A Political Christmas Story
Luke presents Jesus’ birth as a political message. But it is not the birth of an emperor that ushers in an era of peace: Rather it is the birth of a child in Bethlehem.
The Christmas story from the Gospel of Luke (2:1–21) is probably the best known text in the entire New Testament. It is read every year in Christian churches on Holy Eve or Christmas Day, often performed by Sunday school children and enlivened by hymns. The story is beautiful and romantic: Joseph and Mary come from Nazareth in Galilee in the midst of winter over the mountains of Judea to the little town of Bethlehem; the stable cradles the babe; the ox and donkey look on while shepherds gather by night with their flocks; peace is proclaimed on earth; angels sing on high and shepherds hurry to worship the child.
Unfortunately, all this overlooks the purpose of the story and the political impact it must have had when it was first written and told. Luke, certainly not an eyewitness of the events of the ministry of Jesus and a man who had little knowledge of the Holy Land, wrote his Gospel at the end of the first century C.E., probably during the reign of the emperor Domitian (81–96). From the beginning, Luke, who also wrote the Acts of the Apostles, composed his Gospel as a political tract in full knowledge of the imperial propaganda of his time.
The emperor Domitian in Luke’s time was encouraging a revival of the old slogans and aspirations in use during the reign of Augustus a hundred years earlier, when the events in Luke’s story took place. Augustus had proclaimed that Rome’s rule over the nations of the Mediterranean would be a time of salvation for all people, heralding the coming of an age of peace and the arrival of great benefactions from which everyone would reap immeasurable blessings. Inscriptions from the time of Augustus speak about this eschatological moment in the history of humankind in exuberant terms. An example from the year 9 B.C.E. found in the city of Priene in western Asia Minor reads as follows:
“Because providence that has ordered life in a divine way…and since the Caesar through his appearance (epiphany) has exceeded the hope of all former good news (“gospels” = evangelia), surpassing not only the benefactors who came before him, but also leaving no hope that anyone in the future would surpass him, and since for world the birthday of the god was the beginning of his good news (“gospels”) [may it therefore be decided that]…”
On inscriptions in imperial temples, the emperor is also called the “Savior,” and inscriptions on coins connect his mission to his divine descent, “Son of the God Caesar.” These terms from Augustus’s propaganda also appear in the message of angels to the, shepherds: “I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day…the Savior” (Luke 2:10–11). To be sure, Luke also links this message to the hopes of the ancient Israelites by calling the newborn child “the anointed Lord” (Luke 2:11; the NRSV translates “the Messiah, the Lord”) and by placing his birth in Bethlehem, the city of David. This link to ancient Israel is also emphasized in the announcement of the birth of Jesus to Mary in Luke 1:32–33 (“the Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David”), in which the child to born is also called “Son of the Most High” (Luke 1:32).
The close connection between Luke’s Christmas story and the imperial propaganda of Rome is evident not only in language of the angel’s message to the shepherds but also in Luke’s introduction. Because the emperor Domitian is renewing Augustus’s propaganda, Luke sets his story in the days when “a decree went out from the Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered” (Luke 2:1) and refers explicitly to the time when “Quirinius was the governor of Syria” (Luke 2:2). There can be little doubt that Luke presents his version of Jesus’ birth in the form of a political message. But it is not the birth of an emperor that ushers in an era of peace and benefactions for all nations: Rather, it is the birth of a child in Bethlehem. And as the proclamation of the emperor’s arrival as the benefactor of all humankind was linked to the glory of ancient Rome, Luke sees birth of Jesus, which promises “peace among those whom God favors” (Luke 2:14), as the fulfillment of the prophecies of an equally ancient, but now despised and persecuted, nation, namely the people of Israel—who at the time of Luke’s writing had been defeated by the Romans and whose Temple in Jerusalem lay in ashes.
Luke’s narrative, moreover, proclaims a peace that differs fundamentally from the peace of Roman propaganda. It does not come from those who are mighty and rule, but from those who are weak and despised; it is not the powerful “whom God favors”—this is the correct translation of Luke 2:14, not the traditional “people of good will,” which derives from a mistranslation in the Latin Bible. The “Magnificat,” the hymn of Mary at her meeting with Elizabeth, states this even more explicitly: “[God] has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty” (Luke 1:52–53).
With these words, the Magnificat echoes statements in the Bible of Israel telling us God will establish justice on earth by disturbing the peace that rich and powerful men, like Augustus and Domitian, establish by making the rich richer and the poor poorer. That the Savior is born as a poor child in a stable proclaims a new political and social order in which those who are wealthy and powerful will have to pay for real peace and justice on earth.
The Christmas story from the Gospel of Luke (2:1–21) is probably the best known text in the entire New Testament. It is read every year in Christian churches on Holy Eve or Christmas Day, often performed by Sunday school children and enlivened by hymns. The story is beautiful and romantic: Joseph and Mary come from Nazareth in Galilee in the midst of winter over the mountains of Judea to the little town of Bethlehem; the stable cradles the babe; the ox and donkey look on while shepherds gather by night with their flocks; peace is proclaimed on earth; angels sing […]
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