by Daniel R. Spanjer
All people know that they need salvation, even if the salvation for which they hope is that of a meal when they are hungry. Human beings are vulnerable creatures who need sustenance and protection in order to survive. We fear deprivation, which ultimately leads to our greatest fear—death. The solution we seek is salvation.
The world knows to look for salvation from the powerful. Men of strong families who possess physical might have in their hands the ability necessary to save people. In the ancient period, the strength of a person was indicated largely by his or her birth. The firstborn son of a family became the family’s leader. In addition, tribes with the longest lineage and noblest heritage were naturally considered the most capable. National strength was squarely founded on the strength and loyalty of family members.
This principle was best exemplified in the dynasties that served as political backbones for most ancient societies. Each king rested on his relationship to a great ancestor who established the family line. The authoritative power of family lines and male birth was not the recourse of an ignorant people. In a time when military strength relied on pure manpower, the loyalty of kin and the backs of men determined the fate of nations. People considered that the gods determined birth order and ancestry, but the influence of a god only confirmed what was then common sense.
Yahweh shattered the world’s political expectations. He claimed to be the king without heritage, the king who did not need the strength of men. He owned the cattle on a thousand hills, despite the human beings who claimed to possess them. Yahweh’s power did not rest on any heritage or lineage; Yahweh’s reign was not contingent on human strength. His royal position and almighty power came from his nature alone.
Not only did Yahweh reign in a way that seemed foreign to pagans of the ancient world, but it also appeared strange to his own people. He cared for his people in ways that seemed counterintuitive by ancient, as well as modern, standards. The world perceives the ability to rule as contingent upon power, fame, and heritage. God asserted his right to rule by caring for the poor and protecting bruised reeds. Yahweh does not need powerful men to protect his rule. Rather, Yahweh called his people to love him first, then to pursue justice for the weak. While the reign of all other kings is confirmed by the strength of family and the subservience of the outsider and the foreigner, Yahweh confirms his power by calling his family to become servants to the outsider.
In keeping with worldly views of power, cultures tell stories of great heroes who serve as examples for the people. But the people whom the Scripture set forward as examples were the lowest, not the greatest. God called leaders like David, the youngest and least-respected son of Jesse. He exalted Joseph, Jacob’s youngest and least-respected son, who suffered rejection and even imprisonment.
It may be that the greatest hero of the Bible is Job, who refused to be disloyal to Yahweh even though Satan reduced Job to a childless, disease-ridden heap of a person. With Yahweh’s permission, Satan stole Job’s strength, his wealth, and, most cruelly of all, his own children. Job’s sons had made him important as they promised to continue his family line forward. Despite losing everything and becoming the most pitiable of all people in his day, Job did not turn from God. Job is the Bible’s hero, the model citizen of Yahweh’s kingdom, despite his human flaws. The Bible reverses every worldly expectation by reimagining power as weakness and justice as mercy. For God, the virgin of no social influence or power, from a poor family, served as the lineage of his great King.
Mary was the virgin fiancée to a poor member of the tribe of Judah. While the pattern of God’s plan to save his people is consistent in the selection of Mary, his work was once again a surprise. By every measure, she was the bottom of society. Yet her womb became the very seat of the universe’s king. The birth of the king through Joseph’s poor, virgin fiancée reconfigured the hope of God’s people. Their king would not come with the trappings of worldly kings. With all their armies, chariots, and men, these kings are petty. They seek the world’s acclaim as they follow its rules for power. In the unlikely birth of Jesus, Yahweh remade creation according to its original design—a world under the reign of the good King.
Christ’s birth turned history back on itself. All human history had moved the world back to the disorder of Genesis 1:1. Jesus, however, began bringing the ruined world once again under his good reign. Sin ruined human relationships, which then devolved into injustice. Yahweh’s king would establish justice between people. He would restore love between his people, who would then abhor the injustices of broken societies. The fall unleashed disease and evil that worked all life towards death. Jesus would turn the disorder of illness into the order of health, and the disunion of death into eternal life. Jesus’ reign would not be evident by the standards of normal human expectations, rather it would. His reign would in fact issue from the life of one who had no influence or power in society.
He exalted the virgin’s womb. In Luke I, it is written:
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”
And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”
In choosing to come to his people through the humble station of a poor couple, who belonged to the poorest tribe of Israel and lived in one of the meanest of Israel’s small towns, Yahweh bankrupted the world’s expectations. But he also thwarted his own people’s expectations as well. Some families of Israel had remained loyal to the temple despite Roman oppression. Their proud heritage of loyalty to the Jewish way of life granted them great social influence in Palestine. Yahweh could have chosen to bring his king through any number of strong and noble families. It stands to reason that so many leading families of the Sanhedrin rejected Jesus on the grounds of his lineage.
Jesus’ lineage was more than a strange coincidence. Jesus preached mercy to sinners, touched lepers, and spoke to prostitutes. At the same time, Jesus castigated Israel’s influential leaders, who wanted a king like every other nation—a man of strength with a powerful lineage. Jesus, however, humbled himself to the social reputation of being Mary and Joseph’s son. He loved the poor and died a criminal’s death. Jesus upended the world’s false claims to power when he rose from the dead and confirmed that his kingdom of love, mercy, and justice stands over and against every human claim to power.
Excerpted from Advent is the Story: Seeing the Nativity throughout Scripture—a collection of readings for the Advent season by Daniel R. Spanjer and published by Square Halo Books.
Daniel is currently the principal at Veritas Academy. He has a B.A. in History from Nyack College, a M.A. in theology from Reformed Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. in history from the University at Albany, SUNY.