Luke 2:2:1-20
The Revised Common Lectionary presents several options for readings surrounding the Vigil of Christmas (Christmas Eve) and the principal celebration on Christmas Day. Of these, the assignments are a composite of the readings that existed – historically – in a larger slate of liturgies leading up to Christmas Day. “Set I” is appropriate for Christmas Eve at earlier liturgies; “Set II” for late Christmas Eve liturgies (midnight mass). “Set III” is appropriate for Christmas Day.
For many, the evening Christmas Vigil mass (Christmas Eve) will be one that will be “family friendly.” Pastoral care must be taken to balance the reality that – for many – this is the only Christmas liturgy they will attend. At the same time, the story of the nativity is not a marketing effort to any specific age group. Gifted pastors will be able to balance both of these: fidelity to the “occasional” assembly gathered on Christmas Eve with fidelity to historic liturgical form. It is no easy task. Because Luke is assigned for both the Vigil (early) mass and the later Vigil Mass on Christmas Eve, we will address Luke below.
Of all the readings in the Holy Scriptures, it is perhaps the Christmas Eve readings from Luke that lose something in modern translation. Yes, modern translations are more accurate, but the story still sounds better in King James’ English. A “big day” demands “big language,” and – though one may not use the 1611 translation - this might be an entrance point for preachers: why do we yearn for grand sensory speech to speak of God? How is the Word (Jesus himself) spoken of? Clearly the 1611 King James Version of the scriptures is not more or less capable of conveying the Word than the New Revised Standard Version, but there is something in us that – at Christmas – reaches toward God's majesty. Preachers should explore this aspect of the “words” rather than the sentimentality of one translation or another. Why do we want Christmas to be grand (the formality of Shakespearian speech?) while at the same time holding that the story's details are – in fact – not grand at all, but rather very much exhibits the theologia crucis?
Luke presents – on Christmas Eve – the nuts and bolts of what is going on in the Christmas story. He speaks with specificity about how exactly the incarnation came about. John (for tomorrow) tells us what it means. Both are required to make meaning of this great miracle that has come to visit us.
"Scribes making copies of Luke’s Gospel are scribes who – as it happens – sometimes (like people in generally) get sleepy. It’s dark and it’s the first century and it’s an easy mistake for a scribe to get Quirinius and Quintilius mixed up."
This year, preachers may wish to explore a specific strain of Luke’s thinking that – unless one is a biblical scholar – goes almost unnoticed. Namely, Luke’s convergence of rulers at the start of tonight’s pericope is…wrong. Based upon historical records of the time, there was never a time when all the rulers that Luke lists were governing at the same time. For example: Sulpicius Quirinius – the Quirinius in question - was never governor of Syria at the same time as Herod the Great, if in fact the Herod referenced in Luke’s Gospel is Herod the Great and not his son, Herod Archaleus, who was essentially a useless toady for Rome. Records of a “census” taken at the time exist, but not a census of the whole Roman world (which in fact never happened in the entirety of Rome’s history). Local censuses are a different matter, and we know that these did occur; there are even records of them taking place in the window within which Jesus’ birth probably took place. Confused yet? It is possible that Luke is referencing a much narrower census under another Roman governor of Syria who did overlap with Herod: Quintilius Varus. Not Quirinius, Quintilius.
Scribes making copies of Luke’s Gospel are scribes who – as it happens – sometimes (like people in generally) get sleepy. It’s dark and it’s the first century and it’s an easy mistake for a scribe to get Quirinius and Quintilius mixed up. They both start with Q, they both were governors, they both served in the same place, they both sound like the stuff you mix with gin right before you add the lime.
The problem is that Luke – almost everywhere else – is a top-notch historian of the ancient world. In almost every other part of his Gospel, Luke has bent over backwards to make sure that what he puts on the page is exactly what happened; that everything squares historically and theologically, and that he has done his homework and then some. Maybe a scribe screwed up, but maybe – and more likely – Luke wrote exactly what he meant.
Why?
Perhaps what Luke is trying to tell us is that for all our learning, all our thinking and doing and advancement as societies and our supposed acquisition of knowledge: maybe what really doesn’t make sense is…us? Maybe Luke sets this story in a world that doesn’t square as a commentary on a world that doesn’t square now. The virgin birth might be hard for some to believe, but is it any harder than figuring out why – again – human beings massacre each other in wars? Why our addictions to greed and money and fear and power have empires teetering on the edge of collapse? Why pandemics happen? Or climate change? Or human despair? Or a society addicted to guns? On and on and on. You think Luke’s world doesn’t make sense? Look around!
Might it just be that Luke announces the incarnation of the Savior into a world that doesn’t make sense because the world does not, in fact, make sense? Might Luke have done this intentionally because our stories often times do not make sense? An astute reading of Luke rather than a cynical one has to admit that what this story proposes – about God and about us – is more realistic than a still-elusive answer for human suffering. Maybe, what Luke is telling us is that there is hope – in worlds that don’t make sense – for alternative ways of living and understanding mystery, ways that call us to goodness and forgiveness rather than bitterness or anger or sitting – forever – among the rubble of our own broken stories that hurt too much for us even to name. Maybe, what Luke is telling us is that into a world that doesn’t make sense, God gently comes into focus anyway, in spite of – or in opposition to – the way that a “rational” story is told or among details that "make sense." This is the Good News: in spite of things we do not understand – and mistakes and suffering – God comes in Christ Jesus to save.
THE REV. DR. PATRICK H. SHEBECK is the Senior Pastor at St. Paul-Reformation Lutheran Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. He graduated from St. Olaf College with degrees in Liturgics and History, and received his MDiv. at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (LSTC), doing additional work at Trinity Seminary, Columbus Ohio, and Cambridge University in England. Pastor Shebeck holds the Doctor of Ministry in Liturgical Theology from the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago where he studied under Ed Foley. Pr. Shebeck is a Fellow of the Collegeville Institute at St. John's University, and also a fellow of the John Templeton Foundation's project on Science and Homiletics; he also serves on the Board of Directors of the ELCA Deaconess Community and the Board of Trustees of the Seminar on Lutheran Liturgy.
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