Peace on Earth?
Isaiah 9:2-7 and Luke 2:1-14
“Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace among those whom he favours!”
The readings for Christmas night take us from the great political movements (impending invasion of Judah, Isaiah; imperial oppression, Luke) to the intimacy of childbirth (‘Emmanuel’ to a maiden, Isaiah; ‘Saviour/Jesus’ to a virgin, Luke).
St Luke’s rendering of the birth of Jesus is a story of never-ending wonder, simply told. A new-born sleeping in a manger; startled shepherds and choirs of angels; good news and songs of joy, and declarations of peace.
· Isaiah brings the word of God to ‘people who live in darkness’.
We find ourselves in darkness, the problems of the world seeming to overwhelm. Conflict in Ukraine, Sudan, and places forgotten by the news, all overtaken by the daily destruction in Gaza; economic turmoil and crisis of the cost of living; environmental apocalypse foretold; the perils to democracy; crime and drugs and epidemic mental health illness. Where, after thousands of years of the promises, is peace?
· What comfort can be found in the brief, compact, and familiar account of Jesus’ birth in Luke?
I was reminded of the simplicity of the account this week when preparing for a talk I was invited to give at an Islamic college in London, for which I was comparing early Christian and Muslim expansions of the story of Jesus’ birth; they imaginatively fill in some of the details we all wish Luke or Matthew had provided. The Qur’anic account movingly portrays the consequences of pregnancy outside of marriage—the shame before the whole community. But, in Luke we are given snapshots: the occupying superpower calls a census for taxation purposes; Joseph must travel the 90 miles to register, and he brings a very pregnant Mary with him; while there, she gives birth.
The reference to the world-wide grip of Roman power that reaches down into the daily lives of ordinary people in a village tucked away in the hills of Galilee signals the poverty and powerlessness of people on the margins of a society on the edge of empire.
Joseph travels with Mary (was he concerned for her if he was not there to protect her from the shame her pregnancy brought on family and neighbours; or, is this another harsh consequence of government bureaucracy, not taking into account how decrees affect ordinary people, by requiring whole families to attend?).
The risks of childbirth under the best of conditions were great in that world; the 34-hour journey by foot/donkey (not counting stops) increased the risks to her pregnancy. And she will not be with parents or experienced midwives around her. Did they travel the straight road—down from Nazareth to the Jezreel plain, and then uphill along the ridge of the central hills of Samaria and Judah? Or, avoiding Samaria (as seems to be the case in Jesus’ later life)—travelling along the Jordan Valley, climbing up the 3,800 feet elevation from Jericho to Bethlehem, adding 10 more miles to the journey? Did they travel alone, or with a group? The story does not tell us, as it does later in the chapter when Jesus is twelve years old.
We never hear them speak. They seem to be observers of what happens to themselves. There is a strong sense of delicate vulnerability between them. The economic pressures, the political legal expectations, the cloud of shame, unable to find a place to stay in the lodging place, and having to use the stable for a birth. Is it a ‘Silent Night’? Or, an intensely ordinary story of its time?
This was not for lack of hospitality, as our children’s nativity plays portray with the holy family going from inn to inn looking for a room, and facing indifferent rejection. This is not how hospitality worked then, nor how it works now in that part of the world we call the Global South (I have been recipient of such, even when knowing it was more than the host could afford). But, it was the best that could be offered; the census caused strain on the households of Bethlehem, too. So many trials and dangers; so little help, it seems.
· At the Shepherds’ Field
It is in just this setting that a heavenly army visits local shepherds, with the good news of the birth of a Saviour, and Messiah. I sometimes envision this part of the story as the angels watching the birth of Jesus in the celestial maternity waiting room, as it were, and when the child is born they just have to go tell someone, anyone. And the first people they see are the shepherds, who are startled out of their late-night drowsiness when all heaven breaks loose.
My first visit to Bethlehem was during the first Intifada, seeking to escape the turmoil of Friday Prayers in Jerusalem only to arrive amidst the tension in Nativity Square, and so walking out to Beth Sahour, and the Shepherd’s Field (and realizing no one knew where I was…). Then, the second Intifada, watching the ‘security’ wall draw a barrier around Bethlehem as suicide bombers targeted busses and cafes. This year? No Christmas in Bethlehem.
· 2,000 years later there is no peace in Bethlehem.
I struggle at this point. I am now 71 years-old (I know, I don’t look a day over 69), and through the decades the darkness of warfare and violence has been a constant. I was born in the midst of the Korean War, which had followed on so soon after the joyful celebrations of peace at the end of WWII; my earliest memories have as their background the Cold War, and school drills in case of nuclear attack; my youth the shadow of fear of military draft for the unpopular war in Viet Nam; the one era of hope as barriers between East and West fell, and weapons were destroyed, brutally cut short by the 9/11 attack and the ‘war on terror’.
Each year, at the time of Advent, the longing for the promised peace, and the heartache of the cruel hatred of men (almost always men) of power and the harsh oppression of the powerless (almost always women and children), clash in a dissonance that has not yet been resolved.
How long, O Lord? Isaiah did not see the promised Prince of Peace, ‘whose reign of peace will have no end’; Jesus’ mother saw his death, her own heart pierced as with a sword. How long?
The angels arrive in glory and terror—amidst great light and words of peace. The shepherds are told ‘Do not be afraid’, because they are heralds of good news. The hosts of heaven, as in martial array, announce the Word of salvation with singing.
“Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace among those whom he favours!”
The Saviour of the world is born. In a feeding trough in a town on the edge of nowhere.
This song has its parallel in Luke 19:38, king Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey to acclamation and praise—this time from the voices of his followers:
‘Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!’
We call this Jesus’ ‘Triumphal Entry’ into Jerusalem, a fulfilment of the victorious procession of the Davidic king in Psalm 118, the voices shouting ‘This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad!’
But this grand display is not the climax of the story of Jesus. Jesus looks over the city and cries, ‘If only you had recognized today the things that made for peace’. Almost we hear him echo our lamenting cry, ‘How long, O People? How long?’ This was ‘the day’ the Lord had made; but the day passed, the moment was lost.
This story is the heart of the gospel, the good news first told to shepherds in a field in a backwater of the empire: God’s purposes in salvation are peace, and that salvation begins on the margins of human power.
We respond to the oppressor with military power; salvation comes in a stable. In the counsels of palace and party force is met with force, violence with violence; but the Peace begins in a humble birth, and in a feeding trough.
In the strategy of the kingdom of God, peace comes like yeast in dough; it grows like a mustard seed into a tree. The signs of this peace are found amongst stony rubble, entwined amongst thorns. It is does not come through bombs, but through shepherds; through a carpenter and his betrothed; and through people like us, who welcome with gladness the good news that God so loved the world he sent his beloved Son.
And we may echo the early Christian benediction: Come quickly, Lord Jesus!
