The birth of John the Baptist puts a different spin on the birth of Jesus. We get to see the birth and life of Jesus through the eyes of relatives who were going through the same odd happenings that had surrounded Mary and Joseph. Zechariah and Elizabeth are the proud parent's of John, who would later be called The Baptist, new parents who are allowed to see into the future and understand that there was hope, a great hope coming to the world. Zechariah’s song reminds us that the backdrop of all this hope is perilous times. The world is sinking in chaos and sin.
It doesn’t help that we are so familiar with the events of the Christmas story. Our familiarity is both a blessing and a bane. It is a blessing that we know about the historical event that took place 2000 years ago and that we appreciate its significance. It is a lovely story that we never tire of hearing. But that is also our failing. I’m not going to borrow from that tired old adage that says “familiarity breeds contempt" but I will say that our familiarity with the story has made us lose its reality and its drama. We have taken the story of the Christ child, held it before us, and said: “Oh, isn’t it beautiful.” We coddled and sentimentalized the story. When we read the story we are too often projected into a world that was more rosier than ours, where miracles were still possible and God was more active and hope made more sense and evil was stoppable and reality wasn’t quite so harsh.
The Christmas story sometimes creates a little of the feeling of Wizard of Oz. When Dorothy and her dog Toto have been transported by a tornado into the land of Oz, you’ll recall that Dorothy looks around at her Mother Goose surroundings: the little Munchkins, the good fairy, the yellow brick road. Then she turns to her dog and says what has to be the understatement of the years “Toto, I have the feeling that we are no longer in Kansas.”
Perhaps its the same way for us. Mentally at this time of the year we put ourselves in the land of Christmas. The days of Caesar Augustus, Herod the King, angels, Quirernus of Syria, romantic astrologers, idealistic shepherds, all in all a nice noble place to annually visit. In doing so we don’t see much resemblance between that kind of world and the kind of 21st century world that we have to contend with every day.
The fact is, however, that with just a little bit of probing you’ll discover that our impressions are not true. The Bible sets the story at the time of the first tax registration in the final days of Herod the King. Miserable years they were. Herod was fast losing his grip, his grip on his work, his health, his sanity and increasingly on Judea. This was putting him out of favor with his superior, Caesar Augustus. This bode nothing but ill for Israel. Without question, there would shortly be Roman soldiers within their midst for the first time in decades. That was Caesar’s style. When things were going well he allowed a lot of latitude, but when problems developed he came down with the hammer. The hammer this time was the tax and the tax registration business was not business as usual. This was a frightening first. And the Jews, both economically and religiously, hated taxes.
There was bound to be disruption and political unrest. Perhaps most depressing of all was the leadership waiting in the wings to snatch control when sickly old Herod died. There wasn’t a decent one in the crowd. They all were crooks. There was bound to be trouble.
In short, the story takes place in a time when it was difficult to be optimistic. Israel was facing national instability, a shrinking standard of living, infringement on personal freedoms, a rise in radical groups and a very uncertain future. It was anything but a never, never land of trust and devotion.
Recognizing the time and distance that separates us from the Christmas story, one writer several years ago rewrote the story as though it were happening today. Perhaps this will help us to identify with the events that took place so long ago. It goes like this:
It was in the last days when Bush was President and Sadaam Hussein had been overthrown in Iraq and the world economy was in recovery after 9-11 but many things were in doubt. It was a year in which terrorism had swept the world and garnered the will of free nations to fight it.
So Joseph went up from the town of Youngstown Ohio because there was no longer work. The man Joseph and his wife Mary, who was with child, put all their things into their rusty 1982 Oldsmobile and headed for the mountains of Tennessee. There Joseph had a cousin who headed up a Federal retraining program and he hoped to find work. The heater in the car did not work, the shock absorbers were busted and Mary was very uncomfortable. So it was late in the night, while driving through Eastern Kentucky, that she started into labor. They had no insurance and the local hospital sent them on to the next community.
They soon stopped at a truck stop where they were allowed one of the truckers overnight sleepers. It was there that she gave birth, assisted by Floe the waitress downstairs, just off duty who was coming down with a bad head cold. They wrapped the child in motel towels, which they wondered if it was right to keep, having the truck stop emblem on it an all, and there they laid him in a drawer in the cabinet. And they asked themselves, “What now?” They asked themselves what all couples ask themselves in such times: “What does it all mean?”
What will this mean for us? How shall we have hope when things like this are happening in the world? Pondering these things in their hearts, they waited for morning.”
If this story helps us to put things into a more realistic perspective then it serves a purpose. For if we miss the realism of the Christmas story, if we are never able to take it out of the context of a nursery story then the living Lord will never break through to us. For what the story is really saying to us is that in the midst of all this poverty and misery and injustice and pessimistic attitude--there is hope.
They found that hard to believe back in the days of Herod and I don’t Wonder if we do today. Most people were too busy listening to the tramp of soldiers marching or the haggling in the market place to hear the small cry of a baby or choirs of angles singing.
Everyone in this room is pessimistic and realistic enough to know that things could turn quickly in our world and things could go from improving to misery and ruin. We are also optimistic and realistic enough to believe that things could get better. We could move from improving to robust and thriving. I know any number of persons whose lives are 100% happier and more productive now than they were a few years ago. We Christians are people of hope.
Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, was a person of hope. At the birth he said, “And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way.” And what was he preparing the people for. It was this: Our salvation. He has come to redeem his people. That was Zechariah’s song; it was John’s word. When we are hated by many, he shows mercy. When enemies encircle us, his hand rescues. When our sins have damned us, his righteousness is given to us. When fear is the watch word for our lives, he announces hope.
You are no doubt familiar with the Diary of Ann Frank. It is the portrayal of the agonizing tension of several Jews who were hiding from the Nazis in an attic. At the end of the story the dreaded knock on the door finally comes. The SS men are in the house. Obviously they have been tipped because they know exactly what they are looking for. In a few seconds they were breaking through the door in the attic. As the ax pounds at the door Anne’s father turns and says to his family: For two years now we have lived in fear. Now we live in hope.”
Isn’t that what the Nativity story is all about. It says to us that we have been living in fear long enough. It is now time that we live in hope. Hope is not something to be gotten around to after all fears have been banished and disproven. No, hope is that perspective that keeps us alive and going when we are frightened of what the future may hold. Hope brings us meaning in the midst of chaos and keeps us determined that even in the midst of our suffering there is a divine plan being fulfilled.