Luke 1:26-38

Continuing "Jesus has left the manger. Jesus has grown up. So must we."

As I said in my sermon of two weeks ago: "Jesus has left the manger. Jesus has grown up. So must we."

 Traditional Christianity says that Messiah has already come in Jesus. But it also proclaims that we are waiting for Messiah to return at some time in the future. This is known as eschatology: the theology of the end times.

 But please listen carefully: I am convinced that there will be no great future cosmic splitting of the skies when Jesus and all the angels will return from somewhere beyond the blue to be the judge, to separate the sheep from the goats and to take some home heavenwards and cast others into the fiery pit of hell.

 There is enough hell on earth for the majority of people living under oppressive regimes and in poverty, famine and war zones - all of which need to be challenged - for me to be concerned with or worried about what happens after we die. The Christian message is about what we do here and now to bring justice for all God's people, regardless of the religious, political or gender labels that they wear.

 In the first century of the Common Era the world was thought to be flat, God resided above the dome called the sky, and hell was beneath our feet. However, Christopher Columbus, Copernicus, Galileo - even Christopher Hitchens helped to put an end to all of that non-scientific explanatory fiction. So why do we still so often come to the Christmas stories [note, plural as there is more than one Gospel version of the birth of Jesus] with the same non-sophisticated, non-scientific mind set of the first century?

 I am also convinced that our Luke reading today concerning the foretelling of the birth of Jesus and of the Angel visiting Mary is theology and not history. But in saying that I am not suggesting that we should forget the Christmas story. However, we need to ensure that we who follow the Jesus Way put the story into daily practice.

 The Christmas story is not just for the four weeks of Advent, or from the Christingle service or the Christmas Tree Festival through the carol services; or from the dressing of the manger and through to Twelfth night. The truth of the Christmas story is that God comes to us, not just in the babe of Bethlehem but in every one we meet each and every day.

 Turning to our Lectionary reading today, there are a number of important questions that I have concerning Luke's supposedly prophetic story concerning the visitation of the Angel to Mary.

 Why is it that only Luke has this story of the Angel visiting the young woman Mary and telling her that the Spirit of God will come upon her and she will bear a son who will be named Jesus?

 Why is it that none of the other Gospels in our Christian Testament has this story? If this was such an important and momentous historic event, why was Mark's Gospel not in the slightest bit interested in who the father of Jesus of Nazareth happened to be?

 Why is the Matthew version of the birth story so different to that in Luke?

 What was Luke trying to say in his story of the Angel visiting Mary with the news of her impending pregnancy?

 To answer those questions we need to remind ourselves of the context in which Luke was writing his Gospel. He was the gentile outsider who, for a long time, attempted to be fully accepted as a Jesus Follower into the synagogue in Antioch. And when he finally wrote his Gospel, around half a century after the execution of Jesus, he was writing to a still oppressed Jewish and gentile community of Jesus followers: oppressed by Rome and rejected and excluded by the synagogue Jews who did not follow the Jesus Way.

 We also need to remember that to say anything against Rome was to risk crucifixion or being thrown to the gladiators or to the lions. But, in spite of that, Luke's Gospel was written as both highly political and deeply subversive. The early Christian communities continually asked their people to make their choice: they could choose to follow the way of the Caesars and of Empire, with all its exploitation and oppression; with all its love of power. Or they could choose to follow the Way of Jesus, the way of justice, servant hood and peace; the way of the power of love. But they could not choose to follow both pathways at the same time. And all of this was set within Roman Imperial theology in which the Caesars were worshipped as gods.

 But, we need to be aware of further essential background information as to what Luke was actually saying in our lectionary story today. We need to go back to a sea battle that took place off Actium on the west coast of Greece, ending on 2 September 31 BCE with the defeat of Marc Antony and Cleopatra by Caesar Augustus.

 Again please listen carefully. According to Dom Crossan, as a result of this battle, peace was brought to the Roman Empire and Caesar Augustus was given the titles of 'Divine,' 'Son of God, 'God,' 'God from God,' 'Lord,' 'Redeemer,' 'Liberator,' and 'Saviour of the World.'

 These titles were held onto as part of Roman Imperial theology from some 30 years before the birth of Jesus. Let me ask, "Where have you heard these titles before?" These same titles were subsequently applied to Jesus some 50 years after his execution. It was the challenge of Jesus to the domination systems of both Rome and the Temple, along with this same Roman Imperial theology that took Jesus to the cross.

 What the early Jewish Christian sect was claiming by assigning these titles to Jesus was both highly political as well as theological: they were stating emphatically that Jesus and not Caesar was God! That statement was high treason and punishable by death. That was the cost of discipleship in the first century of the Common Era. It still is today in places such as Iran and Pakistan.

 But there is even more to this background information: before being renamed as Caesar Augustus, his original birth name was 'Octavius'. Octavius was born of an earthly father into a noble family that claimed its direct descent from the goddess Venus. Once renamed, and subsequently proclaimed upon his death as 'God', the Roman Imperial theology declared that Caesar Augustus was in the line of his adoptive father, Julius Caesar, who was said to have Zeus as his sacred father. Caesar Augustus was seen as descended from Zeus - god of the sky and weather.

 So when Luke, alone of all the Gospel writers, wanted to reassure and to instruct his community of Jesus followers that it was Jesus and not Caesar who was God, Luke took the ancient Greco-Roman stories of Venus and Zeus and demonstrated that Jesus, too, had a heavenly sacred father! The sacred father of Jesus was the God of the Jewish and Gentile Christians!

 Luke's account of the Angel's visitation to Mary was not written to be read and interpreted as Gospel historic truth! It was a literary formula of the day that simply said, "If Caesar, with all those wonderful titles 'Divine,' 'Son of God, 'God,' 'God from God,' 'Lord,' 'Redeemer,' 'Liberator,' and 'Saviour of the World' is considered to be God, then I tell you that Jesus of Nazareth was also God. He had our God as his father and our God is stronger and mightier than the gods of the Romans. That's why we know that one day our God will over throw the Roman Empire. That's why, in our experience, Jesus is the true 'Divine,' 'Son of God, 'God,' 'God from God,' 'Lord,' 'Redeemer,' 'Liberator,' and 'Saviour of the World.' Both Caesar and Jesus had heavenly sacred fathers in addition to their earthly human fathers. Both are given the same titles. Which one will you choose to follow?"

 But what has all this got to do with you and me? As I understand and experience this wonderful story of the hope of Advent and the joy of Christmas - of Immanuel, God with us - I have to be active day by day in working for a world in which justice for all is paramount. The swords of war will never be beaten into ploughshares and the spears of war will never be beaten into pruning hooks until there is justice for all on this earth.

 It is in being active in this work that we ourselves become both a daily Advent and a daily Christmas incarnation as we live out the Advent and Christmas hope in our ordinary lives. When all the earth is filled with these experiences of the One God of all people, no one will need to be at war any more.

 'Immanuel' is the truest word within all the Hebrew and Christian Testaments – 'God is with us.' And it is in Jesus of Nazareth that Christians see the reality of Advent and Christmas.

 So let us go through the rest of the Advent Season and on into the joys of Christmas and beyond, knowing that God comes to us every time that we stretch out the hand of friendship to the stranger; every time that we give food to the hungry and drink to the thirsty; every time that we clothe the naked and offer shelter to the homeless; every time that we care for the sick and visit the prisoners. 

 Although it is only a word picture, the Truth that underpins First Isaiah’s vision in chapter 11 vv 6 & 7 is real and relevant to today:  "The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox."

 What a hope for the future! But it depends upon us living the Kingdom today and every day. That is what Christian hope is all about: living the vision as though it has already come. Which, of course, it has because as followers of the Jesus Way the future is always the present in as much as we live it now.

 Copyright ©: 2011, Rev John Churcher. All rights reserved. Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.