031 Presence Over Power: The Nativity As God’s Answer To Trauma

Advent isn’t a glossy postcard here; it’s a story told under the stare of a fortress and the echo of marching boots. We open the Nativity in the time of Herod and Rome, where fear, taxes, and crushed revolts shape daily life—and where lament becomes a holy practice of agreeing with God that the world is not as it should be. From Zechariah’s once‑in‑a‑lifetime temple moment to Mary’s dangerous “yes” in Galilee, we follow the threads of personal shame, public pressure, and prophetic hope that converge on a peasant birth with cosmic consequences.

Zechariah hears that John will prepare a people, turning hearts when loyalty is fractured. Mary sings the Magnificat, announcing a great reversal that lifts the humble and disorients the proud. Joseph learns that salvation addresses corporate sin and covenant faithfulness, not just private faults. Shepherds receive a proclamation guarded by a heavenly host—an army announcing peace not enforced by empire, but born in God’s favor. In the temple, Simeon and Anna name the child as light for the Gentiles and glory for Israel, while warning that the path of redemption will pass through suffering.

When Magi honor the newborn king, Herod’s rage explodes, and the family flees as refugees to Egypt. The trauma doesn’t stop after the manger; it molds Jesus’ childhood in Nazareth, surrounded by unrest and stories of revolt. And yet, when he speaks as a man, he refuses the lever of power. Presence, not power, defines his kingdom. Bread for the hungry, healing for the sick, dignity for the lowly—this is how God answers lament. Christmas, then, is God with us in the thick of it, holding our hands through grief while moving history toward renewal.

If this season feels heavy, you’re not outside the story—you’re inside its very heart. Listen, share with someone who needs steady hope, and leave a review to help others find this conversation.

For more nativity episodes, be sure to catch:

• 013 Historical Context of the Nativity: Part 1
• 014 Historical Context of the Nativity: Part 2
• 020 Boy Jesus in Trauma's Shadow (Interview with Joan Taylor)

Chapters

• 0:00 Carrying Lament Into Advent
• 3:30 Reframing The Nativity’s Atmosphere
• 4:54 Why Herod Matters To The Story
• 9:44 Bethlehem’s Wounds And The Herodium
• 12:26 Zechariah’s Shame, Calling, And Hope
• 18:42 Mary’s Call Amid Galilean Unrest
• 23:28 Joseph’s Dream And Corporate Sin
• 27:36 Mary’s Song And The Great Reversal
• 32:48 Zechariah’s Prophecy And Expectations
• 37:06 Census, Birth, And The Heavenly Host
• 41:34 Simeon, Anna, And A Sword For Mary
• 46:04 Magi, Herod’s Rage, And Flight
• 50:44 Egypt, Revolts, And Ongoing Trauma
• 55:26 Jesus’ Childhood In A Violent World

Transcript

Jessica LM Jenkins: 0:49

I don't know where you're at this Christmas Advent season, but for me and my family, it's been a it's been a heavy year. It's been a heavy season, and I'm carrying that with me into the Christmas and Advent season. So that definitely impacts how I am processing Advent and the Nativity stories this year. One concept that's really been on my mind the last couple weeks is the idea of lament. And thinking about lament as agreement with God about the brokenness of the world. It is easy for us to also often assume that the world is just kind of going on the way it's supposed to, that things are generally operating how they should. Sometimes big traumatic things or scary things happen in our personal lives or in the world. And that has us question a little bit like, is the world really how it's supposed to be? But unless we get like a cancer diagnosis or a crime is committed against us or just something kind of big, we often, if we're just in the daily grind of life, think that this is generally how it's supposed to be. But lament is our opportunity to agree with God that the world is broken in big, huge ways and in tiny, minuscule ways. We can lament everything from corrupt governments abusing their people to cancer diagnoses, to the death of a loved one, to unexplained sicknesses that we can't get diagnoses to, even down to things like, man, I was really grumpy with my kids last night. And we can lament all of these things with God because He agrees that these are not the way they should be. This is not what the world was supposed to be when He created it. And so I've been coming into this Christmas season, and I'm sure some of you are as well, with a lot of lament, with a lot of sorrow and heaviness in my heart. But just as lament is our agreement with God about the brokenness of the world, Christmas, the incarnation, is God agreeing with us that something needs to be done about the brokenness of the world. So today we're going to look through the nativity stories, the passages, very, very high level, but we're going to look at them from the perspective of the trauma that Israel and the characters in the text were actively going through and how the birth of Jesus is God's answer to their very real circumstances. I don't know about you, but growing up, I always thought of the Nativity story kind of happening in this peaceful, euphoric atmosphere, you know, silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright. It's just this, you know, oh, holy night, and all of, you know, the Christmas carols give this like twinkling lights and candlelight, which is a really nice feeling atmosphere for us to have today, but it does not match the atmosphere of the ancient world or what the people in our text were actually experiencing. So if you are wanting a more in-depth walkthrough of the historical context of the nativity, I did two episodes on that last year. Just go back a little ways in the podcast. Look for episodes 13 and 14, where I break down all the historical context of the nativity and talk through was Jesus born in a house or a stable or a cave? Um, what is Joseph's career? What is going on with the shepherds? How are they viewed in society? All of those sorts of questions. What was there a midwife? What women are important? All of those things I answered last year in episodes 13 and 14 of the Women of the Bible in context podcast. So go back and check those out. But today I want to look at the historical context geopolitically of the region as well as some of the traumatic personal context of our individual characters to see how God's presentation of Jesus coming to them was good news for them in the midst of their lament and their circumstances. A lot of um this background information comes from Joan Taylor and her book, Boy Jesus. I did an interview with her um a while back on the podcast. Go and listen to episode 20 for that interview. Lots of great information there just about Jesus' whole life and everything. So, but I'm I'm really utilizing her research again for this podcast. So let's just start looking at these passages, some. Luke 1, if we go, we're gonna kind of talk about it chronologically. So it would start with Zechariah in the temple. And Zechariah is there in the temple, but Luke starts in verse 5. It says, in the time of Herod, king of Judah or Judea. We need to talk about Herod really quick, because um, growing up, I I heard of Herod, but I didn't really have context of who Herod was. You hear he's like this horrible king who kills his wife and his sons and all of this stuff. But I I you need to know there's a lot more going on than that. So scholars think Jesus was born sometime between 6 BCE and 3 CE. So sometime in that like nine-year range, Jesus is born. A lot of scholars think around 6 BCE, that's what Joan Taylor thinks. Um, I don't have a strong opinion, just somewhere in that 10-year range. But we do know that in 47 BCE, Herod becomes governor of Galilee. And he is a really um, he's he's a brutal man. He wants power. Um, he becomes governor of Galilee while Julius Caesar is still rooming ruling the Roman Empire. But in 44 BCE, Julius Caesar dies, which means we have a split of the Roman Empire between several warring factions. So instantly um there's war all throughout the Roman world, a lot of instability. Um in 40 BCE, the Parthians usurp rule and Herod uh of Jerusalem and that region. So you have the Parthians come in and they're kind of ruling. Herod flees after he loses a battle to them because he's trying to help Rome to maintain control of these territories. Rome wants to rule the Parthian Empire. Um, and think of that like Iran, Iraq, that region, the Persians. Rome wants to rule them. They want, they're pushing back. Battles are happening. Herod is fighting alongside the Romans against the Parthians, but gets defeated. And so as he's fleeing back past Jerusalem and Bethlehem, the Bethemites who hate Herod and the Roman Empire, they come out to attack Herod as he's fleeing. So as Herod has been defeated by the Parthians, he's running away from them. He runs past Bethlehem, and the Bethemites come out and attack him. They're like, this is our chance. We're gonna get this guy. So they they attack Herod, but Herod manages to just completely slaughter the Bethemite warriors. Um, and this is 40 BCE. He just completely slaughters them. And so you have this traumatic history in Bethlehem, just 35-ish years before Jesus is born, very near memory for a lot of these people. Um, and so Herod massacres the Judean fighters near Bethlehem, a lot of which would have been Bethlehemites. But that same year, he is Rome manages to defeat the Parthians and all of that. And then Herod, who just defeated the people of Judah and Bethlehem, he's then installed as king over this region. And so what he does is he starts building this giant fortress called the Herodian. And these giant um architectural projects take a long time. That project is finished, the Herodian, Herodium, excuse me, the Herodium is finished around 15 BCE. So he slaughters the men of Judah and of Bethlehem at 40. His big project is finished at 15 BCE. Jesus, scholars think, is born sometime around 6 CE. So about 10 years before Jesus is born. The Herodian, the Herodium is finished. Now, this is significant because you can see the Herodium from rooftops in Bethlehem. So for the Bethlehemites who were just slaughtered by Herod, he builds this giant fortress. I mean, you can see it today, and it's the crumbled version, it's the ruins of it. It was much bigger and grander when Herod was ruling. And so the people in Bethlehem can see the Herodium as a visible reminder continually of Herod's rule and the death of their uncles and fathers and brothers. So this is some of the context behind Herod being king. So it says, Luke 1 says, This Herod is king of Judea. Now we miss all that context, but to the original audience of some of these passages, they'd be like, oh. This is all going on when Herod is king. So in the time Herod is king, he also killed the high priest in 35. He becomes king of Judea in 40. In 35, five years later, he kills the high priest. He um kills some wives and sons and other things as well. Um he so he he doesn't care who you are. If he doesn't like you, he's just gonna off with their head. Um it's very queen of hearts from Alice and Wonderland. Off with their head, just everyone. And so he's killing high priests, he's killing anybody who revolts, and there's lots of mini-revolts going on. It's not a time of peace. People do not like Herod. Um, and he has no problem massacring thousands of people at a at one time. Um, and so Herod is king of Judea, and there's a priest named Zachariah. And so Zachariah is an old man. He is of the priestly line, which means he's most likely a Sadducee. Sadducees were often priests, they had more power. Sadducees are more aligned with Rome than, say, the Pharisees, who were more aligned with the common people against Rome. So Zachariah is likely a Sadducee. Most priests were. Um, he's a higher class, more of the ruling class. He has the responsibility of helping to educate Israel of given by the the Torah, the law, to educate Israel in the law of the Lord. Those Sadduce, though the Pharisees did more of that for the common people than the Sadducees did. They were much more focused on the temple and appropriate worship, which just 160 years before Jesus' birth, there was a big Jewish revolt because um Greek and Roman kings were trying to, I believe Greek, were trying to burn pigs in the temple. And so you have Judas Maccabees and all of those revolts because the temple was desecrated. And even in the time of Herod, the Romans were putting up Roman emperor worship symbols. They were trying to put those in and around the temple. And so for the priests, keeping the purity of the temple is supposed to be a central part of their job. And so this is Zachariah. He's right in the middle of this political quagmire of we have to keep Rome happy or they're gonna kill us all. But we also need to keep the temple pure for God. And he's an old man, he's been a priest a long time, and he is getting a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to burn incense inside the actual temple. Um, most people didn't get to go in the actual temple building. They got to go in one of the three or four courtyards of the temple, but they didn't get to go in the actual temple building. Only certain people did for certain reasons. And Zachariah was chosen by Lot to get to burn incense in the temple. This is like a once-in-a-lifetime moment. There were lots of priests who never got this chance. So he gets to go into the temple. But it also says that he and his wife, Elizabeth, are childless. So there's this push-pull immediately in the text of Zach of Zachariah as a high-status man. He gets this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but he and his wife are childless. And that in and of itself carries a lot of shame. Um, in the ancient world, they believed that if your child is born blind or you can't get pregnant, that you have some sin in your life that God is punishing you for. Now, Luke tells us that Zachariah was a righteous man. We know that from the text, but the scuttle butt around where they live is gonna be wondering why would Zachariah and Elizabeth be old and not able to have children? And they are righteous people. We even see that in the fact that Zachariah never divorced Elizabeth. Um, many at this time, many rabbinic laws allowed you to divorce your wife for displeasing you, depending on um the tr the interpretation your school of thought followed. She displeasing could be like she burnt your toast and you're like, I divorce you, you're out. And um, even back in the Old Testament, a wife who did not have children for 10 years, that could be very strong grounds for divorce, because children are the future. Um, but Zachariah never did that. He he said, I'm gonna stay faithful to my wife, I'm gonna keep my wife. And so they have been married. If they married, Jewish girls did not marry at 13, 14, as you've often been told. They often married late 10, 17, 18, 19, 20. Um, and so if they're very old, postmenopausal, it says they're very old, so I'm thinking late 60s, 70s, not 50s, early menopausal. Um, they've probably been married 40, maybe 50 years at this point. And she's never had children. And so he brings this into the temple with him as he comes to worship, and he's burning the incense. And the angel comes to him, which is a complete shock. But the angel says, We have heard your prayer. Do not be afraid, Zechariah. This is Luke 1, 12. Do not be afraid, Zechariah. Your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son. Even then, Zechariah is bringing this burden of his heart. Lord, you never gave me a son. I am here in the temple, but I have no one to pass this legacy on to. And God says, Your prayer has been heard. I will give you a son. And this is what the prophet John is supposed to do. Because remember, we're looking at this in the context of lament and trauma. John is supposed to bring back the people of Israel to the Lord their God. There has to be a concern in Zachariah's heart of are the Sadducees, because he's righteous. Remember, he's righteous. He's not a sold-out Sadducee who's fine with, we're completely fine with Rome. He is dealing in this political nightmare tension, but he is righteous and he is concerned about the Lord, and he's concerned about Israelites who are who are giving too much allegiance to Rome, who are allowing symbols to profane the temple. And the angel tells him, Your son will bring many of the people of Israel, verse 16 in the NIV, to the Lord their God. He, John, will go before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah, we'll come back to that, to turn the hearts of parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. Israel is waiting for their Messiah in this time. They are waiting to get to rule their country again. They've been under Greek rule, they've been under Parthian rule, they've been are there under Roman rule, and Herod is a client king of Rome. And they are looking for the Lord to bring them physical salvation and restore their national power. And righteous men like Zacia are concerned that those who are getting too chummy-chummy with Rome will keep this from happening. And so he is concerned that will God's promises to us for land and rule, the Abrahamic covenant of God will give Israel the land, the Mosaic covenant of if you obey me, I will bless you, if you disobey me, I will curse you, and the Davidic covenant that someone from the round from the line of David will rule forever. These covenants are on the mind of Zechariah. Will God keep his promises? Will he keep his word? And the angel tells Zechariah that his son that will be born will bring many of people to the Lord their God. He will go before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah. And there's a lot of theological reasons that John is likened to Elijah. But one thing I think is significant is that Elijah's ministry happened under the rule of Ahab and other kings who hated God, who were worshiping Baal and Ashtra, and who were persecuting the righteous men. It is under that kind of power and leadership that the ministry of Elijah happened. And it is under the evil client King Herod and the pagan powers of Rome that John the Baptist, in like stead his ministry, will happen. So the angel offers Zachariah great hope. Now, Zechariah, as we know, is not sure about all this. He questions the angel and gets silenced. And so the angel moves on. Zachariah goes home, Elizabeth gets pregnant, but the angel moves on to Mary. And he tells Mary, You are highly favored. The Lord is with you. That is a theme. God with his people. And the Lord tells Mary, as she's living in Nazareth, Nazareth is, has been continually run through. Um in 23, uh 2023, about 15 years prior to the angel coming to Mary, Herod was utilizing potentially fighters from Galilee to conquer Syria and Lebanon and the areas. North of Galilee. It's an area. Galilee, um, again, Joan Taylor talks about this in our episode 20, but Galilee is known for their warriors, for their fighting. It's a densely populated area with a lot of unrest. Um, they're keep Herod's keeping a really close eye on Galilee, but this is well where Mary is. And it says she is pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, who is a descendant of David. Now, she's in Nazareth, which is um in Galilee, um, just east, west, excuse me, just west of the Sea of Galilee. If you picture the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea in your mind, it's just west of the Sea of Galilee. And he is a son of David. She's engaged to him. But what's interesting is Herod hated the sons of David. He tried to get as many of them out of Jerusalem and Bethlehem, that region, the city of David. He tried to get them out. So there was this exodus of sons of David. Anybody from the Davidic line has kind of been scattered all over because Herod doesn't want them in their home turf. That is dangerous for Herod. He does not like that idea. So you have Joseph, who's kind of um a refugee. He's been kicked out, or his father was. We're not exactly sure. You know, is it his dad, him, his grandfather who gets sent up to Galilee, uh, trying to hide him in this densely populated region because it's not safe for them in the the city of David, in the region um of David. Herod hated David so much that in 10 BCE, so just a couple years before Jesus is born, and this this would have spread. Herod went into the tomb of David in Jerusalem to sack the tomb. He wanted to go in there to desecrate the tomb, to steal any artifacts that were in the tomb. And there was a big explosion that happened. So Herod got really nervous about that. He still hates the descendants of David, but he's he's kind of concerned, and um, he was doing some things to try to make amends to God or whomever for ransacking the tomb of David. But that is how much Herod hates David or wants to obliterate the memory of David because the descendants of David threaten his rule and he's extremely paranoid. So we have Mary. She's a late teen, most likely. She's in Nazareth, and that she's she's pledged to be married to a descendant of David. This is a dangerous connection. And the angel says, The Lord is with you. You are going to conceive verse 31 and give birth to a son, and you will call his name Jesus. Jesus, um, we get the English Jesus from the Greek translation of Joshua. Joshua means the Lord saves. So you will call him the Lord saves, and he will be great and will be called the son of the most high. And the Lord will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob's descendants forever. His kingdom will never end. So we have Mary who lives in this time of trauma. Galilee has been traumatized, Judea has been traumatized, Nazareth has been people. We have refugees from other parts of Israel who had to move from their ancestral hometowns because of Herod's persecution. They're all just, it's a it's a mixed up, traumatic time. And the Lord steps in and says, I am sending the son of David who will reign. I am stepping into the lament and the complaints and the fear with the answer of the one who will rule. And Mary asks, How could this be? I'm a virgin, like, you're the only guy here. I'm the only girl here. Um, is this going the way I'm afraid this is going? The angel's like, No, it's not. The Holy Spirit will come on you, you will have the baby. She says, Your word to me may it be fulfilled. And the angel leaves her. She immediately goes to see Elizabeth. But somewhere in there, Joseph, the son of David, gets word that his fiance, his betrothed, they're legally um married, but it they haven't cohabitated or consummated or had like the wedding yet. Um she's pregnant and he's like, Oh, I don't want to disgrace her, but that's not my kid. And the angel comes to Joseph and says, Don't be afraid to take Mary as your wife, Matthew 1.20. Because what is conceived from her in her is of the Holy Spirit. She'll give birth to a son, and you will give him the name the Lord saves, Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. There is this national concern about sin. And is Israel obeying God? Is the Roman and Herodian rule discipline from God? And will God free us? Are we going to do what is righteous? Today we take sin and we make it very personal. Did I yell at my kids? Did I lie? Did I cheat? Did I steal? Was I dishonest? We make it completely personal. And it is, and it should be, but it is also corporate. And Israel is concerned about corporate sin and the covenants of God. And the angel gives Joseph the promise that this son born to your fiance will save people from their sins. Mary gets told Jesus will rule. Joseph gets told he will save people from their sins. Joseph went to sleep that night, because this is all happening in a dream, concerned about what he sees as the sin of his fiance, that she is pregnant. And the angel says, No, she did not sin. She's carrying the child from the Holy Spirit, who will be the answer to sin. So Joseph awakes and he takes Mary and he marries her. They do not consummate the marriage until after Jesus is born, but he does take her as his official full wife. And Matthew tells us that the virgin that all of this takes place to hearken back to the prophets, where they say they will call Jesus, they will call the one Emmanuel, which means God with us. God is answering the people's concerns. So while Joseph is figuring all of this out, Mary has gone to visit Elizabeth. And as soon as Elizabeth sees her, John the Baptist leaps in her womb. And Elizabeth cries out, Luke 1:42, Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you bear. Why am I favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me? Elizabeth is the first one to voice that Jesus is Lord. It is women who recognize the movement of God. And Mary prophesies and she says, My soul glorifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. She recognizes that she is a poor present peasant woman. She has no power. She has nothing of her own. But God has been mindful of her. She says, From now on, all generations will call me blessed, for the mighty one has done great things for me. Holy is his name. And then her prophecy turns from personal to corporate. She says, His mercy extends to those who fear him. He is moving, he is extending his arm from generation to generation. He's performed mighty deeds. She recognizes that there are those who are setting themselves against God, like Psalm 2. The nations rise up and say, What can God do to us? And Mary says, God hears their thoughts and he scatters those. He brings down the rulers from their thrones and lifts up the humble. There will be this great reversal of power. Remember, as we've talked about before on this podcast, that humble in Hebrew, in the ancient mindset, is not just, oh, I have a gentle, meek, quiet spirit, and I'm just humble. And even if you compliment me, I'm not going to take it too, you know, it's not going to puff up my pride. We think of kind of that as humble. That's not what they thought of as humble. Humble is the lowly, the weak, the disabled, the ill, the poor. Now they may have some of that attitude as well, but it is also, it's often a socioeconomic state. And she says, God is bringing down the rulers, the Herods, the Caesars, the ones in power who have the money and the armies. And he's lifting up the humble. She's like, I'm a peasant. My baby is a peasant. The sons of David have been persecuted. God is lifting them up. He will fill the hungry good thing with good things and send the rich away empty. The rich are still rich, but God is not giving in favor to the rich more. He is filling the hungry. God is offering provision to the thirsty and the yearning hearts who are needing, who are lamenting the rule of Rome and the suffering and the trauma that their peoples are going under. Young men are being subscripted into armies for battles that they do not want to fight. Young women are periodically being attacked and assaulted by soldiers from other countries brought in who can do whatever they want because they're of the ruling class. And what is a peasant going to do? The people are abused. And Mary recognizes God is filling the hungry. They are searching for control. They're searching for might and honor. And God is sending them away without the things that they are longing for. He helps his servant Israel, verse 54, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever, as he promised our ancestors. Again, hearkening back to the Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic covenants that God is at work and he will keep his promises for his people. Mary is recognizing God is coming. He is on the move. We lament to agree with God that this is not what the world is supposed to be like, and he is answering and saying that our pain deserves an answer. So Mary stays with Elizabeth and then returns home. Elizabeth has the baby Zechariah. He is named, or the baby and Zechariah names him John, or Elizabeth says to name him John, and Zechariah confirms, yes, that is his name, and then he's able to speak. And then Zechariah gives this great prophecy about, I'm not going to read it all, but you can read it in Luke chapter one. And you can tell Zechariah in his prophecy is concerned with the messianic hopes that Israel had that the Messiah would come as a political king and a political ruler to bring Israel independence and power of their land and of themselves and of their people. Zachariah talks about raising up salvation. And again, he's not thinking Jesus in my heart, salvation, or a salvation, a spiritual salvation. He is thinking a physical salvation. He is thinking the Lord raises up a horn of salvation in this house of the servant of David. There will be a physical Messiah. David's son will rule, salvation from our enemies in the hand of those who hate us. And when Zechariah says that, that is not, you know, we read that and I don't have enemies, you know, but we kind of think of a metaphysical kind of enemies, um, those who hate us, kind of as a general category. No, Zachariah and Israel had very real, like they could see the face of the Roman soldiers who kicked them the other day and they couldn't do anything about it. They think of Herod, they think of Rome who massacred, who killed the high priest. Zachariah was probably alive when Herod killed the high priest in 30 BCE. This is something near and dear to Zachariah. He is aware. He has very real, literal enemies on his mind. And he says, the Lord will bring salvation from our enemies from the hand of those who hate us. He will rescue us from our hand of enemies and enable us to serve him without fear. He's a priest in the temple looking at Roman symbols that they want to put either in or right outside the temple. And he is concerned. He wants to be able to worship God according to the law without fear. He is looking for God to come change the circumstances of Israel so that they can follow God. As we know from the rest of the gospels, the kingdom Jesus brings is not a change of circumstances for Israel. The kingdom Jesus brings is a kingdom that's not offering power, it's not offering prestige, it's offering presence. It's offering God with us. It is saying, I will feed the hungry, I will care for the vulnerable, I will raise up the child. The kingdom of God is for the children and the diseased and the sick and the poor in spirit. It is not for the powerful and the mighty and the honored. Even ancient Israel got caught up in chasing the power. Will God give us our power back? Will God allow us to rule ourselves? Will he give us independence? Will he give us autonomy? Will he give us control? And God says, No. I will give you myself. I will give you presence in your pain. I will walk with you in the suffering. I will be alongside you and provide for you as your heart breaks. But my kingdom is not of this world. And Zechariah doesn't understand it yet. And he probably died before he understood because he was very old when Jesus was born and probably didn't live a whole lot longer. But he is holding out hope. He is seeing God moving. And though he doesn't understand what the kingdom of God will look like, what the action of God is, he understands that God is on the move and that the incarnation, the that Christmas, that all of this is God's answer to pain and trauma and the fulfillment of the promises. Zechariah ends his prophecy saying, um, he's talking to his son, holding baby John in his arms, and he says, You, my child, will be called a prophet of the most high, verse 76. For you will go on before the Lord to prepare a way for him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation. Again, physical salvation would be primarily on their mind, not spiritual, through the forgiveness of sins. We need national revival, we need national forgiveness so that we can have a Davidic king on the throne. That is kind of the mindset going on. Because of the tender mercy of God keeping his promises, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death and to guide our feet into the path of peace. The righteous ones of Galilee and Judea continually lived in the shadow of death. They felt a very real darkness as Rome and pagan rule overshadowed their land. Rome quested, Rome crushed any rebellion quickly, seriously, and brutally because they wanted what was called the Pax Romana, the peace. They wanted the peace of Rome to be over their entire empire so that they could tax, so that they could install temples for the emperor cult worship to earn money. They are concerned about creating peace to bring prosperity and wealth. The Pax Romana. And Zechariah says, Guide our feet to the path of true peace. May God's kingdom be that which comes. Well, the story moves on. The camera shifts away from Zachariah and his prophecy, foretelling God's kingdom coming. Though he does not understand what that kingdom will be, he recognizes that we are on the threshold of a new age. God is coming to answer his people's pain. So we move to Luke 2. Caesar Augustus gives the decree that a census must be taken. And so Joseph leaves Nazareth and goes to Bethlehem. This is dangerous. This is fraught with danger. Herod does not like sons of David. Herod kills sons of David. Four years before, if this happened in 6 BCE, four years before he raided the tomb of David. The year before, Herod killed his own sons. Not just the sons of David, but his own flesh and blood sons, because he was afraid they would try to take his throne. This is scary. So Joseph goes to Bethlehem. And while he is there, he and Mary, the baby, is born. The son of David is born in the city of David. But there is a danger on the horizon. But first, they rejoice in the birth. Shepherds are out in the field. Perhaps old men, perhaps young boys, teenage girls, they're out there watching the sheep. A bright light comes, blinds them for a moment, where the in the angel says, Do not be afraid. Luke 2.10, I bring you good news that will be great joy to all people. Today in the town of David, a Savior has been born. The official announcement He is the Messiah, the Christ, the Lord. This will be assigned to you. You will find a baby wrapped in cloths, lying in a manger. God with us. Matthew 1 tells us God will come to be with his people. Luke 2 shows us how that happens. He is born in a peasant home, surrounded by women, swaddled, and laid in the manger that was likely in the living room of the house. Go listen to episodes 13 and 14 of the podcast. I'll walk you through all of those details. But the Messiah is here. The heavenly host, the text says, these are angels. Host is army. Don't think of choir with the robes and the wings. Law glory. Don't think of that. Think of army, swords on shields. Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace to those on whom his favor rests. Peace that comes because God is in control. I think he sent his heavenly army as a protection against Herod moving too quickly, as a protection against these evil spiritual forces who want to kill the baby Messiah before he can grow and get to the cross. This is not just rejoicing angels happily singing their choir song with choreography. This is an army of warriors standing at attention and shouting the good news while protecting their king. The shepherds are amazed and they run and they see the baby and they worship. After the shepherds leave, the appropriate meant the appropriate amount of time passes. And Joseph and Mary go to the temple to offer the sacrifices and to dedicate Jesus as the firstborn. While they are there, they see Simeon and Anna. Anna's a prophetess. She tells everybody about what Jesus is doing, but we don't know what she said. It doesn't record what she said. But Simeon has a prophecy, and he says, Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, he made now, dismiss your servant in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation in the temple. The Messiah has come. The salvation which you have prepared in the sight of all the nations. The Roman guard literally is right outside the temple, staring down into the temple at all times. Rome built a big fortress right on the edge of the temple in Jerusalem so that they could see into the temple. And this may have been slightly after Herod's reign, while Jesus was growing up that they did this, but there's still Herodian soldiers and all of the political forces watching the temple because the temple is where things erupt constantly. There's a lot of revolts that start in the temple. And so when Simeon says, You've prepared in the sight of all nations, literally the nations are watching the temple. A light for a revelation to the Gentiles. Do you see? You see the baby? This is it. Right here. You think you're in charge. You think you rule. I'm holding the answer. I'm holding the light for the revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of your people, Israel. Simeon hearten back to God's promise to Abraham that one of your descendants, your descendants will bless the whole world. And it is through this child that Gentiles like myself and most of my listeners, most of you, we can be included in the kingdom because of this baby. And Simeon recognizes that. He goes on and says, This child is destined to call the fallen, to cause the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword, he says to Mary, will pierce your own soul also. He recognizes that God's answer to lament and pain includes suffering. God does not just snap his fingers and make everything all right. He enters into the pain, and part of following God is accepting that pain. God's answer is to be with us and to provide for the needs of the broken and the humble, not to give political power and wealth so that people can rule themselves. As Simeon and Anna hand baby Jesus back to his parents, danger is on the horizon. There are magi in the East, perhaps Parthians. Remember the ones who were just fighting not too long ago? Or maybe they were Nabataeans who lived just on the other side of the Dead Sea, who Herod has also been fighting and squabbling with periodically. These magi could be from these rival kingdoms, high-level government officials or priests in these other kingdoms, and they come. They see the star and they come and they don't know where to go. They're just following the star, so they go to Jerusalem. They get an audience with Herod. Who else are you going to talk to but the king? They're high-ranking government officials. And they come to Herod and they say, Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? When we saw the star when it arose, we have come to worship him. Herod doesn't know. He doesn't really know the Bible. So he gets the priests and he gets the scribes and he says, Where is this baby to be born? And they tell him, Oh, in Bethlehem. That's what the Bible says. And so he's like, Go to Bethlehem. And so the Magi go to Bethlehem and they come and they worship the King of the Jews. They worship Jesus. But Herod is afraid. He does not want there to be another baby. He just killed his own sons last year. He's not going to be afraid to kill somebody else's son to keep his power. So Herod, he orders a massacre of all the babies two years and younger in Bethlehem. And but before the soldiers can get to Bethlehem, an angel tells Joseph, flee, go to Egypt. There's large Jewish populations in Egypt. So Joseph and Mary flee to Egypt and probably find shelter there. The babies and toddlers in Bethlehem are massacred. It may not have been that many, five, ten, maybe twenty. We don't know how many baby boys there were. But again, there's this pain being leveled on Bethlehem because they are the city of David, because Herod hates David and is afraid of losing his power. As Joseph flees to Egypt, as they continue to become refugees, they stay there for a while. While they are in Egypt, Herod turns around a couple years later, after they've fled, and after he massacres the baby boys in Bethlehem, a couple years later, he kills another one of his own sons. And then there is a rebellion in the temple, which Herod's forces kill thousands, thousands of men during this rebellion. Rebel teachers, Judas and Matthias and their students, all are involved in this revolt. This is while Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus are in Egypt. They're safe, but there's a lot of unrest in Jerusalem and thousands of men die. Herod also dies shortly that after, not because of the revolt, but he does shortly die and he is buried in the Herodium, the giant fortress overlooking that you can see from Bethlehem. After he dies, Archelaus takes charge and he massacres 3,000 people in the temple. So there's a revolt. Herod massacres a bunch of people in the temple. He dies separately. And then Archelaus comes and he massacres more in the temple. There's more revolts that are going on. Judas, son of Hezekiah, Simeon, and Thragges, and others, the Roman legit comes in. The Rome has to be like, yo, um, Archelaus, you are not managing this very well. They have to come in to quash the rebellion. There's mass um executions. The War of Vargas happens. Archelaus is appointed the Roman client, um, king of Judea. Hered Antipas is appointed the Tetrarch of Galilee and Perea. And so after all of this happens, the angel comes to Joseph and says, Cared the greatest dead, you can go back. But Archelaus is ruling in Judea. And I'm sure word got to Egypt of massacre upon massacre upon execution upon execution. This is not a safe place for sons of David. So Joseph takes boy Jesus, toddler Jesus, to Galilee, to Nazareth to fulfill prophecy. A few years after they arrived there, there's more revolts in Galilee. Um, Jesus could have sat in Nazareth and watched cities. His childhood was surrounded by trauma. The trauma did not end at the silent night. All is well, all is bright. I'm misquoting the song, but you get the point. All is calm. That's the word. All is calm, all is bright, all was not calm. Jesus could have grown up practicing battle with the other boys in Galilee because they were known as ferocious warriors by Josephus, who was a historian who catalogued, this is how we know a lot of the things that happened with Herod and all the massacres, because Joseph, the historian, wrote them down. Jesus grew up in this traumatic environment, watching cities burn, practicing for war, potentially. And then he turns around as a man and says, My kingdom is not of this world. Peter, put your sword away. Lament is us agreeing with God that the world is broken. And I don't know what the brokenness that you are encountering in your life. I do not know whether it is diagnoses or lack of diagnoses or death or suffering, or maybe your world is great right now. But there is a point to lament, to pause and agree with God that the world is broken. It is not as he longs for it to be. To agree with God in the middle of that and to recognize that Christmas, Advent, the Nativity is God saying, I am going to do something about the brokenness. But he does not yet step in to solve it. He incarnated himself as one of us in the middle of the pain. Jesus knows what it is like to be a refugee fleeing for your life. He knows what it is like to be part of a persecuted, marginalized population that the kings and governments are seeking to destroy. He was the son of David that Herod wanted to kill and Archelaus wanted to destroy. He knows what it is like to watch those you love die or be massacred or be hurt. He grew up surrounded by the pain. His ministry as an adult was to the people whose lives were founded in this national societal, familial, and personal traumas. Everybody Jesus ministered to as he as he passed out bread, as he healed the sick, every one of them had stories of Roman oppression and abuse. And Jesus walked into that and said, I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world. I am Emmanuel, God with you, not separate, not far off, not saying, You've got this. Just do the right thing, and everything will be okay. No. Jesus steps into the world to say, I am going to take your bleeding and bruised hand, and I'm going to walk with you through the pain of this life. I am going to experience the sorrow and brokenheartedness of what it means to be human in a sin-scarred world. I am born in it. And I died to save you from it. Because my kingdom is not of this world. My kingdom is not that of power and hierarchy and fame and honor. My kingdom is uplifting the broken and holding them close to my heart and never letting them go. I am the good shepherd who walks with the sheep, gently understanding their wounds, their afflictedness, that mother sheep and baby sheep, you cannot drive them along. You have to walk slowly and gently and carefully. I am the good shepherd who sees the wolves and drives them away. And I will be the warrior who will bring his kingdom and defeat in the final days, sin and death and the devil. But until that day, I will walk with you through the pain of what living life in this earth means. I am here with you always, even to the end of the age. That is the message of Christmas for those who are in a season of lament, of suffering, of pain. Sometimes it is hard to feel like Christmas is for us in those times because our songs focus on happy, happy, joy, joy. But Jesus sees the pain, and where we might miss it because we're distracted by twinkling lights, unless we're in life circumstances that don't allow us to skip over the pain. God never does. It all is before Him every moment. Jesus was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He is there in the midst of it. And no matter what you are going through today, this week, this month, this year, Jesus walks alongside you, holding your hand through it all, as you both look forward to the day where he will make all things new. Jesus, who being in the very nature God, did not consider a quality with God something to be grasped, used to his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedience to death, even death on the cross. Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledged that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father. This is our hope this Christmas. Because the advent and the incarnation was not the end, it was the beginning of God stepping in, saying, I hear your lament, I see the world is broken, and I am currently doing something about it. I am bringing my kingdom to fruition so that I can make all things new.