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My Christmas Reflection: On Power and Joy

Last night I saw a PBS production of Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part I, a play I had never read or seen before.  It was truly excellent in its portrayal of the rivalry of Somerset and York, both plotting to steal Henry's crown. And it portrayed poor Henry as a young and naive Christian king, who urged his subjects to get along in peace, but was the hapless target of their scheming. Like so many of Shakespeare's plays, this one was a study in the will to power, a theme that never grows old because it is never absent from human affairs.  Witness American politics; witness Aleppo; witness the Ukraine.

Christmas is almost upon us, and the Christmas story is also about power. It is about a powerless Jewish family who journeyed to Bethlehem to comply with an edict of the powerful Roman emperor.  It is about a poor infant who slept in a manger because there was no room for his family in the inn.  It is about the powerful king installed by Rome who was so frightened of the news of the birth of a new Jewish ruler that he commanded the slaughter of all newborn males. It is about the powerless couple who escaped the massacre with their infant son. For believers, it is also about a God who enters creation not as a dictatorial ruler but as a humble servant, whose earthly path begins in the manger and ends on the cross, a willing victim, and for that reason, the ultimate conqueror, of the powerful secular and religious leaders of his time.

A few years ago I read a book by theologian Marcus Borg who compared the story of Jesus' birth with the story of Caesar's.  The contrasts were so close and so stunning that Borg suggested the Christmas story was written as a response to the Caesar mythology.  First century Romans referred to Caesar as the son of God, and bestowed on him all the trappings of that office.  The Gospel writers, in an act that Rome would have considered treasonous, portrayed a poor, helpless Jewish baby (and a grown itinerant preacher) as the real son of God, though he would hold no worldly power or authority. Like so many of Jesus' teachings, the story of Christmas turned conventional wisdom on its head. True authority resided not in grasping for power, but in spurning it. As the adult Jesus would later say to his disciples, he who wished to be greatest among them must become servant to all.   

And this is the source of true joy. It is pouring oneself out for others. It is abandoning power for the good of the other. It is feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, healing the sick, visiting the prisoner, and doing whatever one can to protect the most vulnerable among us. And it is faith in a merciful God who stands with us in our suffering and calls us to a greater and more fulfilling purpose than the aggrandizement of power. 

Those who seek power for power's sake will never know the joy of those who learn the lesson of the Christmas story. For what, after all, shall it profit a man if he gains the world but loses his soul?

Merry Christmas to all.



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