God came to a world which needed him

by David Sellnow

It was a time when international power dwarfed the day to day lives of everyday people. The world managed to avoid an all-engrossing global war; there was a general peace, of a sort. But that peace was maintained only by fear of what giant military might could do. Meanwhile, outbreaks of violence and suppression of revolution regularly dotted the map.

It was a time when political rulers made promises to appeal to the masses, while at the same time doing what was most advantageous for maintaining their own rank and position. The most brutal leaders would go as far as using imprisonment or death to eliminate threats to their power.

It was a time when a fraction of the world’s population controlled the bulk of the worlds’ wealth, and the poor and working classes struggled to maintain their existence.

It was a time when women were dominated by men and had to navigate societal institutions in which men held sway, and when dominant peoples and groups subjugated minority populations and disadvantaged groups.

It was a time when differing religious and philosophical systems competed for people’s loyalties. Some beliefs were accepted in society; others were ostracized. Persons could be persecuted for following beliefs that went against accepted norms, and attacks by one religious group on another were not uncommon.

It was the world of the Roman Empire at the beginning of the Common Era. Augustus ruled as Caesar, maintaining the Roman peace by the force of Roman armies.  Augustus famously would bemoan the loss of some of his legions in battle vs. Germanic tribes in the Teutoberg Forest, but in most places, Rome ruled with an iron fist. They also granted leeway to local rulers that served their purposes, such as Herod in the province of Judea. Herod was the kind of man willing to slaughter even babies in order to protect his own position (cf. Matthew chapter 2).  In the Roman world in those days, the top 1½% of the population controlled 20% of all existing wealth, according to Walter Schiedel and Steven Friesen, writing in The Journal of Roman Studies (Volume 99, November 2009). The majority of individuals eked out a living, and as many as one in five persons across the empire were held in slavery (Ancient History Encyclopedia).  Religions and philosophies varied across the empire, while at the same time a cult of religious reverence for the emperor himself was beginning to take shape.

It was into this sort of world that God intervened with his incarnational presence. Jesus was born, God in the flesh, as God’s response to all that was (and is) wrong with the world.  In response to brute power, God displays his power in love through the gift of Christ.  In response to an economy of inequality, God establishes mercy and charity as the way for persons to interact with one another. In response to religious division and confusion and worship of persons and things of this world, God offers a Savior who answers all persons’ religious hopes. 

The descriptions at the beginning of this message about what the world was like in those days may well have reminded you of what the world is like in our time today. That’s not surprising. “There is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9).  The good news is that the Savior, Jesus Christ—who entered our world in those days when “Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world” (Luke 2:1) and when Herod ordered the death of all baby boys in Bethlehem because it was said the King of the Jews had been born there (Matthew 2:2-8, 16)—Jesus remains God’s gift to the world today and always.  

It is not with perishable things such as silver or gold (or any material things) that we are redeemed from the empty way of life that is otherwise common to the human race.  Our redemption is in Christ, who was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for our sake.  Through him we believe in God, and so our faith and hope are in God (1 Peter 1:18-21).