Of all the journeys I have taken in life,
the one that stands out the most in my memory is the trip I took to Cuba with
my seminary classmates. One reason it stands out was its general weirdness.
First of all seminarians are weird. A bunch of people from different walks of
life who all come together because they are a rare breed of individual who has
heard and then responded to a call from God. All of us feeling kind of touchy
and vulnerable because we don’t know where we are going physically, spiritually,
intellectually. And then we are sent on this trip to a place that takes us out
of whatever is left of our comfort zone. For three weeks. With zero calls or
texts home.
So people tended to act strangely at times.
One of my travel companions turned to me at one particularly crazy moment and
said, “People on a trip? They’s a journey.”
The reality is, so much of the spiritual
life for all of us is a journey. It is all about moving toward something …
someplace … that we are longing for.
The special season of Advent is the most
journey-like time of the year. We are moving toward Christmas, counting down
the days – and if you ever need a reminder of how many days are left until
Christmas I recommend asking a child. Children keep close tabs on matters of
such importance.
So while we are moving toward Christmas,
which is pretty normal, we are also in a weird way moving toward something that
happened 2,000 years ago – the birth of Christ. Which makes Advent sort of a
trippy journey.
But we are also moving toward something
much bigger on the cosmic scale – Jesus’ return. And our belief that when he returns,
he brings the reign of God with him in all its fullness. Something that we hear
Jesus describe with longing in our hearts. Advent takes place on all these
levels.
Along with all that, this year we are
considering the actual physical journey of Mary and Joseph, as they traveled
toward the moment, the place, where Jesus was born. This year we are thinking
about the locations that were important centers of activity and influence in
their lives. And today we begin the journey in Rome.
Even though I am quite certain that neither
Mary nor Joseph ever set foot in Rome. It was nowhere near Nazareth, where they
lived. Nowhere near Bethlehem, Joseph’s ancestral home. And even with the
famous network of roads that the Roman Empire had constructed, it still would
have taken them a good 20 days to get to Rome. The players in this story have
never been anywhere near Rome. But wherever they were, Rome was a place that
was very much present.
Rome had begun their rule in Israel in the
year 63 BC. They went there by force, which was the way Rome always took
control. The Roman army would come in and stay. They would install local kings,
for the sake of making it appear to be something like a partnership. But make
no mistake, Rome was in charge.
The Pax Romana began under the rule of
Caesar Augustus. And it was a good thing for Roman citizens. It gave them
relative peace and prosperity. But the people of the occupied lands did not
have the benefit of Roman citizenship, and they had a quite different
experience of the Pax Romana.
Rome was uninterested in the welfare of
these people. They allowed the local rulers a free hand, to be just as brutal
as they pleased. Herod was among the worst. They cared nothing about Jewish
cultural and religious values and made demands of the Jews which forced them to
violate the laws of God. Rome cared nothing about the laws of God – only the
laws of Rome.
For Israel, the Pax Romana meant that any
act that was considered a violation of Roman law was punishable by death. They
favored death on a cross in a very public place, for it was believed to be a
strong deterrent. This was how Rome kept peace.
The people of Israel longed for something
different. They longed for real freedom. They longed for real peace. They
longed for real justice.
All these longings were in the air at the
time Caesar Augustus decreed that a census would take place, and everyone must
go to the right place to be registered. A census usually meant taxes. Taxes
often meant that war was coming.
All these longings were in the air when the
angel Gabriel visited Mary, who was engaged to be married to Joseph. The angel
told Mary, you will bear a son who will
be great; he will be called the Son of the Most High. He will reign over the house
of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.
All these
longings were in the air as Joseph and Mary journeyed to Bethlehem.
Rob Fuquay, a
United Methodist Pastor, shared a story in his book called On the Way to Bethlehem, about a time he journeyed to Bethlehem. He
wanted to be there on Christmas Eve, to have the experience on that night of
being in the place where it all happened.
When he arrived in
the city he was shocked and disappointed. The area was crowded with soldiers
carrying machine guns. There was a barrier surrounding Nativity Square and
visitors had to go through an invasive security check to get inside. The
tension in the air was thick.
When he finally
got past the barrier there was more surprise. You know the song, “O little town
of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie” but here there was no stillness. Rob
described it as being more like Mardi Gras than “silent night, holy night.”
Loud, boisterous, tense. A scuffle broke out between two young Palestinians.
Immediately, he said, Israeli soldiers surrounded them and beat them with the
butts of their rifles until the two youths were motionless on the ground. The
soldiers dragged them away, leaving a trail of blood.
Rob wondered if
this was anything like what Joseph and Mary encountered. And the conclusion he
came to was, probably yes.
Because 2,000
years ago when the Emperor of Rome decreed that there should be a census, which
demanded that everyone make their way to their ancestral home, there surely
would have been chaos. If all these frightened and weary people, who lived
under the terror of the empire, were suddenly forced to uproot and take long
and dangerous journeys just so the emperor could raise their taxes, there would
have been bad feelings. O little town of Bethlehem was suddenly overcrowded
with irritable people and armed soldiers.
The journey that
brought all these elements together for the birth of the Messiah, everything
precariously balanced on the knife edge that was called Pax Romana. The events
that set the stage for something that would forever change the world. A moment
in time that is forever and always the focus of a spiritual journey for
millions of people. It all began with the decision of a politician in Rome.
God does work in
mysterious ways.
But I think what
this points to is the reality that even while we are spiritual beings, members
of the household of God, we exist in a world where there is always some kind of
Rome. Where there are always forces of brutality and greed and callous disinterest
in how Rome’s decisions affect others. Sometimes Rome might even be us.
Yet, somehow,
God works through all of it.
And so we are on
this journey of faith. We begin in Rome, the seat of worldly power. We long for
so much more, just as Israel did, just as humans always have done. As the
Apostle Paul wrote, we groan inwardly, in our longing, while we wait for
adoption, the redemption of our bodies.
In longing and
in hope, we journey on.
NOTE: I am indebted to Rob Fuquay, whose book, On the Way to Bethlehem, has guided my thinking through this journey.
Picture: stock.adobe.com
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