Contemporary Christians are divided between those who see their faith as inseparable from their politics and those who'd prefer to keep the two discrete.
Dear
tiny Jesus, with your golden fleece diapers, with your tiny little
fat balled-up fists … Dear 8 pound 6 ounce newborn infant Jesus,
don’t even know a word yet, just a little infant so cuddly …
So
goes the now infamous grace prayed by aspiring racing legend Ricky
Bobby in the movie Talladega Nights. When his family interrupt to
remind him that Jesus grew up, Ricky Bobby says:
Look,
I like the baby version the best. I like Christmas Jesus best.
My
lowbrow movie tastes aside, this comedic scene makes a powerful
point. Christmas Jesus is easier. Christmas
Jesus is safe. After all, how challenging can the story of a
newborn baby really be? Well, it depends on which story you read.
This
year, millions of Christians around the world will read the opening
of Luke’s Gospel in their Christmas services. Luke chapter 2
contains the fairly well-known classic version of Jesus’s birth:
Mary wraps her infant son in swaddling clothes and lays him in a
manger because there was “no room for them in the guest room”.
Only
two of the four gospels in the New Testament include the story of
Jesus’s birth. And it is Luke’s version of events that has
arguably had the most influence over Western art and music when it
comes to depicting the birth of Jesus. Without Luke, we would not
know the story of the angelic announcement to the unwed Mary that she
would have a son. Without Luke, we wouldn’t have the story of
shepherds visiting the manger or the heavenly host of angels singing.
Angels,
shepherds and a family huddled around an infant seem charming and
make excellent fodder for nativity plays and Christmas
carols. The problem is that in the ancient world the birth of Jesus
was not a safe story nor a domestic one. It was highly political, a
product of a time when religion and politics were inseparable.
“In
those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus…”, Luke
begins, reminding the reader that Jesus’s birth takes place under
Roman Imperial rule in the occupied territory of Judea. Mary, Joseph
and their firstborn are displaced from home precisely because of an
imperial edict requiring them to travel for a census. As Jews living
under Roman rule, they are part of a minority religious group –
ordinary people, at the whim of a powerful authoritarian state, with
fewer rights than a Roman citizen.
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