The ‘scandal’ of Christmas: A Christmas Devotion

The ‘scandal’ of Christmas

St Luke 2:1-20

Key verses:

“And she gave birth to her first born son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for him in the inn.”(v.7)

“The angel of the lord stood before them, and the glory of the lord shone around them, and they were terrified.” (v.9)

“…Mary treasured … and pondered…” (v.19)

“The shepherds returned… praising ... glorifying…” (v.20)

To put it straight, Christmas is the coming down of God to assume humanness in all its totality; with its strengths as well as weaknesses. As such, the divine visitation was not unexpected; scriptures say the whole Israel was waiting for the coming of messiah. Clearly speaking, they were awaiting the messiah in the lineage of David, who was expected to reestablish the glorious Davidic kingdom. But the scandal of the Christmas is that, it turned the human expectations upside down. The nucleus of the ‘scandal’ of Christmas lies in the fact that the divine splendor, which transcends the whole created universe, was revealed in the innocence of the baby at the manger in Bethlehem. The political situation of the Roman Palestine must be taken into the serious consideration to comprehend the totality of the scandal the narrator is trying to create. The situation in the entire roman world was that, by the enthronement of Caesar Augustus, a new era of Peace was dawned, which is usually known as the Pax Romana. This peace was not as the result of the experience of welfare and contentment by the people of varying ethnicities and religious affiliations. But it was clearly because of the intimidating tactics of the mighty Roman Empire, which silenced every voice of independence and free imagination. Luke unlike Matthew tries to put Jesus’ birth in the simplest possible terms to contrast it with the unrighteous pomp and luxury of the empire. There is no visit of the Magi here, not many people realize the uniqueness of the baby in the manger as the future King as in Matthew. The emphasis is very much on the ordinariness of the baby.  One of the important aspects highlighted in the story of Jesus’ birth is the content of the angelic proclamation. The good news the angels proclaims is about the hope of redemption of the whole earth and peace as a gift from God for those who please God through their lives; especially for those who are at the fringes and margins.

The ‘scandal’ of “no room”

The brief but clear description of the birth of Jesus is very much down to earth than that is in Matthew. Jesus’ ordinary parents are seen struggling very hard to pull their life ahead. They are said to be brought to Bethlehem by force of the mighty Roman Empire. The census could be for the purpose of taxation as it used to happen in the provinces of Roman dominion. Whether it was mandatory for the pregnant Mary to travel all the way to Bethlehem to show herself for the census is bit doubtful. But one thing that we have to take note of here is the intension of the writer to link historic incidents of Roman world of the time is not to heighten the historic value of the narration, but to depict the pathetic picture of brokenness of ordinary human beings in the Roman Palestine. The ordinary Palestinian homes were said to be a one room affair. The Greek word used in verse7 (kataluma), translated as ‘inn’ in English bible signifies a one room typical Palestinian home of that time. It may resemble the present day adivasi homes of India, where one corner of the room is used for cooking, another to sleep, another one for dining and yet another one to store meager agricultural produces, if at all there are any. The problem of no room was not simply a problem faced only by Jesus’ parents at the time of his birth. But this was a problem commonly faced by the pregnant mothers of the place at the time of their delivery. Thus Jesus shares in the common predicament of the socio-economic deprivations of the ordinary Palestinians. Here the picture of God, sharing in the predicament of the ordinary human beings is indeed a great scandal. The creator God does not simply abandon God’s creation to its brokenness, but God by being a helpless child lying in the trough of the manger assumes the vulnerability of the creation to redeem it. The Bible is full of narratives describing the ‘scandal’ of God being vulnerable to be a redeemer to the whole world.

The ‘scandal’ of tumbling priorities

Luke’s narration of the story of birth of Jesus progresses into another scandal, because of the choice of the shepherds to be the first receivers of the good news of the birth. Shepherds were outcastes in the Palestinian Jewish society. Because of their particular spatial location, they were far removed from the socio-political happenings of the Roman Palestine. In a way they were least bothered about the socio-political changes in the country as those changes were not going to have any positive impact on their lives. The place of birth of Jesus was not far away from the station of the shepherds watching over the sheep during the night. The mention, “in that region”, about the location of the shepherds(v 8), points to the fact that in spatial terms also, Jesus’ birth was his identification with the marginalization of the shepherds. The spatial location of the shepherds was always at the fringes or outside the gates. God opts for the manger at the margin of the Roman, Jewish, Palestinian city as the location of Jesus’ birth. The night also signifies the hopelessness with which the shepherds had to live. Luke’s narration of the event of angelic proclamation clearly describes the brightening of the life situations of the shepherds. The glory of the Lord is said to be shone around the shepherds (v 9). The glory and pomp of the lords whom the shepherds have experienced in their lifetime never had any kind of redeeming effect on their lives. But their glory was always at the cost of the welfare of the ordinary men and women like the shepherds. Here they are greeted by the good news of the birth of a new Lord, whose glory really illuminates their otherwise darkened lives.

The priorities of God thereby tumble the priorities of the empire. When shepherds are the last to be informed of the happenings in the empire in Roman Palestine, in God’s reign they become the first to hear the good news regarding the birth of Jesus. They are also invited to be part of the celebration.

The scandal of God-centered celebration

Rome had a lot of emphasis on celebrating events of imperial importance. These were life-denying and emperor centered celebrations. A lot of innocent lives were taken literally for no reason and the village resources are mercilessly drained to fuel the pomp and majesty of the celebrations. The religious celebrations of the temple cult were also discriminatory as the poor Galileans found the long journey tiresome and expensive. Whenever they approached the ‘immaculate’ temple and its priestly leadership they were constantly reminded of their inadequacy to be considered as complete human persons. Thus the shepherds had nothing to do with the celebrations initiated by the political and religious aristocracy of the place. Here an invitation extended to the shepherds, to be part of a God-centered celebration, by the angel becomes another scandal. God is not pictured as an unapproachable reality residing in the holy of holy place with a very wide and irreconcilable gap in between the devotee and Godself. Instead the shepherds are informed of the presence of God in the sign of a new born wrapped up in bands of cloth.  The initial response to the divine revelation was shock and awe. The bible records this as the standard response of the people to the experiences of divine manifestations. This shock, I think, has to be considered as a kind of awakening. It is an awakening of the shepherds from their life in compromise with the oppression and complacency. The shepherds were not led into anything unfamiliar, but to very familiar settings of a typical Palestinian birth. There is no mention about them spotting anything extraordinary in the child. But they had a sharing and an experience of fellowship with the people at the manger. Their encounter with the child had brought a new mood in their life. We see them, returning by singing praises and glorifying God for all they have experienced. They are really into a God-centered celebration. One thing we have to note here is that, this is not a kind of irrational making of sounds and noises. There celebration initiates the formation of a new community of faithful who anchor the hope of the wider community of the coming of Messiah. Mary as part of this community celebrating the hope of the messiah treasures the words and ponders them in her heart. Thereby she finds this god-centered celebration as a continuation of her faith journey than the momentary ecstatic celebrations of the Roman Empire, which lacks any clear purpose.

Conclusion

Christians are called into a ‘scandalous’ ministry!

The first Christians in the Roman Empire and the Jewish community were addressed as a scandalous group. This was because of the fact that they were challenging the prevailing life-negating values of the empire and the religion. The God-centered church was always reminiscent of God’s impending Judgement on the Life denying empire. At the root of the scandalous ministry of the church was their God-centeredness. This choice of God-centeredness many a time put them in strict opposition to the life-negating values of the empire. They opted to stand firm at the face of persecution than compromising to the injustices promoted by the empire. In today’s world the church is encountering with varying situations of emergence of new kinds of imperialism, which dictates the lives of our people and denies them the freedom to be themselves. A lot of people are denied of any space in our social system to build their lives up. Their needs and issues are not considered by the authorities as they occupy the last rungs in the list of priorities. For the majority, life remains as an irresolvable puzzle than a celebration of life. Why the church is not creating scandals today by stepping into the solution of issues in the lives of ordinary men and women, who are sidelined by suggesting their social inadequacy? Why the celebrations initiated by the church do not transmit hope to the thousands of hopeless around us? May this time of celebration be also a time ‘to treasure the words and ponder them in our hearts.’