God With Us
God Becomes One of Us
John 1:1-14
Rev. Tim Callow
Preached Sun. Dec. 24th, 2024
“In those days,” Luke’s gospel tells us, “a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.” The registration required that everyone go to their ancestral towns. Joseph, being of the house of David, returned to the town of David. That is, Bethlehem. But the little town of Bethlehem was packed with people who had come to be registered. That left no room for the couple, even though Mary was about to give birth. They went from house to house until finally an entrepreneurial innkeeper offered his barn where the donkeys stayed.
When Joseph paid the innkeeper for his night he likely did so with coins marked with the face of Caesar Augustus himself. Though Augustus would have been well advanced in years by this point, the coins would have portrayed him as a young and handsome man. Written above his profile would have been the latin words “Divi filius” the son of a deity. The son of a divine one. The son of a god.
Augustus was born Octavian, but took on the name Augustus after he assumed leadership of the Roman Republic. At which point the Republic became an empire. His adoptive father was Julius Caesar, who, after his assassination was declared a deity by the senate. So Augustus could literally claim to be the son of a god. He could literally claim to be god-like.
And who was going to tell him otherwise? He was a handsome man who through force and cunning brought peace to the Republic and to the world. He was a man of deep piety and virtue who lived in a relatively small dwelling. Augustus worked tirelessly for the people of Rome. He was courageous, just, temperate, and magnanimous. He was strong. He was glorious. When he entered a room people imagined they were gazing upon a hero. They knew they were in the presence of someone divine.
Augustus was a man who tried to make himself like the Roman gods he worshiped. He tried to imitate them in their virtues, their strength, their immortality, their impenetrability. His power was so great he did get people to worship him even when he was alive. But, for all that, Augustus did die. When he died the Roman Senate declared him to be a god as well. But his flesh turned to dust. His bones are all that remain. They lie in a mausoleum in Rome. Bu that mausoleum is not a sacred site, it’s purely of historical and cultural interest. No worshippers come by to pay respects. Only tourists.
You are what you worship. Or, more accurately, you try to become like that which you worship. Augustus worshipped gods of might and glory. Eventually the Roman Senate declared him to be part of their pantheon. Great sages across the ages have worshipped gods of deep tranquility and contemplation. Gods who cannot be bothered by the changes and chances of life, the ravages of time. And so they too seek lives of deep tranquility and equanimity. Others may worship power for its own sake, and seek to gain power. Some worship money, and spend their lives accumulating it even though they don’t know what they’ll ever do with it. But such people are striving to make themselves more like their god. Closer to their god.
Luke’s gospel also tells us there were shepherds in the field keeping watch over their flocks by night. They were not like Augustus. They would never turn heads when they entered a room. Their lives were not glorious, their faces were not handsome. They weren’t the most reputable. They smelled. They lived a hard life, and couldn’t always expect a roof over their heads or food for dinner. It was in the middle of an ordinary cold night that all of the sudden the sky burst overhead with all the glory of heaven. An angel appeared before them with the most extraordinary news, “to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” And if they were to find this child he would not be in a palace wrapped in warm blankets. He would instead be “wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a feeding trough.” Before the angel departed he was joined by a whole army of heaven as the sky grew brighter than the day, and they all proclaimed, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”
As soon as the angel had arrived he was gone. And the shepherds left to Bethlehem to see this child they had been told about. To see the one who was to redeem Israel. To see the messiah, the Christ. To see the one John tells us is the Word become flesh, who dwells among us.
We do not worship a God who dwells in unapproachable light. We do not worship a God blissed out and tuned out. We do not worship a God who waits for us to make ourselves more like him. We worship the baby in the manger. We worship the God who suckled on his mother’s breast. We worship the God who grew up. The God who would grow ill. The God who wept. The God who laughed. The God who died. The God who conquered death. The God who joins himself to every element of human experience. The God who calls us. The God who gives us the power to be called children of God. That we may be born, “who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.”
We strive to become the gods we worship. We strive to be more than human. To escape our vulnerabilities, our weaknesses, our dependence on one another. But God chose to make himself known to us by becoming one of us. That is how God understands himself. As the babe in the manger, because there was no room in the inn. Who does not conquer with great glory, but suffers meekly.
In his weakness we find strength. In his death, life. In his forgiveness, grace.
Let us become, then, what we worship. The merciful one. The grace-filled one. The sacrificing one. The joyful one. The light. The life of men.