Common Sense for the Twenty-First Century

Christmas Then and Now

80 Christmas Then and Now December 16, 2002 Now at this time, Caesar Augustus issued a decree for a census of the whole world to be taken. This census, the first, took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria, and everyone went to their own town to be registered. So Joseph set out from the town of Nazareth in Galilee and traveled up to Judea, to the town of David called Bethlehem, since he was of David’s House and line, in order to be registered together with Mary his betrothed, who was with child. And so this very day in Los Angeles, people from afar have been ordered to register and this is the last chance for many who will be considered criminals if they don’t register (and if they do register they may be taken away in handcuffs and possibly disappear). On with the story. Then the wise men arrived and Herod was furious when he realized that he had been outwitted by them, and in Bethlehem and its surrounding districts he had all the male children killed who were two years old or under . . . And Bethlehem remains as an occupied city today. Then the little family had to escape into Egypt by night. This is the plight of refugees the world over. They are hated because they are different. They are exploited because they cannot communicate and they are considered second and third class members of society to be used, abused and discarded. Well, the family stayed in Egypt until the King was dead. They went back to the land of Israel and when Joseph learned that Archelaus had succeeded his father Herod as ruler of Judea he decided to go to Galilee and he settled in the town of Nazareth. So the child was brought up in Nazareth and as a young adult he went into the Synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read. They handed him the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and he read: 81 The spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has anointed me. He has sent me to bring the good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and to the blind new sight, to set the downtrodden free, to proclaim the Lord’s year of favor. He said, “This text is being fulfilled today even as you listen.” And he won the approval of all. The scene then changed rapidly when Jesus explained that his message was universal, not parochial. He said: There were many widows in Israel, I can assure you, in Elijah’s day, when heaven remained shut for three years and six months and a great famine raged throughout the land, but Elijah was not sent to any one of these: he was sent to a widow at Zarephath, a Sidonian town. And in the prophet Elisha’s time there were many lepers in Israel, but not one of these was cured, except the Syrian, Naaman. This message is universal. It is not sectarian, it is not nationalistic, it is not for one ethnic group, it for the one race that lives on the planet, it is for the human race and it incorporates every spiritual path. ...