Star of the Nativity

In the cold season, in a locality accustomed to heat more than
to cold, to horizontality than to a mountain,
a child was born in a cave in order to save the world;
it blew as only in deserts in winter it blows, athwart.

To Him, all things seemed enormous: His mother's breast, the steam
out of the ox's nostrils, Casper, Balthazar, Melchior − the team
of Magi, their presents heaped by the door, ajar.
He was but a dot, and a dot was the star.

Keenly, without blinking, through pallid, stray
clouds, upon the child in the manger, from far away −
from the depth of the universe, from its opposite end − the star
was looking into the cave. And that was the Father's stare.

This poem, written in 1987 by Joseph Brodsky, reminds us of the cosmic enormity of the birth of Jesus and yet at the same time suggests, paradoxically, that when God seems the farthest away is the time when God may be the closest.

Eighteen hundred years before the birth of Jesus, God called to Abraham and told him that his wife, Sarah − though post menopausal − would become the mother of a great nation and so the story of the Hebrew people begins. Five hundred years later, about 1300 BCE, God raised up a mighty leader in Moses to lead the captive Hebrews to freedom from Egyptian slavery. Entering into a promised land, the people are led by a series of charismatic Judges as their history unfolds. But over time, the people clamor to have a King like the other nations. God warned them, through his prophets, that kings will cause them to lose their freedom but they cry out all the more and so God raised up King David who ruled from 1010 − 970 in a golden age of justice and prosperity. David is followed by Solomon in 970, who builds the great Temple in Jerusalem but in doing so, he and his sons abuse the men of the northern tribes and in 922, the nation splits with the North succeeding from the South. The Northern Kingdom of Israel is established with its capital in Samaria and the Southern Kingdom, Judea, continues with its capital in Jerusalem.

In 722, the Assyrians attack Samaria and take the Jewish people there captive, and resettle other people on their sacred land. The Northern tribes, through intermarriage and cultural and religious adaption, are lost to history and become the 10 lost tribes of Israelite legend. The remnant Southern Kingdom of Judea is attacked by the Babylonians in 587 and is taken into exile.

The Babylonians are succeeded by the Persians and in 332, by the Greeks under Alexander the Great and finally, in 63 BCE, Pompey annexes Jerusalem and its 2nd Temple for Rome.

For over 500 years, the remnant Hebrews of Palestine had been a subjected people. Persecuted and oppressed; their ancestral faith besieged by the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks and now the Romans − the Jewish race, a chosen people, felt themselves to have been abandoned by God.

The people of whom Jesus is born, under the power of Rome and its puppet King Herod the Great and the Jewish aristocracy who benefitted by cooperation with Rome are like this: 90-95% of the people are peasants living a subsistence existence. Ancient lands are being lost through high taxes and former landowners are being reduced to being sharecroppers on their own land. As a result of cynicism and despair, the vast majority of the people are non-observant, exercising a sort of folk religion of charms and superstition. They are despised by the religious elite and dismissed as too ignorant to follow the laws of Moses. Increasingly, religion is obsessed with purity laws which define who is and who can be included and who excluded as sinners unworthy of God's love. The most vulnerable in society are being neglected. Insurrection and revolutionary violence will lead to swift and harsh punishment by Roman troops. The main road into Jerusalem is studded with permanent upright wooden stakes that await the cross beams of crucified bodies of Jewish rebels and freedom fighters.

The Jewish people, abandoning hope in their corrupt leaders, prayed for an intervention. They prayed that God would send a mighty leader − like Moses, like David − a warrior king to unite the peoples and lead them in victory in driving the infidels −the Romans − from their holy lands. He would be a great King like their greatest King David − indeed, a "son of David" − who would rule in equity and justice. Some said he would be a man endowed with almost a supernatural power −anointed by God − in their language, a "messiah", in Greek a"Christos" in our language: "a Christ." And when he came, Israel would be restored to her former glory and all the nations of the earth would acknowledge Jerusalem as God's house on earth and the Hebrew religion as the only true way. Tribute would flow to Mt. Zion and hunger and suffering would be a distant memory.

When Jesus was born − 1,800 years after the call of Abraham and Sarah − he was not born a prince of a noble family but of peasants. His mother's birth attendants were not court physicians but animals in a cave. His bedding was not soft silk but rather a feeding trough of coarse straw. And those who came to call were not courtiers and dignitaries but were hireling shepherds who were widely considered to be dishonest drunkards and thieves and whose lack of religious observance, due to their profession, made them outcasts and sinners.

It was to shepherds that the angelic announcement came − "you" − you shepherds − "will see a sign" - something which will point beyond itself. This "thing that has happened" − the Greek word "thing" can also be rendered "word" - a word has happened. An important communication has taken place.

They see the sign − a father and a mother and a newborn child − but this thing, this word − is the sign that God's salvation, his "intervention", has come to pass at last but not just to the Jewish people but to the whole earth.

It is the dawning of God's peace − God's shalom − his favor to all humankind with whom God sends his own goodwill.

They were expecting a warrior king who would come in frightful power and they got a vulnerable babe who comes in weakness and humility.

But to those who will follow this life, they will discover a life anointed by God and a message of how we are to live in the world that God prefers for us − and we would prefer for ourselves. Athanasius in the 4th century told it this way:

"Once upon a time there was a good and kind king who had a great kingdom with many cities. In one distant city, some people took advantage of the freedom the king gave them and started doing evil. They profited by their evil and began to fear that the king would interfere and throw them into jail. Eventually these rebels seethed with hatred for the king. They convinced the city that everyone would be better off without the king, and the city declared its independence from the kingdom.

But soon, with everyone doing whatever they wanted, disorder reigned in the city. There was violence, hatred, lying, oppression, murder, rape, slavery, and fear. The king thought: What should I do? If I take my army and conquer the city by force, the people will fight against me, and I'll have to kill so many of them, and the rest will only submit through fear or intimidation, which will make them hate me and all I stand for even more. How does that help them − to be either dead or imprisoned or secretly seething with rage? But if I leave them alone, they'll destroy each other, and it breaks my heart to think of the pain they're causing and experiencing.

So the king did something very surprising. He took off his robes and dressed in the rags of a homeless wanderer. Incognito, he entered the city and began living in a vacant lot near a garbage dump. He took up a trade − fixing broken pottery and furniture. Whenever people came to him, his kindness and goodness and fairness and respect were so striking that they would linger just to be in his presence. They would tell him their fears and questions, and ask his advice. He told them that the rebels had fooled them, and that the true king had a better way to live, which he exemplified and taught. One by one, then two by two, and then by the hundreds, people began to have confidence in him and live in his way.

Their influence spread to others, and the movement grew and grew until the whole city regretted its rebellion and wanted to return to the kingdom again. But, ashamed of their horrible mistake, they were afraid to approach the king, believing he would certainly destroy them for their rebellion. But the king-in-disguise told them the good news: he was himself the king, and he loved them. He held nothing against them, and he welcomed them back into his kingdom, having accomplished by a gentle, subtle presence what never could have been accomplished through brute force." (From Generous Orthodoxy by Brian McLaren)

Tonight's celebration is not a birthday party for Jesus but is rather our continuing acknowledgement of our need for a savior who will lead us from a world still ordered for the few at the expense of the many, for exploitation rather than cooperation, for war rather than peace, for despair and death rather than hope and life. Jesus is born yet again to call us back to the shalom of God…

Unexpected

Even now we simply do not expect
to find a deity in a stable.
Somehow the setting is all wrong:
the swaddling clothes too plain,
the manger too common for the likes of a Savior,
the straw inelegant,
the animals, reeking and noisy,
the whole scene too ordinary for our taste.
And the cast of characters is no better.
With the possible exception of the kings,
who among them is fit for this night?
the shepherds? Certainly too crude,
the carpenter too rough
the girl too young.
And the baby?
Whoever expected a baby?
Whoever expected the advent of God in a helpless child?
Had the Messiah arrived in the blazing light of the glory
of a legion of angels wielding golden swords,
the whole world could have been conquered for (God)
right then and there
and we in the church − to say nothing of the world! −
wouldn't have so much trouble today.
Even now we simply do not expect
to face the world armed (only) with love.

(From Kneeling in Bethlehem by Ann Weems, modified by the Rector)