The Tale of Two Emperors

Propers: The Nativity of Our Lord (Christmas II), A.D. 2016 A

Homily:

Many ages after God created the heavens and the earth, when man and woman were formed in God’s own image; long after the Great Flood, when God set the rainbow in the clouds as a sign of the covenant; 21 centuries from the time of Abraham and Sarah; 15 centuries after Moses led God’s people to freedom; 11 centuries from the time of Ruth and the Judges;

A thousand years from the anointing of King David; in the 65th week as Daniel’s prophecy takes note; in the 194th Olympiad; the 752nd year from the founding of Rome; the 42nd year of the reign of Emperor Caesar Augustus; in the Sixth Age of the world—when all the earth was at peace—Jesus Christ, eternal God, Son of the eternal Father, willing to hallow the world by His coming in mercy, was born of the Virgin Mary, in Bethlehem of Judea.

Tonight is the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, God made flesh.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Trouble. Make no mistake, my friends. Trouble is what’s born in Bethlehem tonight. And into a world that has only just managed to wrestle order from the jaws of chaos.

By the time of Jesus, the world has spent a hundred years wrestling with the paradox of Rome. This great power from the West has for generations been wracked by paroxysms of civil war, one after another, each bloodier than the last. Yet with every bout of civil strife, Rome has expanded, bursting the bounds of her borders, spreading like a cancer, even as her generals are at each other’s throats. Somehow Rome is at once at war with the world and at war with herself. The result is chaos, fire and sword and blood.

Finally, after each strongman has risen up only to fall again—Sulla and Marius, Caesar and Pompey, Antony and Cleopatra—a victor emerges from the ashes: Augustus, the first Emperor of Rome. He, at last, hammers order from the chaos. He conquers the world by conquering Rome. And so they shower him with accolades, hailing him Savior of the World, Son of God and King of Kings. Upon his death they will celebrate his rising to Olympus, home of the gods.

“In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled.” The wars are over. Peace settles across the land, enforced by a Roman sword. And so Augustus takes stock of his domain, consolidating, organizing. And the call goes out even to Judea, a small but oddly troublesome corner of the empire. It’s nowhere special, but it’s on the way to everywhere special. Judea serves as the crossroads between the great continents of Africa, Asia, and Europe.

A petty king named Herod sits upon the throne of Judea—not a Jew himself, really, but a political opportunist astute enough, and murderous enough, to earn himself a place as Rome’s regional puppet. Herod craves order because Rome craves order. And he will kill anyone, or anything, that threatens his position atop that throne.

But the Judeans are a troublesome people, with long memories and stubborn beliefs. Their little kingdom has seen other empires come and go, and while they have been conquered, the Judeans have never been destroyed—like a stone that successive dragons simply cannot seem to digest. There are ancient prophecies at work in Judea: prophecies of an ancient royal line going back more than a thousand years; prophecies of a Messiah come from Heaven to topple this fourth empire, this Roman Empire.

And believe it or not, they aren’t the only ones. There are prophecies in Rome as well. The ancient Sibyls, Rome’s pagan oracles, warned that a King was to arise from Judea, a world-conqueror, whom men must honor in order to be saved. “A Hebrew Child,” the Tiburtine Sibyl prophesied to Augustus himself, “will silence all the oracles of the Roman gods.” Thus Rome grows wary of kings of the Jews.

This is the world into which the Christ is born: a world of peace enforced by violence; of bloody kings on unsteady thrones; of an Emperor ready to crush the first sparks of revolt. We tend to sentimentalize the Nativity of our Lord, to emphasize peace on earth, good will toward men, but this was a family on the run from the start. The Christ had to be hidden, protected from those who feared Him, from the false crown of Herod to the august ruler of the earth. He seems so small, yet is so dangerous.

And His power is revealed when the armies of Heaven announce His birth. And His worthiness is confirmed by signs in the stars read by Wise Men from the East. And the shepherds and the kings and the beasts of the field all proclaim the arrival of the world’s true Savior, the true King of Kings, the true Son of God. This is not the birth of some kindly, anodyne, inoffensive prophet with a gentle message of forgiveness. This is a declaration of war! God Himself has come to earth, and He has set up a rival claim—that He is Lord! Not Herod, not Augustus, not the ironclad legions of Imperial Rome! Christ is King and will brook no rivals.

In the words of Bishop Robert Barron, this is the tale of two emperors, Caesar on his throne and Christ in the manger: “All four of the Gospels play out as a struggle, culminating in the deadly business of the Cross, between the worldly powers and the power of Christ … He is Lord. And the entire New Testament couldn’t be clearer that His lordship means that all those who follow a contrary rule—meaning pretty much every one of us—are under judgment.

“To be sure, the distinctive mark of Jesus’ Lordship is love, compassion, forgiveness, and non-violence—but this is not the stuff of sentimentality and warm feelings. It is a provocation, a challenge, a call to conversion of the most radical kind.”

So who wins out, in this tale of two emperors? How does our story end? At first it doesn’t seem much of a contest. One finds Rome a city of brick and leaves it a city of marble; the other dies a slow and awful death, nailed to a piece of wood. Strength prevails. Violence wins. Or so it seems, for a day or two.

But lo and behold, sure as the sun at solstice, the Christ arises, having defeated death and harrowed hell, arises with all the souls of Hades triumphant in His train. And He conquers that fourth empire, that Roman Empire, not with fire and steel, but with the sword of His mouth, the Spirit and the Word of God. He conquers those who killed Him, by forgiving them their sins.

This is the Love the world cannot quench. This is the Light the darkness cannot abide. Countless Caesars have, in their time, opposed the Kingdom of God. Go and look for them now! See what has become of their conquests! Lo, how all are fallen! And Christ arises still.

Christ is born, my brothers and sisters, into a world that hates and fears Him, a world that seeks to kill Him, a world that desperately needs Him. Trouble is born this night in Bethlehem. For Christ descends with a mighty power and comes to save us all.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Augustus and the Tiburtine Sibyl