Manse Office Musings

Paul wrote ‘that when the time was right’ God sent his son into the world. As we approach the story of Christmas, how odd those words sound. As plans go the Christmas story seems utterly chaotic. Sabotage the wedding plans of a young couple, to the point were a wedding doesn’t seem possible. Just as she is ready to give birth they are forced to set off on a long journey at the  end of which there’s not even a decent place to give birth.

If you were to ask just who held power back then there would have been only one answer. Caesar Augustus. He was a self appointed ‘Father of a Country’, a ‘chief priest’, ‘divine’, ‘a Son of God’, a ‘prince of peace’, the ‘exalted one’, ‘Saviour of the world.’ He even developed what he termed his ‘gospel’ for the people – the Good news according to Caesar: ‘Divine Augustus Caesar, son of God, imperator of land and sea, the benefactor and Saviour of the whole world, has brought you peace.’

Augustus’ empire did create the perfect setting for new faith to spread. He built honest government and a sound currency, increased trade and eased communication. He cleared seas and highways of pirates. He smoothed the pathway to take the Gospel into the farthest parts of their known world and provided safe passage for Paul and other missionary journeys. He developed a postal service - which meant that even from a prison cell in Rome, Paul could spread the Gospel.

But the Gospel Paul would spread was not that of Caesar Augustus, but of the child, in the womb of a heavily pregnant teenager that Augustus thought he could just herd into a stable. This Jesus would rightly claim all those titles to which Caesar could only aspire was born in an outhouse of a small village on the edge of empire, simply because Augustus wanted taxes. Augustus could not possibly have foreseen the significance of this birth. Even as Luke was writing, the empire which Caesar Augustus built was crumbling. Yet an angel declared that the increase of the government of that child in Mary’s  womb would never end. And that child would be called the Everlasting Father, our great high priest, the Son of The Most High, the Prince of Peace and Saviour of the World.

That Christmas message brings hope to a world where leaders think they are in control, where they stake great claims for themselves, or seek to ensure a legacy for themselves. This year we have seen a number of such leaders toppled, but at times we may feel more like Mary and Joseph.

Yet like them we too carry a promise. God’s kingdom gestates in the body of Christ’s church. Creation itself waits in expectation for its  fulfilment. And even when it looks black, and the church is tossed about by the powers and circumstances of this world, God is not caught short. God will bring his plans to fruition. Now, as then, his promises will not fail. I pray may catch something of God’s promises this Christmas. Augustus may have called himself a God. His successors may have crucified Jesus Christ. But neither Augustus nor his successors were any match for one who today sits exalted over all the earth. God had no rivals then. He still doesn’t. Grace and Peace