December 18, 2011

Birth Announcement:

Why is This Good News?

Luke 1:26-38

 

A young mother held her almost four-year-old son on her lap and told him he was going to have a new baby brother soon. She explained that he could hold the baby’s bottle, bring a clean diaper when needed, and push the baby carriage. He finally got off her lap, stood in front of her and very seriously said, “And what are you going to be doing while I do all the work?”

For most people, the announcement of a new baby is good news. Even if the baby arrives unexpectedly or in unusual if not unwanted circumstances, most babies are welcomed into this world with open arms. The announcement that Joseph and Mary were going to have a baby was certainly an unusual event as it is reported in Luke’s Gospel. You know your baby might be important some day if an angel shows up to give the birth announcement!

What the angel Gabriel said about the baby in Mary’s womb is, in my mind, the most interesting part of this story. Gabriel says, “He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Gabriel is announcing the birth of the long-awaited Jewish Messiah. That was really good news! Their understanding of the role of the Messiah, however, was different than ours. They believed he would be a literal king, and that he would reestablish the throne of David, the most popular king in Israel’s history.

He would not be like King Herod, who was nothing more than a “puppet king,” a vassal to the Roman Empire. The Messiah would be a real king, with a real kingdom. This understanding of the Messiah changed, of course, after Jesus’ death. Out of necessity the early Christians spiritualized his kingdom. His kingdom could no longer be considered a political and geographical entity. His kingdom is not about ruling land. It is about ruling lives. And Gabriel said that of his kingdom there will be no end. How do we wrap our minds around that? What could that possibly mean?

There are two ways a kingdom can conceivably exist without end, which has never happened of course. The first way to exist without end is to be economically and militarily superior, to build an empire, to be the world’s “superpower.” I did a little research on empires this week and discovered that at the height of the British Empire in the early 20^th century, 22% of the earth’s land was under British rule. Even more remarkable, at the height of the Persian Empire in the fifth century B.C., 44.5% of the earth’s people were under Persian rule. Both the British and the Persians (now known as the Iranians) continue to exist, but they are no longer the economic and military superpower of the world. That would be us.

But from what I’ve read, the United States of America, the world’s superpower since World War II, is on a downward trajectory. One article I read claimed that our status as the world’s superpower “will be tattered and fading by 2025 … and could be history by 2030.” Even superpowers have an end. This makes Gabriel’s (or Luke’s) claim that “of (Jesus’) kingdom there will be no end” all the more intriguing. Are we really supposed to believe that?

In my humble opinion, the reason superpowers always have an end is because they are propped up by violence. Violence is competitive in nature and therefore there will always be someone seeking to destroy you. Let me use a sports analogy. Because the Green Bay Packers are the superpower of the NFL right now, don’t you think that every other NFL team would love to beat them? Eventually they will no longer be the NFL’s superpower. Eventually, although God is surely on his side, Tim Tebow and the Denver Broncos will lose a game. I say that with complete sarcasm by the way.

Likewise, because the United States of America is the superpower of the world’s nations right now, don’t you think that there are a lot of people out there wanting to bring us down? And because terrorism is the only method that can work against a vastly superior military power, terrorism will continue. If your power is propped up by violence, then someone who is competing against you will eventually overtake you. Such is, or will be, the fate of all political and geographical kingdoms, empires, or superpowers, including us.

The second way a kingdom or superpower could conceivably have no end is if it is propped up by peace rather than violence. The superpower of God—what Jesus calls the kingdom of God—is authentic only when it is propped up by peace. Peace is the primary characteristic of the biblical notion of the kingdom of God. Biblical scholars refer to the “Peaceable Kingdom,” which they say is inferred from the books of Isaiah and Micah and Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. For example, listen to the well-known words from Isaiah 11:6-9:

 

The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hold of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.

 

In contrast to violence, peace is non-competitive in nature. “The wolf shall live with the lamb,” is an image of non-competitive peace. No one is trying to hurt or destroy anything. Power that is propped up by peace cannot be defeated because it is not in competition with anything else. If the biblical view of the Peaceable Kingdom is true, then peace will be the only thing left standing after violence has run its course in human history. Like cockroaches after a nuclear war, peace will never be eradicated! It is a kingdom of which there will be no end.

This is the kind of kingdom Gabriel is linking with his birth announcement. Jesus became the Prince of Peace, a prophet of peace. He is not the only prophet of peace in the history of humanity, and the religion that bears his name, Christianity, has not always brought peace to the world. But Jesus has made a very important contribution to the human vision of a peaceful world.

Now, you may be thinking, what peace? Two-thousand years after Jesus, isn’t the world more violent today than ever before? Hasn’t the biblical vision of a Peaceable Kingdom failed? The answer may be “no.” Harvard psychology professor, Steven Pinker, argues that “today we are probably living in the most peaceful moment of our species’ time on earth.” Really? I was skeptical at first, but then I read on.

As evidence for this he notes that in 16^th century Paris, a popular form of entertainment was cat-burning, in which a cat was hoisted in a sling on a stage and slowly lowered into a fire. According to the historian Norman Davis, “The spectators, including kings and queens, shrieked with laughter as the animals, howling with pain, were singed, roasted, and finally carbonized.” Dr. Pinker concludes, “Today, such sadism would be unthinkable in most of the world.”

There are many things people used to do that were acceptable in the past, but are no longer acceptable to most people. Pinker lists cruelty as entertainment, human sacrifice to indulge superstition, slavery as a labor-saving device, conquest as the mission statement of government, genocide as a means of acquiring real estate, torture and mutilation as routine punishment, the death penalty for misdemeanors and differences of opinion, assassination as the mechanism of political succession, rape as the spoils of war, pogroms as outlets for frustration, and homicide as the major form of conflict resolution. Pinker says that today these kinds of activities “are rare to nonexistent.” We are becoming more peaceful and less violent. The reason why so many of us think we are more violent than ever before is because television and the internet make us more aware when bad things happen.

But the truth is that the percentage of people who die a violent death has been diminishing for a long time, even during the bloody 20^th century. Pinker says, “If the wars of the 20^th century had killed the same proportion of the population that die in the wars of a typical tribal society, there would have been two billion deaths, not 100 million.” I could go on and on with the evidence he presents, but assuming he is right, that we are less violent and more peaceful today than ever before, how do we explain it? Pinker gives four answers, but I will add a fifth.

 

1. We are less violent today because of laws and the ability to enforce laws. Despite the unnecessary violence sometimes created by militaries and police forces, they act overall as a deterrent to violence, Pinker argues. Remember the “Wild West” in American lore? Violence was a big problem until the arrival of the peace officers.

 

1. We are less violent today because modern medical technology has given us longer life spans and thus we place a higher value on life.

 

1. We are less violent today because the global economy has created a scenario where we want to cooperate with others rather than fight with them.

 

1. We are less violent today because modern communication technology like television and the internet has created more empathy in us. We know more about other people and cultures, and when you put a human face on others you are less likely to want to kill them.

 

1. To these reasons, I would add a fifth: We are less violent today because of the birth of Jesus.

 

I believe there is more awareness of Jesus and his vision of a Peaceable Kingdom than ever before, a vision he shared with the prophetic tradition of his faith. This awareness began with the accessibility of the Bible through the invention of the printing press, and increased literacy and education. This awareness is growing exponentially today because of the internet.

So in addition to the reasons Dr. Pinker gave, the Jesus tradition continues to help chip away at the human lust for violence. The truth is that we seek peace today like never before. Peace might be our future. And in very important ways that future is linked with a moment in our past when a baby’s birth was announced and a superpower, propped up by peace, became flesh and blood. May his kingdom know no end. Amen.