Jesus' Origin Story

Here’s some historical background to Jesus’ birth:

Four hundred years of silence stretches out between the Old and New Testament.  And then this happens.

It was a time when Rome was ruling and the rest of the world was drooling, only Caesar was starting to freak out.  There was unrest in the land and ambitious politicians and others starting vying for control.  (Sound familiar?)

Because the people freaked out even more, in 46 BC the senate gave the popular Julius Caesar full authority to do whatever he wanted.  Big mistake.  The power went to his head, and his lust for control knew no bounds.  Many of his governors felt guilty over the way Caesar turned Rome into an Empire and demanded heavy taxation to fund his aspirations.  But if anyone dared complain, he got rid of the dissenter.

In 44 BC, Cassius led an uprising that resulted in the murder of Caesar by his own Senators.  This netted Cassius the prize - control.  And for the pleasure of his rule, he demanded other leaders give him money as a way to prove their loyalty to him.

Antipater wanted to collect the money through taxation; he divided his land into seven parts; he gave his son, Herod, the region of Galilee. It was a tough region to rule, full of rowdies - maybe like...Texas?  Just kidding Texans, you know I love you!

Anyway, he was a shrewd leader with full blown paranoia.  The guy didn’t take no for an answer.  If he lost trust in someone, he was ruthless in his response.  Herod was part Jew and took his heritage seriously.  He and his family walked a delicate balance of trying to have power and control in a world that demanded he be both good at Roman politics and respectful of his Judaism.  Politically sensitive and culturally aware, he was the home office’s ideal governor.  Eventually they gave him the title of King of Judea, which in essence makes him king of the Jews. 

Rome was in power, but the children of Abraham were rekindling their faith after a long season of exile.  This made Herod nervous.

God does not stop loving us

God’s people, in the Old Testament, had a tendency to live in denial. How does God respond?  First he sets the stage - “I have loved you.”  (Malachi 1:2) 

My husband is not perfect and this bothers him quite a lot I suspect, because he’s the kind of guy who wants to do the next right thing.  And if it’s perfect?  Even better.

It turns out that he’s really quite good at lots of things, including sports.  But he doesn’t want to just be good at sports, he wants to be perfect.  This is a problem when we play tennis together.  It’s really kind of insulting to me, who is neither very good nor prone to perfectionistic dreams on the tennis court.  When he gets frustrated with himself for a serve that isn’t up to his standards but left me standing flat footed on the court AND losing the point too boot, I get fairly irritated at his self-directed grumpies. We’ve mostly worked through this issue.  The resolution had very little to do with tennis and everything to do with love.  He loves me; I love him.  We may falter in our execution of said love, but we have a very firm foundation of mutual conviction that this is true.  It is, I think, a strength we have in our marriage that helps mitigate a lot of our weaker marital skills. 

He loves me; I love him.  We are doing the best we can. So God starts there with the Israelites:  I have loved you.  This foundation must be in place before the second part of God’s response to their demands for an accounting can proceed. After that, Malachi, one of God’s prophets, lays down the truth.  And the truth is, the Israelites had really messed up big time.  It was a difficult conversation, but a necessary one.  When I explained to my husband how I felt when he got frustrated with himself while I struggled to win a game in any given set we played for the last 30 or more years….well, it helped him to hear the truth of that perspective.  This is how hope works.  Not with fantasy living and positive thoughts, but with difficult truths that, although messy, are still grounded in this one true thing.  God loves us.

 In Malachi 4:2 God offers a solution.  “For you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.  You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.”

Sometimes we get what we want, only to find out that it is not what we need.  When that happens, we do well to remember that God is still at work and his plan is still being executed even on those days when we wandered a bit far afield.  Once we remember this, there will be work to do on our part, but it will be done standing on this foundational truth:  God loves us.

Even though we wander, God has loved us

After a long time of hoping and praying for a permanent home, God’s people FINALLY got settled into the Promised Land, only to enter into yet another period of restless discontent.  I so get this.  I have a history of obsessing over home improvement projects.  As soon as one is completed, I immediately move onto the next desired thing.  This has been very disappointing to my husband, who believed me for a long time when I said, “If we do this...I’ll be perfectly content!”  He’s wised up to that line.

The Israelites looked around at their neighbors and found that these countries had kings and they wanted one too.  God wasn’t too keen on the idea, seeing as how he wanted them to turn to him, not some random king.  Eventually, God gave the people what they wanted, but it turned out that the kings brought with them plenty of woe.

Installing a king is no small thing; I imagine it brings with it much the same anxieties that were stirred in our last presidential election.  Even King David, a man after God’s own heart according to the scriptures, had ISSUES.  These issues eventually resulted in a giant time out for God’s chosen ones.  Assyria and Babylon overtake the Promised Land and carry the people off into captivity.  Resources and cities are destroyed; lives were lost and families splintered.  People began to wonder about a God who would allow them to be oppressed. 

And in spite of the fact that this all happened because these people had neither worshipped nor honored God, you know what they did?  They demanded that God give THEM an account of his actions.

Put that way, it sounds kind of….stupid.  But don’t we do this all the time? 

It happens when we choose to marry someone who shows up with so many red flags waving in the wind that it looks like the beach during a hurricane.  But we ignore those red flags and head to the altar to wed in denial-soaked bliss.  Sometimes we end up getting what we want, not what we need and it turns out to be bad news. 

How does God respond?  We catch a glimpse towards the end of the Old Testament, when the Israelites demand a response from God.  Here’s what he says.  “I have loved you.”  (Malachi 1:2) The people of Israel did not FEEL loved; they had no discernment about their situation. 

Tomorrow we will see how God responds to this bunch of people doing the best they can.

Remembering the difference between needs and wants

A little while after God’s people are freed from Egypt, they get stuck wandering around a desert. A journey that theoretically could have taken weeks turns into a decades long desert camp out. People grumbled and complained even as God showed up among them.

One provision was daily rations called manna. This was bread God gave to the Israelites on a daily basis after their provisions ran out. It could not be hoarded because it would spoil immediately after the meal. This was one way God taught his people to trust him for their daily provision.

My friend Jean once gave me a tutorial on breadfruit, which sounds remarkably similar to manna. It’s a tropical fruit, beautiful and plentiful. It has the consistency of bread dough according to Jean, kind of elastic. It’s rather bland, it spoils so quickly that it is best to eat it immediately upon plucking it from the tree, although an internet search did reveal some breadfruit recipes. It’s rich in nutrients and some experts believe that if we planted enough of these trees it could solve the starvation problem in third world tropical countries. Give a family a breadfruit tree and in theory at least - they would have all they need to survive.

I find this such a fascinating parallel to the manna that God fed the Israelites with all those years ago during their desert dwelling. Neither breadfruit nor manna comes in nacho flavor. Dipping dots do not exist made from these substances. No one would prefer to live off of manna or breadfruit.

But I love the idea of this grand provision in humble form. And I wonder. What if we chose to look for the humble provisions of God for us in the days ahead? Maybe we wish all our kids were home for Christmas; if we think about that too much, we may lose the opportunity to feel the joy that the friends and family bring who are with us this holiday season.

Looking for something special under the tree only to be given a vacuum cleaner instead? Hypothetically speaking, if this ever happens to you, I can say with absolute honesty that it’s a great gift, especially if your current vacuum is on its last legs. Mine came in my favorite shade of red. It wasn’t a sexy gift, but it was exactly what I needed. It was breadfruit. And I was grateful for it. When we go looking for God, it helps us actually see things as they really are…..humble, yes, but abundant too.

We can seek God even in the midst of our messy lives

Moses was born during a time of oppression; the Pharaoh was trying to control the Israelite population. Newborn sons were being slaughtered. Moses was saved and adopted by the Pharaoh’s daughter. Convenient for Moses, but still a very difficult time for all those families who were losing their babies.

Exodus 12 tells the story and it is messy. Moses misbehaves and suffers consequences. But he also is chosen by God to save his people from oppression.

Moses was a leader that bore the weight of expectation of the people who fled Egypt and moved toward the Promised Land. The chaos and confusion, the complaining and misbehaving continues as God’s people struggle to trust and follow Him.

If it was true for these folks, why wouldn’t it also be true for us?

Can we challenge each other to look beyond expectations of self and others, assume that we’re all kind of a hot mess, and seek God in our story?

This attitude might change our experience with Christmas.