When the story of the birth of Jesus was read for the first time to an audience, it was probably much like what it looks like today when a family reads the Christmas story in a living room, everyone gathered around and listening.
The gospel of Luke was written sometime in the late first century, so it was a creative recap of an event that took place at least sixty years before. We really don't have many clues showing us what really happened leading up to the birth of Jesus, so we have to rely on the creative imagination of the gospel writers to tell us what it may have looked like. Not only that, but we need to be able to see who it was written to, and why it was written in the way it was written.
And, there are some similarities between the audience that heard the gospel of Luke for the first time, and the audience in America in 2014.
For Luke's original hearers (I don't feel like I need to say this, but Bibles weren't in circulation at this time. It's probably true that most people in the audience couldn't read or write, so the story would've been presented orally), they would've been listening to this story with the ears of good Jewish followers.
What did it mean to be a good Jewish follower?
It meant you memorized the Torah.
It meant you knew all the laws required in the Torah.
It meant you believed that there was a prophetic reality of a divine deliverance from the hands of your enemies.
It meant you believed that deliverance would most likely happen in your lifetime.
It meant that Rome (or, the oppressive government authorities) would be divinely destroyed in order to save your people.
The word justice would've meant something dear to your heart.
But, in your context, justice would've looked like retributive justice (or, our God's gonna take revenge for everything you've been doing to us, and we're gonna help God seek this out).
We don't know if this is the exact context when the story actually happened, but this is the context of when it was first written (again, there was approximately a 60-70 year gap between the birth of Jesus and when it was actually written by Luke and heard by his followers).
The relationship between civil authorities and the Jewish people is like a pressure cooker. There is an obvious, building tension going on. The Roman authorities are wondering when and how the Jews are gonna revolt, and the Jews are wondering when their God is going to smite the Roman authorities.
Are there any similarities between how this story may have been heard then, and how this story may be heard today?
Lets see . . .
In the last few months alone:
Eric Garner, Staten Island, New York, July 17th - suffocated by police officers
John Crawford, Beavercreek, Ohio, August 5th - shot and killed by police officers for carrying a BB gun inside the same Wal-Mart he purchased it at.
Ezell Ford, Los Angeles, California, August 11th - shot in the back and killed by police officer while laying face down on the ground.
Dante Parker, Victorville, California, August 12th - tased to death by police officers after fleeing unarmed on a bicycle.
Liu Wenjin (police officer), December 20th - shot and killed in New York by a gunman enraged by the Michael Brown incident.
Raphael Ramos (police officer), December 20th - shot and killed in New York by the above gunman.
The tension today is much like the tension back then. It's a pressure cooker. The protests are increasing, and words like anarchy are starting to make their way through the radio waves.
And so, if the contexts were similar, what was the solution?
The Jews felt like God was going to avenge the Romans. That was their idea of justice, which was retributive.
There is a growing consciousness in America of this same idea of justice - that the civil authorities are gonna "get what's coming to them." When a conscious like this grows, you have repeated incidents of brutal violence between authorities and civilians that are branching out of the said growing consciousness.
And so, for the Jews hearing this story for the first time, they would've heard it as their pep rally, getting ready to help God avenge their oppressors.
I believe in a God of justice, but it's a restorative justice. Our version of justice is normally retributive, meaning we punish those who offend, abuse, or oppress us. This version isn't the version that Jesus ended up representing when he showed the world what this God was like - the God the Jews believed in.
Their hopes were turned upside down. They wanted vengeance against Rome, but Jesus dared to show them that their God was about forgiving their enemies and changing their hearts and minds.
You see, when we hear phrases like I just want to see justice or justice prevails, there's this real thing going on inside the human heart. It's this desire to see the good side win and the bad side go down in flames. This feeling is very normal, but it's also something that strikes us down to the core, almost as if it's wrapped up in a spiritual tension - like when we want to see justice, we connect to something divine.
And we, much like the Jews of old, want to see justice our way.
What the birth of Jesus means to America in 2014 is this:
Justice in God's world looks restorative.
Justice in God's world looks like nonviolent resistance.
Justice in God's world looks like surrendering the ideas that used to drive us, like seeking revenge and revolting.
Justice in God's world looks like creating ways to bless the enemy so that we can be free of the rage that easily sweeps us away and drives us into isolation.
Justice in God's world looks like focusing on how we can love better and not on how we can be treated better.
When humans start feeling the sense that something's just not right, we start aligning with the heartbeat of this God. We start getting the sense that there's something bigger going on here. We get the sense that we have a part to play, a part that is much more important than we once thought.
And so, as we hear the Christmas story, some of us for the first time, may we remember that - just like the first hearers - our philosophies may be in line for some overhauls when it comes to justice. May we remember that we have a God who loved us in our worst moments so that we can love others in their worst.
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