If you listen carefully you can almost hear the trumpets’ blaring as a herald announces an imperial order coming from Caesar Augustus when Quirinius was governor of Syria…
All attention is momentarily diverted.
There was silence, stone, cold dead silence. You could hear a pin drop. What would this announcement be?
Eager ears and not so eager ears alike, listen to what is “about to be said.”
With that one blaring trumpet sound and with that voice of that “one lone herald” – the whole world jumps and runs to be “enrolled…” It is just that simple.
Such was the impact of Roman domination. Such was the impact of Roman subjugation.
Amazing…how one man, one Roman man, can issue an order and throw the entire known world, into motion and into panic…just like that!
It is to Jewish ears that this message is given, they amongst others are subjected to the whims and the rages of both the distant and all to close, Roman Armies.
That’s how life is in the outlying provinces, where order is maintained at ANY COST…and where TRIBUTE is exacted for the good of the empire.
You pay, “what we say you pay.”
Rome controls everything. “The big wheels of the world” like to jerk everyone around.
A census had one goal – that being so Rome could be “more efficient” at getting its money – due for taxes. Censuses usually caused local uprisings, small outbursts of people making their wishes known…
The individuals who caused the uprisings were known as being “zealots.” They were zealous for Jerusalem and very much anti-Rome. They were also called “Sicarii” or “dagger men” because of the short curved knives that they carried that could easily be concealed under their robes…
Rome did not tolerate outbursts of any kind…small or otherwise, they would quickly and with great precision, be put down. The leaders would be held immediately responsible…and put to death.
The tax burden was already “extremely excessive” and despised and the people lived under “a grinding kind of poverty”…and at the same time, they lived under the “boot-heel of Rome.”
It was a precarious situation… volatile…like a powder keg, ready and waiting to go off.
And in the midst of this situation another story quietly unfolds.
It is a HOLY NIGHT quite unlike all others. The stars ARE brightly shining and in the hill country surrounding Bethlehem of Judea shepherds are quietly watching and protecting their sheep.
When all of a sudden there is another kind of disturbance. Another announcement is being made…this time, one of “great joy” in a land sorely in need of some “joy.”
A messenger, a herald, an angelic voice is heard from on high. A birth is being announced to shepherds in an “open field” and not to the “powerful in rich and high and mighty palaces.”
It is said to be a “joyful message to you, a great gladness, which will be to all the people.”
“ALL THE PEOPLE,” not a select few or handful, not the Romans, but to all the people…
This is something to take note of…this is Big News…especially on a Holy Night such as this.
Especially a message given to such lowly persons as shepherds! Who would ever believe them? Who would even get close enough to them? They smelled just like the sheep they cared for…they were “unclean” – and far from trustworthy!
This too sounded like a royal proclamation – this time – declaring the birth of a new King…a prince of peace…
So it was with haste that the shepherds go to see for themselves.
The lowly are about to be lifted up and the poor are going to be remembered – the rich will eventually be sent away empty.
Things are about to change. Things are about to change on a grandiose scale.
There is no trumpet blaring and no herald shouting till he is red in the face – instead on the Holy Night, when the stars are shining brightly – there is the word of the birth of savior…
One who is coming to save us from our sins…and not only us, but if the angelic messengers are to be believed…he comes for all people.
“And all means all” – there are no exceptions. Amen.