Editorial
The birth of our savior, Messiah and Lord
“Today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Messiah and Lord” (Lk 2:11).
That was the message the angel gave to the shepherds on the night of Jesus’ birth.
It’s obviously not every day that an angel announces the birth of a baby. But this was no ordinary baby. The angel wrapped up exactly who was born with those three words: savior, Messiah and Lord.
It’s interesting that Luke’s Gospel is the only one of the three synoptic Gospels to use the word “savior” for Jesus. As a footnote in the New American Bible says, “As savior, Jesus is looked upon by Luke as the one who rescues humanity from sin and delivers humanity from the condition of alienation from God.”
“Messiah” is a Hebrew word which means the same as “Christ” (christos) in Greek. It means “the anointed one.” In the Palestine where Jesus was born, some of the Jews looked for a leader, born from the line of King David, who would restore the kingdom of Israel, which was then under the control of the Roman Empire. Luke, though, used the word to refer to the one who would bring salvation to all humanity, Jew and Gentile alike.
“Lord” is the most common title for Jesus in Luke’s Gospel and in his Acts of the Apostles. This title was also applied to the Jews’ Yahweh in the Old Testament. The footnote in the Bible says, “When used of Jesus, it points to his transcendence and dominion over humanity.”
We have to marvel at how and when God decided to send his Son into the world. If you were writing this story, would you have chosen a stable in the small town of Bethlehem as the place of his birth? And would you have chosen a group of shepherds to receive the announcement of his birth and to be his first visitors? God truly works in strange ways at times.
And what about the parents of this child? Surely he could do better than a tekton for a father (one who works in construction). Might one of the Jewish religious leaders, one of the Pharisees, been more appropriate? Not in God’s plan.
What about that trip that Luke’s Gospel says Mary and Joseph made from Nazareth to Bethlehem, with Mary nine months pregnant? Only mothers can really visualize how uncomfortable that trip had to be. It was 90 miles, either walking or riding on a donkey, sometimes in mountainous country. It took about a week. What kind of a trip is that for the mother of the baby who was to be the savior, Messiah and Lord?
Why didn’t God choose the second century B.C. to send his savior, Messiah and Lord? The year 167 B.C. was when King Antiochus Epiphanes was persecuting the Jews, and prompted the uprising of Mattathias and his sons. Why didn’t God choose one of those sons, perhaps Judas Maccabeus, who fought battles against the oppressors until he was killed?
But Judas Maccabeus wasn’t the kind of savior and Messiah God had in mind. Judas was a warrior, and God’s savior and Messiah was meant to bring peace to the world. That’s why the choir of angels that appeared to the shepherds sang, “Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth peace to those on whom his favor rests” (Lk 2:14).
Our savior, Messiah and Lord came during the period in the Roman Empire known as the pax Augusta, the peace of Augustus. Caesar Augustus reigned from 27 B.C. until 14 A.D. It was one of the few times of peace throughout the empire, and Augustus was considered by the Romans as its savior and god.
But Mary’s and God’s Son, born in that lowly stable in Bethlehem, was the true savior, Messiah and Lord. He was truly God—Son of the Father, but also truly human—son of Mary. In God’s scheme to redeem mankind, that was essential.
The story of the birth of Jesus, that first Christmas, didn’t happen as you or I might have written it, but it was God’s plan to bring peace on Earth. Merry Christmas.
—John F. Fink