On This Day
Scripture Reading: Luke 2:1-20
“In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus.” “In those days.” That’s how the story begins. It begins almost like a fairy tale. Once upon a time. In those days.
“In those days.” That’s also when the story begins. The story is not set in these days, in our time. It was a different time.
In those days Augustus was the emperor of Rome, the most powerful man in the most powerful empire in the world. His word was law, and he decreed that all his subjects throughout the vast empire, from the shores of modern-day Spain and Portugal in the west to the obscure village of Nazareth in the foothills of Galilee in the east, should register for a census.
Maintaining an empire was not cheap. Money was needed to build and maintain roads and to feed and arm the legions of soldiers stationed throughout the empire, legions who kept the barbarians at bay along the borders and who fought the wars that continually expanded those borders. This money came in the form of taxes. Therefore, in those days it was necessary for everyone throughout the empire to register to pay their tax.
In those days Quirinius was the governor of Syria. Luke grounds this story with historical details. We know who the emperor was. We know who was the governor of Syria, a neighboring province to the north of Judea. These historical details affirm that this is no fairy tale. The story he is about to tell really happened. It’s a true story. It involves real people.
Among those people is a young couple, a man traveling with his pregnant fiancée. They are Jewish peasants. They are subjects of Rome. They too go to their town to be registered. The town in this case is Bethlehem, the city of David. The man, Joseph is his name, is descended from David. He brings with him Mary, who is nine months’ pregnant. Despite her condition they travel on foot from the village of Nazareth in Galilee all the way to Bethlehem, a distance of 80 miles. Imagine being nine months’ pregnant and walking 80 miles just to pay a tax!
In Bethlehem there is no room for them in the kataluma. In the what? In the kataluma. Many older versions of the Bible translate this Greek word as “inn.” This gave rise to images of a surly innkeeper dismissively telling the young couple, like the Seinfeld soup nazi, “No room for you!” However, as biblical scholars have pointed out in recent years, the kataluma also refers to a guest room. It’s the same word that Luke uses to describe the upper room of the house where Jesus and his disciples share the Last Supper. Jesus tells the disciples to go to the house and prepare the kataluma.
In those days Judean homes were typically two stories. A family’s animals occupied the first floor. The people lived above on the second floor. At night, the heat from the animals below warmed the floor above.
There is no room for the couple in the guest room on the second floor of the house, so they make do by staying among the animals on the lower floor. There amid the mud and muck, the dirt and dung, surrounded by the sounds and smells of livestock, Mary gives birth.
With no crib to lay the newborn in, they improvise. They lay him in a manger, a feeding trough for livestock. And that’s it. That’s how the first part of this story ends. The child is born in the stillness of the night, in the small town of Bethlehem, in the animal quarters of a typical home.
The birth of this child is when we move from “in those days” to “this day.”
On the face of it, there is nothing special, nothing remarkable about this birth. And yet, the birth of this child is precisely the moment when everything changes. It’s when time divides, not only B.C. from A.D., but something more. The birth of this child is when we move from “in those days” to “this day.” The angel who appears to the shepherds brings the good news that on this day, in the city of David, a savior has been born. With the birth of this child, we are no longer in “those" days. This day marks the start of a new era…an era of light amid darkness, an era of hope amid despair.
“Darkness? Despair? What’s he talking about? It’s not Good Friday, it’s Christmas!” Indeed, it is, but to truly appreciate the light that has come into the world, we have to reckon with the darkness that surrounded us and still does. It’s a darkness that the bright lights and festive decorations of secular Christmas are designed to keep at bay.
Now, let me just say that I’m a fan of secular Christmas. I love Christmas-light displays, Christmas rock and jazz standards from Phil Spector to Vince Guaraldi, the modern-classic movie A Christmas Story (“You’ll shoot your eye out”), and traditional classics like Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, which I try to reread every year. Heck! Red and green is even my favorite color scheme, so I am not dumping on secular Christmas by any means. I love it!
But I’m also wary of it. I’m wary of the expectations that it foists upon us. Expectations that we can hear as a command: Thou shalt be joyful. Expectations that, just like in the movies, this day will magically have a happy ending, despite the dysfunction, disappointment, and depression that are life’s companions. Expectations that Christmas cheer will somehow drown out the carping of our internal critic who never takes a holiday.
In the secular world Christmas is all festive department store displays, ho ho ho, and mistletoe, a fantasy carefully packaged and gift wrapped with a bow. It’s a fantasy that we are encouraged to—quite literally—buy into. But Christmas is not all sweetness and light. Christmas begins in the dark.
Three weeks ago, on the first Sunday of Advent, I mentioned the phrase “Advent begins in the dark,” which was a quote from Fleming Rutledge, a retired Episcopal priest and theologian who lives on the other side of the river in Westchester County. To say “Advent begins in the dark” is to acknowledge the bleakness of the human condition. It’s to reckon with the power of sin in all its ferocity, subtlety, and ubiquity, both out there in the world and entrenched within the human heart.
However you may be walking in darkness—whatever it is that shadows you—know that on this day the light of the world descended into your darkness.
It’s not only Advent that begins in the dark. The same can be said for Christmas. To quote the prophet Isaiah: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness, on them light has shined” (Isa. 9:2).
However you may be walking in darkness—whatever it is that shadows you—know that on this day the light of the world descended into the darkness. Into a land of darkness God came to rescue us. He came to crawl down into whatever dark pit that you’ve dug for yourself or that life has dug for you. He came to shine his light into your darkness.
The Christmas lights are bright and beautiful, yet they are a pale reflection of the light that entered the world on this day, this day on which the darkness has begun to give way to a light that will never go out.