Who’s in Charge Here?
| Luke 2:1-14 (15-20)
Special Christmas Eve Installment
The world says peace comes through control. God says peace shows up in a child no one made room for.
Luke begins the Christmas story by telling us who is in charge: “In those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered” (v. 1).
That is not the start to a fairy tale or your typical bedtime story.
It’s not “once upon a time,” or “gather around children, for a story about a sweet baby, his mother and a donkey,” or “in those days, the halls were decked, and everyone was feeling merry and bright.”
Instead, Luke begins with the emperor. Specifically, Emperor Caesar Augustus. And a specific event and location within a specific empire.
Luke wants us to know from the very beginning that the birth of Jesus happens in a world where power has names, offices, titles, armies, borders, tax policies and paperwork. Power in this world has a chain of command. It has a way of making ordinary people stop what they are doing, upend their lives, and go where they are told.
That is what the emperor’s...
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