Guest Post by Stephan Bauman
The night was anything but silent.
“In the days of Herod…” So begins the story of Jesus according to Luke. Herod became King of Judea through a massacre. During his reign, He murdered his wife and his wife’s mother. He slaughtered infants in Bethlehem. At his death, He decrees a hippodrome full of prominent citizens must also die.
Caesar Augustus, Herod’s boss and emperor of Rome, was a tyrant too. Along well-traveled roads, lawbreakers and dissidents were regularly crucified. Innocent people were constantly oppressed. Young girls were enslaved for taxes unpaid.
These events were all too common during a period called Pax Romana, or “Roman Peace,” initiated by Augustus, the adopted son of Julius Caesar, the first emperor “god of the Roman State” making Augustus, the “son of god.”
Amidst this historical context, what do we hear?
Singing.
Mary sings, “He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble.”
Zechariah sings: “He has come to his people and redeemed them..from our enemies and from the land of all who hate us…”
And a chorus of angels sing “…peace on earth.”
Three songs, each revolutionary–each a cry of suffering and song of deliverance. Mary? She could have been enslaved for her seditious lyrics. Zachariah? Executed for his. The chorus of angels declaring “peace” during the high tide of Pax Romana? Treason. Gabriel, proclaiming the birth of the Son of God to Augustus, the son of god? A coup d’état, punishable by death.
Into a world saturated with pain and injustice, a light dawns. An unlikely pair: a peasant mother and trembling father. An improbable hero: a defenseless child from the periphery. And, an impossible plan: a life of sacrificial love to overcome a world of violent suffering.
Unto us, a child is born.
