Unwrapping Christmas in a Different Paradigm: Jesus vs. Caesar (3 of 5)

The Birth of Jesus Is Wildly Cosmological; Caesar and the U.S. Aren’t

For this year’s season of Advent-Christmas, Lee Van Ham is presenting other ways to look at this special season, his comments rooted in the cosmological nature of the birth narratives told in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew.

A lot of attention has been given to locating the birth of Jesus precisely in history. So, for example, 4 B.C.E. is a commonly seen year of his birth. But the Gospel writers had an opposite concern, namely, how to break their story out of the confines of history. They did it too—by making their story cosmological in scope.

Think about it. History gets told by the dominant powers. So, like the leaders of today, the Roman and Jewish leaders told history. The Gospel writers exploded it. Their story was bigger than history. They did not want the birth of Jesus to be confined to how the Empire or Temple would tell the story, which was not to tell it. They released the story from captivity to empire and history by framing it cosmologically! Ingenious!

In the cosmological version, angels make surprise appearances and stunning announcements. They come out into the heavens as a magnificent chorus and loudly sing charged political lyrics, gloriously laughing at Caesar—and all empires in fact. A star gets the attention of Persian magi and locates the royal child for them with GPS precision. Don’t even try to make all of this fit historically. If we do, we are undoing the very purpose of the authors who knew that what they had to tell subverted and converted history. Why try to make angels, dreams, extreme human jubilation, and heavenly phenomena “reasonable,” when their wild, cosmic irrationality is exactly what busts open human civilization’s efforts to standardize and explain.

Empires and cosmos have different objectives. Empire deal with nations and powers, finding definitions that establish borders and boundaries for each. But cosmos is an expanding, limitless, unfathomable mystery well beyond what any empire has yet defined or managed. Cosmology, a combination of science, mystery, and spirit, is unruly, and that’s what makes it paradigm-altering. Empires don’t handle that well.

The famed astronomer, Carl Sagan, began his majestic PBS television series, Cosmos, by saying “The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.” That dwarfs the claims of governments, nation-states, and corporate states. It’s exactly why it’s important for us to root the Christmas story in Sagan’s Cosmos, not the latest historical versions of civilization. Framed in Sagan’s Cosmos, the Christmas Story becomes enormous! Unfathomable! Mysterious! Real!

To give an example. That part of the Christmas story where shepherds watch their flocks (Luke 2:8-20) would be of little note were it not for the angels and heavens that energize it. Angels, who are messengers not beholden to empire, appear to the shepherds with blinding light and deliver in words and song a high voltage political and economic message overlooked in conventional tellings of this story. Have you ever really thought about just how politically and economically charged their message was?

• “Behold”—In other words, “Open your eyes! See what empire thinking is blinding you to, numbing you into compliance. Shift your eyes from suspicion and fear-mongering. Instead, behold a grand cosmos that is trustworthy and providing.”
• “I bring you good news of great joy for all people” — “Good news,” euangellion in the Greek, also translated as “gospel,” was the word widely used by empires to refer to the victory messages brought to people following a military expedition. The spin of those messages always enhanced the standing of the empire in the eyes of the citizens. But these military messages, though “good news” for the ruling political and economic class, were not “good news” for “all people;” for most people it meant that their repression would continue through the empire’s controlling governance. The angelic message of “great joy to all people” was an astonishing contrast. The inclusivity of the angel’s message threatened empire’s boundaries and control. It still does.
• “Glory to God in the highest heaven…” —Here the political and economic charge increases exponentially. The Caesar in Rome at the time had just taken for himself the title “Augustus,” or “the Greatest.” He and his successors claimed divine authority, even the attribute of deity. But a heaven full of angels sang joyfully of a greater reality. Through performance art they joyfully dismissed the claims of “caesars” to divine authority, directing us, instead, to “God of the highest heaven!” No protest song could be any grander in what is denounced or announced! Can we really imagine what feelings would be released in those moments? Feelings pressed down into the lowest layers of the gut by a lifetime of intimidation by ruling class domination broke out. What a moment of spiritual, economic, and political conversion to hear a great chorus of artists sing glory to the God of the highest heavens instead of national anthems and glory to nation, empire, or emperor!
• “… and on earth peace to all of good will.” —Quickly these lyrics shrink the vaunted Pax Romana down to size, countering the cherished notion of empires that “peace through strength” is the best policy. The angels turn 180 degrees from imperial policy and sing unequivocally of peace established through good will. Furthermore, peace through good includes foreigners and all on the other side of empire’s borders. Political and economic structures in this newly announced peace are generated by the great human capacity for good will. Empire, by contrast, repeatedly pits individuals and groups against one another in competition, fighting for scarce resources and opportunities.

Again this Christmas we can sing the “Glorias” and the angels lyrics of peace. But we must not miss that we are singing a protest song. We are protesting the economic and governing powers that dominate in the world. We are protesting their continued practices of peace through force, strength, economic might, and domination. Instead, we want actions based on human good will—even though it receives only a fraction of the money and energy given to the military-industrial-prison complex.

Whatever the political and economics conversations of the shepherds were before, the angels gave them a lesson in politics and economics that the empire would have squelched if they could have. Likewise today, any telling of the Christmas Story that misses these dramatic words of contrast to empire guts the Story, surrendering it to the empire and its economic and political powers. How we tell the story and sing the songs matters.

Comments

[Galen]

So, are you telling me that the chorus of angels didn't belong to James Dobson or Pat Robertson or the Pope to use as a money making device and to control the masses??? Things sure got screwed up along the way. Was it the messengers fault? I'm impressed, you spoke of Carl Sagan without using "billions and billions" a single time. Now, that combination of science, mystery, and spirit-That's something I can sink my teeth into! As for that protest song, could it be that the angels were singing "We Shall Overcome"? WOW! I just had a memory of your sermon on "O Little TOwn of Bethlehem"! That was 20 years ago! "And in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light". Dan Fogelberg wrote, "there's a light in the depth of your darkness...let it shine!" The new Disney movie has a song "I See The Light". It is a vision of stunning beauty and love. "At last I see the light...and it's like the sky is new...and the world has somehow shifted...now that I see you."