The Savior with Nothing at All (translation)
So we finally approach our long-awaited Christmas time! For the four weeks of advent, we've been preparing to remember the birth of the Saviour, and so we've heard sermons from Pastor Takahashi about "The one sign of the saviour", "The four names of the saviour", and "The six spirits of the saviour". Throughout those sermons, we've been able to get a taste of the Jewish people's hopes and ideas about the Messiah.
Particularly, in the "four names of the saviour", both the Jewish people of the time and ourselves now can get an image of what the saviour would be like. A wonderful counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting father, the prince of peace. The Jewish people were expecting a powerful Messiah like that. Obviously he would be a persuasive leader, a strong warrior, a wise political leader. Wouldn't that be a "saviour-like" saviour?
So when Jesus was born in a stable, I don't think that anyone in Israel would have thoguht that he could be the saviour of the world. Could this bastard child of a carpenter and a young girl, born in some nowhere town like Bethlehem really be the saviour of the world?
In verse 7 of this passage, it says "there was no room for them in the inn." And when you read "inn", you think of something like a hotel. In nativity plays around the world, you see that kind of thought coming out: the friendly innkeeper coming out saying "Sorry, we've not vacancies!" But, unfortunately for our children in nativity plays, in the first century Middle East, you didn't have the kind of hotels we have today. The Greek word that's translated as "inn" is "katalouma". It means a guest room. The guest room we've got upstairs in the church is a "katalouma".
In the Middle East, then as now, looking after guests is hugely important. I've experienced this when travelling in North Africa, which has a lot of elements of Middle Eastern culture. Japanese are famous for hospitality, but I'm sorry to say, it's nothing compared to Arab cultures. Even if a complete stranger comes to you, at worst you take him into your home and have a cup of tea and a chat. Usually, you would serve a meal. A lot of families would make one more meal than they need so that if a guest came to the door, they could serve them without being ashamed. And, if necessary, you would give the guest a room for the night. And so, houses had these "kataloumas" or guest rooms.
Recently I've been reading through Judges in my devotions. Judges 19 isn't a very nice chapter but it's got a perfect example of this. A man is going from Bethlehem to Efraim. At Gibea, he says "There's nobody to welcome me into their house." Which means this man has set out on his journey without organising anywhere to stay. Well, why would he? He thought that there would definitely be someone who would welcome the traveller into their house. And then an old man says "Don't worry. I will provide everything you need. Only don't spend the night in the square." This wasn't a particularly nice old man. This was just what you did in that culture.
And so Joseph and Mary, travelling to Bethlehem, thought they didn't need to organise anywhere to stay. They thought that there would definitely be someone who would welcome the traveller into their house. But nobody took them into their katalouma, into their guest room. This is astonishing. Well, OK, we might think, it's the census, and there are a lot of travellers, so it can't be helped.
But hang on, wait a minute. Joseph is not a complete stranger here. In Luke 2:3, it says "Everyone went to his own town to be registered." Bethlehem is Joseph's own town. That's precisely why he's going there! OK, so it's awful that in a culture which puts such an emphasis on hospitality nobody would put them up, but actually, Joseph had absolutely no reason to need to stay in someone stranger's guest room. Bethlehem was were his friends, his relatives, his family lived. And yet, in his own home town, nobody took him into their house.
What the hell is going on here?
I said that the first century Middle East was a hospitality culture, but it was also very much a shame culture. Even today, in Arab-related cultures, shame is an extremely strong concept. I think that shame is the key to interpreting a lot of Bible passages. For instance, in the story of the prodigal son, the prodigal's older brother gets angry. Why does he get angry? Because his father welcomes back a boy who has brought shame on his family by the way he lived. That's unthinkable in the culture. If someone casts shame on the family, then that person is cast out of the family.
Or even killed. Even in England, last July, an Iraqi-background English woman was killed by her own father. The reason she was killed was because she had a boyfriend. We might think that this is atrociously inhumane, but that is the power of a shame culture.
And when Joseph came to Bethlehem, nobody took him into their house.
I think that the reason nobody took Joseph into their house is that he had been cast out of his family. It would have been a great source of shame for his fiancee Mary to bear a child out of marriage. His family, Joseph, Mary, everyone would feel that weight of shame upon them.
I said that Jesus was the long-expected saviour of the world. But in reality, on that first Christmas, nobody in the world wanted that baby to exist.
Well, maybe "nobody" is a bit of an overstatement. There certainly were people who came to welcome the saviour. The first guests were shepherds camping in the fields. "Oh, how cute," we might think, but the job of a shepherd was a thoroughly unpleasant one. The shepherds who came to see Jesus had to camp out on the hills of Israel even in the coldest winter nights. In those days, there were no walls around fields, and so unless you watched over your sheep night and day, you'd lose them. And if you lose a sheep, you can't sell that sheep, and that means you can't eat. So they could not go home at night. In other words, they were dirty, smelly, homeless people. The glad tidings of a saviour, delivered by angels, were first spoken to the homeless.
And after the shepherds came the wise men. In Matthew, it says "wise men from the East". We don't know exactly, but they probably came from Babylonia, modern Iraq. They weren't Jews; they were Gentiles. They weren't Israelites; they were foreigners. Those who came to see Israel's long-expected saviour were homeless people and foreigners.
The Jesus that we Christians worship is not impressive by the world's standards. That's why the Jewish people didn't recognise them as their Messiah! The King of Kings and Lord of Lords came into a shame-filled family as a bastard child. When he came, the only people who welcomed him were tramps and bloody foreigners.
He didn't have anywhere to be born, so he had to borrow somewhere to be born. When he went to sleep, he said "the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." When he gave a sermon, and wanted to give it from a boat, he didn't have a boat, so he had to borrow a boat. When he died under the death penalty of a criminal, he didn't have anywhere to be buried, so he had to borrow somewhere to be buried. God gave up all the power and the riches of heaven, humbled himself, and chose a life of no possessions at all. When he needed something, the Creator God borrowed it from those he created. This is completely different from everyone's image of the saviour. Jesus' power was not a political thing, nor was it an economic or a military thing. It's a paradox, but Jesus' power was in his weakness.
Jesus wasn't a strong warrior. He wasn't a political leader. He was something better than better. He was God. And not some distant God, but someone who shared our life, and who had to overcome shame and culture and a complete lack of possessions. A God who walked the same path as us. A God who understands our pain. Immanuel, God who is with us.
"How then should we live?" According to Phillipians 2, "Each of you should be concerned not only about your own interests, but about the interests of others as well. You should have the same attitude toward one another that Christ Jesus had, who though he existed in the form of God did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking on the form of a slave." God himself, two thousand years ago, gave up everything and became a completely helpless baby. He made himself nothing, and when he was in need, he depended on others or on his Heavenly Father. And precisely because he didn't seek power for himself, he was able to serve others.
When Jesus was arrested, he said "Do you think that I cannot call on my Father, and that he would send me more than twelve legions of angels right now?" But he didn't. If he did that, he would have used his power selfishly. As the Japanese missionary Kosuke Koyama says, "Strength is only strength when it makes the week strong." If you want to keep hold of your own power, then you are unable to help others. If you want to help others, you have to humble yourself.
In order to help this world, God gave up everything, and came into a confused family and confused generation, and did the work of reconciliation between man and God. He had nowhere to be born. He had nowhere to die. He lived a life without possession. He did not seek power for himself, but, obedient to his father, walked a life lived for others. That is the real meaning of Christmas. Let us pray that we can do likewise.