By Sheldon Greaves
Looking at Christmas from the lower part of the food chain brings to mind Cratchet and Scrooge and all the rest of the gaping inequality of wealth that this season pulls into such sharp focus. Most of us who look at Christmas with a jaundiced eye tend to emphasize what consumerism has done to the season, how it helps us gloss over or skip entirely this marvelous opportunity to reflect and enjoy those quiet moments with good company or private contemplation that make the season so uniquely rich.
But this year, in the winter of our global discontent, Christmas is especially relevant when you consider the context in which Jesus of Nazareth entered the world. One has to understand what life was like in First Century Palestine under Roman rule. In addition to an unwelcome military occupation, most of the great institutions in Jewish life had broken down or were distorted to serve malicious ends.
Jewish law had many provisions to prevent the concentration of wealth into to the hands of the few or crushing personal indebtedness. At this time these laws were all but ignored. Wealthy landowners bought or swindled small family farmers out of the lands they had worked for generations, bringing in slave labor to replace them (Slaves outnumbered non-slaves in the Roman Empire during this period). As a result, cities like Jerusalem were flooded with economic refugees desperate to find work, and many of whom staved in the streets, took to banditry, or if they were lucky sold themselves for the relative security of slavery.
It was a time of chaos, misery, hopelessness, and anger. It was the perfect time for a Messiah.
What is generally unknown is that during the First Century (more or less) there was no lack of messiahs or messianic pretenders. You couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting one. The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus lists quite a few of them, pretty much all of whom came to a bad end. Most of them were simply rebels or criminals as well as religious posers, but they all tried to cloak themselves in a messianic mantle. There was Judas of Sepphoris, who led a bloody revolt by a Zealot faction against a Roman census in 6 CE. His father, Hezekiah the “Brigand Chief” had been executed by Herod for staging a rebellion of his own.
There was Theudus, who claimed to be a great prophet who would lead his people across the Jordan to freedom (possibly the same Theudus mentioned in Acts 5:36-8). His rebellion lasted just long enough for the Romans to crush it and kill him. Then there was the “prophet” known only as the “Egyptian Prophet” who tried to “reenact†the Exodus with 30,000 unarmed Jews all of whom were massacred by Procurator Antonius Felix.
So this raises an interesting question: of all the messianic movements and political factions, how was it that the “Jesus movement” survived and even triumphed over the Roman state where so many others failed? It’s not as if the Romans used kid gloves on dissenters; their methods make the NYPD look like Captain Kangaroo.
A good answer, I believe is found in the nonviolence of the early Christian community and the cornerstone of compassion that made up its teachings. Roman procedure for messianic troublemakers was to kill the leader, then go after the followers and do likewise. But in the case of Jesus, he was executed by the Romans as an enemy of the state. That much is a matter of historical record. But they did not pursue his nonviolent, nonconfrontational followers (the persecutions of Christians as Roman policy was still some time in the future). As far as I have been able to determine, early Christianity was the only “subversive” movement in Roman-ruled Palestine that was strictly nonviolent, and it was the one that thrived. I very much doubt that is coincidence.
This is one of many reasons why Christmas is as relevant today as ever. As we descend into the election season, we see the parade of candidates, would-be charlatans and pretenders to the throne, many wrapping themselves in a cloak of corrosive, self-righteous piety. Meanwhile in city after city, nation after nation, nonviolent people fill the streets on behalf of the dispossessed, forcefully urging, nudging, pressing us all towards a better world where we embrace the radical notions of compassion and justice and collective well-being.
And somewhere, the Prince of Peace is smiling.
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