Christmas Eve

ISAIAH 9:2-7: In the verses that precede this pronouncement by the prophet, the people are walking in darkness indeed. Isaiah complained that the people of Israel were resorting to mediums and magic instead of seeking out and listening to the Lord their God. People were saying to each other, "Consult the ghosts and familiar spirits that chirp and mutter" (8:19). "People who act like this will pass through the land greatly distrssed and hungry. . . . They will turn their faces upward or look to the earth and see only distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish; and they will be thrust into thick darkness."

Then comes the prophet's pronouncement: "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who live in a land of deep darkness - on them the light has shined." The picture Isaiah brings is that of Yahweh bringing peace after war: "You have broken the rod of the oppressor, O Lord, as you did in the days of Midian. The brutal boots of battle and the bloody garments shall be burned as fuel for the fire." The reason for this? "A child has been born to us and a son given to us." Some commentators see two events in this one sentence, the birth of the infant and the maturation of the son. Whether this is true or not, the son is given marvelous names. He will be a "Wonderful Counselor," matching moral force with wisdom; a "Mighty God," a leader in battle whose strength is surpassed only by his fortitude; an "Everlasting Father," who is protective of the people; a "Prince of Peace," whose aim is to have Israel live by the shalom of God. Justice and righteousness will be the foundation stones of Israel from this time forward. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will guarantee this forever.

This prophecy may have been the birth-announcement of a new king in David's line who would bring justice and peace to the land. If that is what it was, it was a vain announcement. Israel was never again to have a king of the stature of David. Some, like Uzziah and Hezekiah, came close. Others, Ahab and Manasseh among them, brought disgrace to the nation. But Christians, eight centuries later, took this prophecy as their own. They thought of Isaiah as forecasting the birth of Jesus the messiah. He has come to bring justice and righteousness, moral force and wisdom to us. The peace of Jesus Christ is the only real peace that the world can know. In the birth of the Messiah, say the Christians, the hopes and fears of all the years are meshed in him today.

PSALM 96: "Sing, sing, sing, bless, tell, declare": these are the words that introduce this hymn. Sing him a new song, bless his name, declare his glories among the nations and his marvelous works among all the people. Something new and great is about to happen in Israel, and Israel needs to break into song to celebrate it.

Frank H. Ballard (IB4:517-518) describes the psalm in this manner: "The psalm falls into four almost equal parts. Vss 1-3 assert that Yahweh is to be praised at all times and in all the world. Vss. 4-6 affirm that he alone is worthy of praise and that the idols of the surrounding nations are nothing. Vss. 7-9 call upon the heathen to accept these facts and to come to the temple and take their share in its privileges. In the concluding vss., 10-13, the psalmist calls not only upon the sons of humankind but upon all nature, heaven and earth, sea, plain, and forest, to acknowledge the rule of God and to unite in the universal and joyous act of praise."

What is the occasion for the celebration? It is an announcement to all the world that God now reigns. This God is the God of justice, righteousness, and truth. This word "truth," not much used in the Old Testament, combines the ideas of reality and reliability. We can rely on God, who does not change. God demands the same reliability from us. When this occurs, "heaven and nature sings," all the families of the earth give God the glory due him, and all nature - sea, field, trees, and forest, the heavens themselves - joins them to sing for joy before the Lord. 12-24-99

TITUS 2:11-14: This small and not well known section of Paul's Letter to Titus is a sparkling gem that summarizes much of what we think and feel during the Advent season. It speaks of the grace of God being revealed to us. It also talks of our personal training to produce lives fit for God. In doing so, it uses some of the greatest words of both Christian and Greek life: grace and salvation; teaching and training; justice and piety; blessing and revelation; redemption and release.

"The grace of God has appeared," says Paul. Indeed it has. It has come to us in the birth and life, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. But this grace requires the kind of response on our part that will produce the conversion, the change of lifestyle, of which Jesus spoke when he said, "The kingdom of God is upon you. Repent and believe the gospel."

Paul speaks of this conversion in terms of one of the prized words of the Greek language: pedagoguey. To the Greek this meant the lifelong training of a person in those qualities that fit the person to be a citizen of a Greek city. The nearest equivalent we have for the word is "character formation." Formation of character requires that we renounce some things and affirm others.

We are to renounce (the word also means disdain) "impiety and worldly passions." These two phrases sum up the life of the world that does not know the true God. "Impiety" was a term for one who did not recognize the gods of the pagan world and who was therefore a danger to the society itself. It was among the worst charges that could be laid against a person. The gods were thought of as bringing stability to Roman and Greek society. Not to recognize the gods brought destruction to the structure of Greek and Roman life. Paul translates this into Christian experience. Not to recognize what God has done in Christ challenges the very structure of life that God has patiently revealed to us over the ages and which now he has clearly shown us in Christ our Lord. "Worldly passion" is the result of that impiety. This is giving in to all the low desires which sinful humanity can conceive, and the imaginations of the human heart are capable of conceiving all kinds of evil acts. These things, writes Paul, are to be disdained.

In contrast to this is the training for the life fit for God. This new Christian character is to be formed around three of the cardinal virtues of Greek life: moderation or self-control, justice, and piety. These words are not mutually exclusive but feed each other. Moderation and self-control go together; the person who wants everything lacks self-control, but the one with self-control is also moderate in his living. Justice was the great quest of Greek life: it meant to choose that which was best for God, our neighbor, and ourselves. Piety is the very opposite of impiety. It is, as Micah said long before, "to do justice, to love compassion, and to walk humbly with God." We are to live by these, says the letter, in the present life, or, as the Greek puts it picturesquely, "in the now age."

For we look for another age, the coming of "the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of the great God and our savior Jesus Christ." This phrase is as ambiguous in the Greek as it is in English. Is it "our great God and savior Jesus Christ," or is it as I translated it, "the great God and our savior Jesus Christ"? Either translation gives us problems, but both point to the same reality: that in Christ the great God has fully revealed his saving ways to us.

Note how Christ is described in 14. He gave himself for us so that he might redeem and purify us. He is to release us from all unlawfulness, all those things that are contrary to the purposes of God. He is to "purify for himself a people of his own choosing who will zealously seek working good." That is yet another of the strange phrases found in these four verses, but it does describe the church of Jesus Christ. We are a people chosen by Christ; we are not in the church because we choose to be but because the great God in Christ has chosen us. We are a people purified by Christ; his death and resurrection has caused the mantle of impurity to fall from our lives and in its place he has garlanded us with the mantle of purity. We are zealously to seek the good and work at doing it. "The good" is another of the prized Greek words that make up so much of this passage. Knowing what "the good" is and doing it was another of those great quests of Greek life. But now we know what is good. "The good" is what Jesus Christ has done and what we are to do in response to him. But we do not do this alone. Christ's call includes putting us in that great company of those who love him and who seek to be his true disciples. So the individualism of our age is questioned. Religious life is not a matter of seeking our personal spiritual growth. It is rather being brought into the fellowship of the Christian faith and together working to do "the good" in this world.

This is the message of Titus for Christmas Eve.

LUKE 2:1-20: The story of the birth of Jesus in Luke's gospel breathes the atmosphere of reverence and grace. According to the best scholarly thinking, this story was originally written in Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke. It was composed for the church in and around Jerusalem, for whom Aramaic was the native language. Luke, or someone before him, translated the story into Greek so that Greek-speaking members of the church could hear it as well. To tell the story properly, we must look at it line by line.

2:1 In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered.

We start with "Emperor Augustus." Born on September 23, 63 BC, he lived until Aug. 19, AD 14. His given name was Octavius. He was the son of a senator and the nephew of Julius Caesar. Through a series of wars, Octavius had been instrumental in welding into one unit the various regions of the Roman Empire. His wars succeeded in bringing peace to the empire, the famous "Pax Romana," the Roman Peace. In 27 BC, the Roman Senate declared him the first emperor of the empire and gave him the name "Augustus," the Exalted One. His reign was heralded by statesmen and poets alike as a reign of prosperity and peace. In 17 BC the beginning of a new golden age was celebrated by secular games, and in 9 BC an altar was dedicated to the peace of Augustus. Ancient monuments even ascribed to him the title "savior." He was followed in office by his adopted son, Tiberius, who was emperor when John the Baptist and Jesus began their ministries.

"All the world should be registered." Luke makes certain this is part of his story, because it tells us that the birth of Jesus was no mere local occurrence. "All the world" was involved in his birth, as "all the world" would be effected by the death of him who came into the world to be the savior for all people.

2 This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria.

Scholars used to say that the enrollment under Quirinius took place about 6 AD and that Luke was wrong in associating this enrollment with the birth of Jesus. But scholarly opinion is shifting now and is making place for the historical accuracy of what Luke said. The turning point came when a papyrus from Egypt in the British Museum was properly translated. It indicated that in AD 103-104, a few years after Luke wrote his gospel, there was a census in Egypt which was apparently made on the basis of kinship. Proclamation was then made for all who were residing elsewhere to return to their family homes (Wright Biblical Archaeology 235). Information culled from other sources says that these registration periods took place every twelve to fourteen years. Because they were often strongly resisted, it often took years to complete the enrollment. A scholar named Thorley says that the text permits us to see two enrollments in the period Luke had in mind (J.THORLEY, "The Nativity Census: What Does Luke Actually Say?" Greece and Rome [Oxford] 26 [1, '79] p. 81). The second census took place around 6 AD, but the "first registration" could have taken place a dozen years before, around 6 BC. This would match the enrollment with the date approximated for Jesus' birth.

3 All went to their own towns to be registered. 4 Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. 5 He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child.

Bethlehem meant "House of Bread." Bethlehem took its name from the fairly fertile area of Judea in which it was located. Most of the regions of Judea are barren, as are the surrounding areas of Sinai, Moab and the Negev. But wheat, figs, and olives grow in Bethlehem, and that sets it apart from the areas around it. Bethlehem was also the home of David, the greatest of Israel's kings.

In the mideast, "to be engaged" speaks of a formal service preparatory to marriage. To break the engagement would be our equivalent of divorce. The couple is not supposed to live together during this time, but they are bound by sacred oath to continue the relationship into marriage. For Mary to be pregnant during the engagement would be, to say the least, unusual. Matthew's Gospel speaks of Joseph's perplexity over the issue, and it raises the question of whether Joseph should divorce her. He decided not to take that step, and when the child was born, he named it. When the father named a child, that meant that he was accepting the child as his own.

6 While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. 7 And 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.

The "inn" is probably not an inn at all, and that is a good thing. Mideastern inns were known for their hospitality, but they were also known for the abuses that took place there, especially robbery. Clement of Alexandria a century or so later thought of them as highly perilous places, and he likened them to a "heart full of demons" (Pax BibLeben 6 [4 '65] 285-298). An article in Jerusalem Perspective (6 '91, p 8) tells us that the typical inn in Jesus' time had one room and made no allowance for separate quarters for men and women.

The word mistranslated as "inn" is kataluma in Greek, and it means "a guest chamber." This is the same word used for the place where decades later Jesus held his last supper with his disciples in Jerusalem. A kataluma was an additional room constructed on the flat rooftop of a Palestinian house. Because there was no space in the kataluma, the guest room, Mary gave birth to Jesus on the ground floor (K Kipgen, "Translating Kataluma in Luke 2.7," BibTrans 34 [4, '83] 442-443). This ground floor was shared by the other inhabitants of the house. In the mideast, animals, donkeys, sheep and goats, often also live in the house with the family, and for that reason a manger was built into the floor of the house. The infant was placed temporarily in that manger. The manger was probably made of hardened clay or rocks, and it may be mentioned in Luke's story because of a prophecy in Isaiah, 1:3: "The ox knows its owner and the donkey its owner's manger, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand." Placing Jesus is a manger is one more indication that those to whom he came did not know who he was.

8 In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night.

For a period of time each year, usually in August and September when the lambs were being born, the shepherds lived in the fields with their sheep. Two interpretations of the shepherds' vocation is possible. One, represented by Bishop (AngTheolRev 46 [4 64] 401-413), says that the shepherds' calling was honored and vital in Palestine. The other (J M Temme BibToday 29 [6,'91] 376-378) views shepherds as outcasts of their society, and this scholar notes that their presence at Jesus' birth is a harbinger of his practice of associating with sinners, outcasts, and outsiders during his ministry. At any rate, Jesus' birth was proclaimed to the humblest of people. This is the reversal of values begun when Mary sang of God's highest treasures being given to those of low degree.

We need to recall, also, that David was a shepherd boy in Bethlehem, and the presence of shepherds at the nativity of Jesus reminds us that the child is the son of David. Shepherds were watching over their flocks on the night of the birth of David's heir in David's town.

9 Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see--I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 11 to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger."

"Good news of great joy for all the people" - these words echoed the portrayal of the reign of Augustus when he was praised by his poets and playwrights. In a commemorative inscription for Augustus in the town of Priene in the Roman province of Asia, the emperor is called "the savior." Now a greater than Augustus is born, one greater than even the emperor of all the world. He is proclaimed by the messengers from heaven as the savior for all the world. The angel's song contains the only use of the title "Savior" for Jesus in the four gospels.

The word "Lord" is used in the Old Testament, and of course in the New, to describe God himself. From this time forward all things said about God as Lord are now transferred to our Lord, Jesus Christ.

It is a strange sign that the shepherds are given: the cry of a baby, the age-worn trough of stone, the bands of cloth to wrap him - people would not expect to find a deliverer here. But then, no one expected to find a deliverer deposited in a rock-hewn tomb covered with a linen shroud where Luke places him at the end of the Gospel. The person who emerges from the stone manger also rises from the stony tomb to deliver God's people from sin and death.

13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,

14 "Glory to God in the highest heaven,

and on earth peace among those whom he favors!"

Glory and peace! These accompany God when God visits God's people. And so it is promised us that they will accompany those who follow Christ and find the peace of God in him. Christ himself will fill Christ's people with the gracious goodwill of God.

15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us." 16 So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. 17 When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.