's hand.
Thus it is God himself who arranged that Joseph had to travel to Bethlehem, the city of David, on account of the emperor's command. According to God's plan, the child that Mary was expecting had to be born in that city, from which the prophets said that one day the Messiah would come.
The powerful emperor was acting so as to serve God's plans - that is what Luke the Evangelist is telling us, and he was particularly sensitive to the arrangements God made. But what a contrast! The two travelers cannot find anyone to take them in; there is no room for the young woman in advanced pregnancy. In his hometown of Bethlehem, Joseph cannot find a roof over his head, although he is an offspring of David.
A manger and swaddling cloths are shelter for the child who is born. Extreme poverty and powerlessness: thus he came into this world, he who is the real Lord of the world and of history.
Why did God choose this way - why not a way of coming that everyone could see, one that everyone would hear about? I think there were two reasons, above all: First, to speak to our hearts. A little child moves almost any human being. God does not want to dominate us; he wants the love of our hearts. That is why he stretches out to us the arms of a child. Second, however, he does not want us to encounter one another threateningly, striking attitudes of power, but serving one another. If God makes himself so small in Christ, then we should not be making ourselves out to be great.
Bethlehem is everywhere. Sorrow, violence, and injustice are dominant throughout the world. Where is there hope? Is there "a great joy"? Are angels proclaiming peace upon earth? Anyone who bends down to the child in the crib will find peace and joy.
Reprinted from:
Jesus, The Divine Physician
Encountering Christ in the Gospel of Luke
By Christoph Cardinal Schönborn,
Archbishop of Vienna, Austria
Ignatius Press, 2008
www.ignatius.com