I write this reflection days away from the 2024 election of the 47th US President, an election described by all the pundits as “too close to call.” By the time you are reading this reflection, the results will be known and the world will be adjusting: nations will be directing their policies to relate well to the new President-elect, international economies will be focused in new ways. Everybody will hope that the change of governance in the most powerful democracy on earth will make for peace.
And peace is sorely needed. The hearts of people all over the world ache for the people living in the land of Jesus, who live in distressing, constant strife, whether they are Palestinian or Jewish. The world fears the enlargement of that conflict by the involvement of larger nations sympathetic to either side; we are all concerned also that the tragic war between the Ukraine and Russia could blow out to involve a new east-west conflict. Even the earth itself is in distress, as the enormously destructive floods, causing huge loss of human life and damage to livelihoods in south-eastern Spain, remind us.
We Christians make this world as much as anybody else does. At the same time we yearn for peace in it as much as anybody else does. We have this advantage – we believe that we work for peace in this world not on our own strength only but with the enduring, creative love of God who promises peace through his Son, Jesus, whose birth we celebrate at this season.
At Christmas, the church chooses some of the most consoling and encouraging texts from the Scriptures to affirm that God’s energising presence is among us. At the Mass at night, the Gospel speaks to the themes mentioned above but, of course, in the terms of its own time. We see movement from the grand political stage to the personal and domestic, from the ruling empire of the ancient world around the Mediterranean Sea, to a young couple facing the birth of a child for the first time.
Two sons of noble descent are named, to symbolise these two contrasting contexts. One is Caesar Augustus, the adopted son of the first Roman Emperor, Julius Caesar. Everything about him bristles with all-conquering political and military dominating power, ruling from the great city, Rome. From his adoptive father, Caesar, he inherited the title “Saviour”, which was also used among the Greeks and Romans for philosophers, statesmen, rulers and gods.
“Jesus will save by being born as completely frail and vulnerable as a newborn baby.”
The other son named is the child to be born to Joseph and Mary from Nazareth, a hamlet in rural Galilee, a nowhere place on the edge of the Roman Empire. This son, however, has royal lineage: he is “of the house and family of David,” anointed as God’s choice to be king of Israel. For this reason he is called Christ, which means “Messiah”, the anointed one of God. But, born during the reign of Augustus, he also is called in our Gospel today “Saviour” – surely a strong challenge to rulership in that world.
How does Jesus save? The very next verse in the Gospel hints at it. Jesus will not save his people by military force or political contest. Jesus will save by being born as completely frail and vulnerable as a newborn baby. In Jesus, God comes into our world and shows us how to live peace and wellbeing into it. We do this by being fully human among our fellow humans, living truthfully without lies or injustice, working to protect the weak, to feed the hungry, to welcome the stranger. As the letter of Titus says, we will live “temperately, justly, and devoutly”.
The prophet Isaiah, from whom we hear the first reading, speaks in his beautiful poetry of the light-hearted rejoicing of people from whose shoulders great burdens have been lifted. After all the gear of battle has been burned up we have a new hope: a child is born. A new-born child moves us to wonder and joy at the marvel of birth itself and at the sense of new life, with its fresh possibilities for good, for a new start for a family, a clan, a nation.
In Jesus, God lived Godself into this condition of being born, of growing and living into mature, gracious and holy personhood. Against a weary cynicism we can feel about the world and about our personal situations, our relationships, Christmas offers us the chance of a new start.
This is a start that God has set going by coming into this world, living it with and among us. We should all fairly shout – or better, sing – the response to the Psalm on this night: “Today is born our Saviour, Christ the Lord.”
Dr Michele Connolly is an Associate Professor and lecturer in New Testament studies at the Catholic Institute of Sydney.
This article was originally published in the 2024 Advent & Christmas | Summer edition of the Catholic Outlook Magazine. You can read the digital version here or pick up a copy in your local parish.
