The Savior Nobody Expected

The Rev. Matt Kennedy

Christmas Eve 2006

The Church of the Good Shepherd

    If I'd lived at the time, and didn't know anything about Jesus, I would've wanted a king like Caesar Augustus. Too humble to call himself god, he preferred the title “son of god.” He was, after all, the adopted son of the late Julius Caesar who, by this time, the Romans considered divine. Augustus had, by his wise and audacious exercise of Roman might, extended the boundaries of the Empire to encompass almost all the known world. No one could stand before Rome, no power, no kingdom. But Augustus was not a cruel or ruthless king, he was benevolent. He used his power to impose peace on the earth. The world had never before seen peace and freedom to the extent that it existed under Roman rule. For the first time you could travel from town to town, region to region, country to country not only fast, because Rome had constructed roads throughout the empire, but in relative safety. “Pax Romana,” the peace of Rome, descended over the land and the people of every nation prospered because of it. For that reason Augustus was called a savior. Let me read from a famous inscription found on a Roman building dedicated to Augustus: “Divine Augustus Caesar, son of a god, imperator of land and sea, the benefactor and savior of the whole world.”

    Augustus was the most powerful man the world had ever seen and he knew it. And at the height of his power he called for a census, the same census recorded in Luke chapter 2. There's only one other census in the bible. It was taken by King David of Israel 700 years earlier. David had grown powerful as well and he'd extended the Kingdom of Israel far beyond her original borders. God had blessed David. But having grown wealthy and powerful, David did what we all do when things are comfortable. David forgot God. He began to attribute the grandeur and power of his office, to his own abilities and strength. He called for a census to count all the people in his realm. It was a vain thing to do, vain in the same way that a beautiful woman might stand in the mirror for hours admiring herself or a body builder might stand in the mirror and flex his muscles or a rich man might count his money over and over again. This vanity starts off harmless enough but it leads to pride…the Frank Sinatra sort of pride where someone looks back over a life lived by God's grace and success gained by and through the use God's gifts and says, “I'm top of the heap, king of the hill, cream of the crop, I did it my way.” God says, no. Everything you have comes directly from me, even the things you think you've earned. No one pulls himself up by his own bootstraps. He uses the hands God has given him to pull the boots God has made over the foot God has formed using the breath that God has breathed into his lungs and the strength God provides. All things come of thee O Lord.

    But the world does all in her power to deny that; to deny God's existence and power and authority. And so there is pride where there ought to be gratitude. I am where I am because of me; my hard work, my wisdom, my strength, my ability. Without the creator, human beings inevitably worship created things.

    And so Caesar Augustus went about calling himself the son of God, the savior of the world, the prince of peace. And “he issued a proud decree that a census should be taken of the entire world.” And at his word millions of people were uprooted. We do not know how his order was carried out in other parts of the world, but in Palestine, everyone was required to return to the city of his ancestry to register. Caesar spoke and the world moved.

    But Caesar did not know. He couldn't know that about 700 years before he ordered his census, a little known Jewish prophet named Micah said this: “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be king.” (Micah 5:2)

    Caesar would not have known about the prophecy. And he could not know that caught up among the throngs on the highways moving from one town to another, Mary and Joseph traveled south from Nazareth on the way to Bethlehem, the hometown of all king David's descendants because Joseph belonged to the house and line of David. But Caesar was not the only one who would've been surprised at the identity of this poor couple caught up in the census he'd ordered.

    Let's say you're a 1st century Jew reading the gospel of Luke. By the end of chapter 1, before you read of the census and Mary and Joseph's journey, you'd be one very worried 1st century Jew because something in the text is terribly out of place and if it's not in some way put back into place, then the claim that Jesus is the messiah is a false one. Mary the virgin mother of Jesus and Joseph her betrothed do not live in Bethlehem, the town the prophet Micah identified. They live in Nazareth, in the region of the province of Galilee which is many miles away from Bethlehem in the province of Judea.

    But the fulfillment of Micah's prophecy is not the only reason you'd be upset. Not only is Nazareth not the right city. Nazareth is the backwoods of Palestine. People from Judea considered Galilee as a whole and Nazareth in particular a dirty, backwards and ignorant place. Later in Jesus ministry, many would question his credentials because he was raised in Nazareth and spoke with the accent of a Nazarene. Think of the way people living in upper-east side Manhattan might treat someone with an Arkansas accent and you get the picture. The messiah could not be from Nazareth. He must be born in Bethlehem, the city of David, the city of Kings, the only proper place for royalty.

    So the beginning of chapter two would be both a relief and a shock. A relief that Mary and Joseph were headed in the right direction, shock at the idea that these two backwoods, ignorant Nazarenes, now making their way to Bethlehem were the ones God had chosen to raise his king, his son.

    But perhaps no one would be more scandalized than the Nazarenes themselves. Even the town of Nazareth had standards. Did you ever wonder why Joseph brought his ready-to-give-birth fiancée with him across hundreds of miles to Bethlehem? Women in that stage of pregnancy would have been exempted from the census. A family member could register for them. So why did Mary go? By this time everyone in Nazareth would know Mary was pregnant. And everyone would know that it wasn't Joseph's baby. Gabriel didn't appear to all of Nazareth. He only appeared to Mary and Joseph. To make matters worse, verse 5 tells us that by the time of the census Mary and Joseph had still not married, they were still only “pledged” to be married. The question then is not why did she go, but how could she stay? The people of Nazareth considered her an adulterer. She would have been shunned, mocked, ridiculed, hated. She went with Joseph because she was a despised woman carrying a child that the world considered a bastard.

    And so right here in the beginning, as Mary and Joseph take the painful road to Bethlehem, we're brought face to face the great clash of culture and expectation that will mark Jesus' ministry from his birth to the cross. The clash is between what the world wants and expects of a king and savior on the one hand and who Jesus really is and what he came to do on the other. The Jews wanted a mighty king, with the proper credentials, to conquer the Romans, subjugate the peoples of the world and usher in God's rule. The Romans look for a man of worldly power, descended from the gods, to bring peace, wealth, and good fortune. Jew and Gentile alike looked for a king and savior of their own design and expectation.

    But Jesus didn't come give the world what she wants. While he was born in Bethlehem, he was raised in Nazareth. While he was a descendant of King David, he was laid in feeding trough. He didn't come to destroy the Romans and make Israel the mightiest nation on earth to satisfy the Jews. He didn't come as a mighty emperor, like Augustus, to give peace and great wealth to the Mediterranean to satisfy the gentiles. Jesus was and is king and savior but he was not the sort of King the world wanted or expected. And he still isn't

    Thank God for that. Thank God that he did not become incarnate in Mary's womb to give us what we want. Thank God that he did not send his Son to give me all the junk I've asked him for in my life.

    The big problem in this world is not that we don't have what we  want.  It's not that we don't have enough money. It's not poverty. It's not war. It's not greed or sexual immorality. It's not disease. It's not crime. It's not depression. It's not loneliness or dissatisfaction. These are all evil things, but they're all symptoms of a far deeper problem. The problem is, as John says, the world lives in darkness. Not because God shut off the lights, but because the world has turned away from God. That's the problem. And every other evil in this world, every problem you have and I have and the world has is directly related to that core problem. And because God is missing in so many hearts, people want stuff: homes and cars and health and wealth. But really when you get down to it, they're just trying to fill the gaping void once filled by our Creator.

    And so God did not send his Son to give the world stuff. He did not come to give us what we want or fulfill our expectations. He came to offer himself. He offered himself as a baby to Mary and Joseph. Later he offered himself to his disciples and then to his enemies. He offered himself on the cross where he died in your place and mine to bear the consequence of our rebellion. He offered himself three days later when he rose from the dead, he offered himself when he sent the Holy Spirit and he offers himself to you and to me this very night. Have you accepted his offer? God became man in Jesus Christ so that you and I might be reconciled to God. There is nothing the world offers.