Luke 2:1-20

This passage occurs as the Gospel for Christmas Eve in all three lectionary cycles.

Summary:  I have no desire to summarize the meaning of the incarnation in Luke's Gospel.  This passage has layers and layers of meaning for us to draw on this year and every year.  I offer this as a way to hopefully point toward something in the passage that can help launch your reflection and preaching.

Words I found interesting (if you like timelines and Roman history, you can go to the end):

Translation Issues - Ancient and New - that might actually be sermon worthy

καταλυματι  ("inn", 2:7)  "There was no room for them in the inn."  This word actually has been retranslated in the NRSVUE -- "inn" is out and "guest room" is in.  Before you decide this is blasphemy, know that later in Luke's Gospel, Jesus will make room for himself in another καταλυματι -- the upper room (22:11; same word).  The idea is that in ancient houses, the καταλυματι referred to the upper room or the guest quarters.  If one understands this as "upper room" then the image you get is that Mary and Joseph were with distance family, because it was so crowded, they put the baby and pregnant woman in with the animals.  Even if you want to imagine Jesus as a middle class person with distant relatives surrounding him...Luke's poetry still maintains its force:  The world didn't have room for him and the prince of all creation was sleeping in a bed of hay.  (And more crassly, a woman was giving birth among the animals!)  Luke wants us to know what at some level -- any level!! -- the world didn't have room for Jesus.

I also wonder what kind of poetic force it would allow to translate this as "There was no room for them in the upper room."  The very place where Jesus makes room for the whole world -- the new Passover -- is the place the world banished him at birth.

ευδοκιας ("pleasure", 2:14)  I often wondered about this word -- did God intend peace for all people or just those whom he liked?  First, the Greek has a textual problem.  The manuscripts seem divided (and even in manuscripts there are edits) whether this should be read as a nominative or genitive.

If we read it as a nominative:
N) glory to God; peace on earth; good will among humans (i.e. three items distributed in three realms)
If we read it as a genitive
G)  glory to God; peace on earth among humans of (his) pleasure.
If we go with option N) it seems that good will is toward all people, unambiguously.  Unfortunately, the evidence textually, even though divided, favors option G).
So, if we go with option G) we encounter a bit more ambiguity.  If this is the case (okay, bad pun there), Luke writes "upon the earth peace among people of pleasure/desire."  The Greek leaves out the phrase, "of him."  It simply states, "among people of desire."  I am not sure if we can, on the basis of grammar, solve this case (again, bad pun).  What is unambiguous is that God intends for peace on earth!  What is ambiguous grammatically and historically is how we humans live into this peace.

The NET Bible quotes the TCGNT saying “The meaning seems to be, not that divine peace can be bestowed only where human good will is already present, but that at the birth of the Saviour God’s peace rests on those whom he has chosen in accord with his good pleasure” (TCGNT 111). *  I find this really helpful -- God's Glory is secure but human peace can only arise out of a gift.

Other Great Stuff

μεγαλην (literally "great", 2:9 and 2:10).  Two things are great in this passage -- there is a great fear and then a great joy.  This sets up, in many ways, the background for the whole of Luke's Gospel:  Jesus will cause great fear, but also great joy.  It is a backdrop for any good Christmas sermon too -- there is great fear in our world, but because of Jesus, we have reason for great joy.

δόξα (glory, 2:9 and 2:14) This word should and is translated as "glory."  But given how much Luke is channeling the OT (see below for more), one might wonder if he is referring to the OT sense of glory, as opposed to the Hellenistic sense of glory.  Hellenistic glory is how we think of glory -- majesty and all sorts of good stuff worth of honor and praise.  Like the winner of the Tri-wizarding Cup receives "eternal glory."  But in the OT, glory (כְּבוֹד) also referred to the presence of God, often manifested in a cloud.  This is true throughout the Torah when the Israelites are in the wilderness (See especially 40:34-35).  This continues later in Scripture too, for example, 1 Kings 8:11 and gets "blown up" in John 1.  In short, the glory of the Lord in the OT was not an abstract concept (like honor) but a concrete manifestation and security of God's presence.

What is at stake here for the preacher?  Perhaps the angels were surrounded by a pillar of fire!  But more deeply, the Glory of the Lord's typically showed up in the sanctuary.  If God's Glory is showing up here, it suggests that the shepherd's foothills have become a temple.  It also suggests that Jesus is worthy of worship, something that alone belongs to God (ie, Jesus is God!).  In short, there is something profound going on here -- socially and theologically.

ημεραις  (days, 2:1; 2:6 and throughout Luke 1 and Luke 2) vs σημερον (today, 2:11)  Throughout the Gospel of Luke, but especially the early part, there are lots of things that are happening 'in those days'.  But Jesus birth happens today.  I wonder if there a sermon connection there, thinking about the pacing of life.  Women move slowly with a donkey; the shepherds are hurrying to see.  We have lots of days, but Christmas day is different.  For me, Christmas Eve is one of the few times a year when I feel like I am not just living days, rushing from one activity to the next, but simply in the moment, dwelling in the proclamation.

To put it another way:  Christmas in America does everything is can to focus our attention on the past or the future.  The angels tell us to focus on the here and now, where God is! 

αγραυλουντες (participle form of αγραυλεω, meaning "living outdoors", 2:8)  This is a word we don't have in English.  It clearly does not refer to high class people!  Luke 2 begins in a powerful roman 'war room' in which the decision is make to count troops and tax citizens, but ends up in a field, in which the riches of heaven and the ranks of the heavenly host is unveiled.  Luke is moving us down the ladder of importance (Emperor, Governor, king of the Jews, middle class inn owners and finally to shepherds).  Yet, this precisely where the world's power is not is where God chooses to reveal God's self.

ρημα (literally "herema" meaning "word", 2:15)  This word is like logos, and it can mean thing or matter or word.  Thus...the shepherds literally say, "Let us behold the word."  John's Gospel is famous for articulating this concept, that the word became flesh, (John 1:14), but Luke here subtly allows the shepherds to articulate this most divine mystery!

Thayer offers that ρημα means "properly, that which is or has been uttered by the living voice, thing spoken, word; i.e. a. any sound produced by the voice and having a definite meaning."  When the shepherds report to Mary what was spoken (ρημα) and when Mary ponders the words/matter (ρημα) in her heart, translating this word as simply "word" makes sense.  But when the shepherds say, "Let us behold the word", referring to the birth of the baby, this is clearly saying that a word has become flesh!

Ιωσηφ (literally "Joseph", 2:16) Just a reminder that Joseph isn't left out of the picture!

συμβαλλουσα (literally "symballoo", meaning "ponder", 2:19)  Mary "pondered these things in her heart."  The word for ponder is symbol -- to draw meaning, to pull together or literally to throw together.  This is fascinating that Mary is gathering together the images and thoughts of the angels in her mind.

For 2026:  I want to look at the word "praise" and its connection to singing.

Times Lines and Roman History

οικουμενη(ν) ("world", 2.1)  The word for "all the world" here really means civilized world, coming from the Greek work οικος.  It is a reminder that for those in the Roman empire, this meant the ENTIRE world.

δογμα (literally dogma, meaning "decree", 2.1)  No important theological consideration.  Just that Rome has always been interested in promulgating dogma ;-)

απογραφη ("registration" 2.2)  A few directions one can go with this word. 
First, power of Rome:  Liddell Scott refers to this as "a register of persons liable to taxation."  Rome wanted a census because they wanted to tax and conscript people.  The first two sentences of Luke 2 are dripping with imperial power.

Second, challenge of history:  Luke's chronological placement of Quirinius doesn't add up in terms of a chronology.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Census_of_Quirinius. (Other scholars are more generous.) 

A note on Luke's 'historicity.'  Luke 1 (vs 4), Luke 2 and Luke 3 all start with details about the time period, a reminder that Luke is not trying to write a myth here, but trying to put Jesus' birth and life within the actual historical context.

Third, sin of a census:  In 2 Samuel 24:10, David confesses to sinning as he has engaged in a census.  Why is this a sin?  Because the idea was not to count your troops but to trust the Lord in battle.  In fact, it may be that the zealots (mentioned in the New Testament) arose out of anger of this census being taken. 

Can we put this altogether:  Even if you cannot accept as historical fact the coincidence of Jesus birth with the census, Jesus would have been a young child during a census, a brutal reminder of the power of Rome, a foreign and pagan power.  Quirinius' biography is a great story of the "Roman dream" where someone rose through military victory and shifting political allegiances.  In short, Luke's setting the stage is correct:  The Jews existed under an imperial power, hostile to their faith.  Jesus was born in an empire that cared not for him.  This imperial power was and remains the envy of all other empires in its military and administrative might.

To drive this point home, the angel proclaims, "who is Christ, the Lord."  In Greek, this is spelled Χριστος κυριος, which is the basic confession of faith (Christ is Lord) that ran contrary to the Roman confession of faith (Caesar Kurios).  The angel here offers a subversive confession of faith! 

To put it more softly, the power of the state is to count, tax and wage war.  The power of the mother, really the power of the church, is to embrace and shepherd.

Luke was writing OT style

It is considered poor English to write a sentence in which the verb and object share the same word root.  For example:  I climbed a climb or I rode a ride.  We are trained to make the object and verb different words:  "I climbed a mountain" or "I rode a bike." 
Because of Hebrew's limited vocabulary as well as the importance of simplifying stories for oral transmission, cognate accusatives are very common.  Not so much in Greek, however.  Which is strange then that Luke uses three of them in this passage:

• φυλάσσοντες φυλακὰς  (literally "guarded their guard," or "tended their flocks," 2.8)
• εφοβηθησαν φοβου (literally "feared a great fear," 2.9)
• ποιμένες ποίμνην (sort of here too -- shepherds and sheep-herd)

Not sure why Luke does this other than to speculate he was reading a lot of the Old Testament as he wrote the Christmas narrative!

* To be honest, I think I know what the TCGNT is, but it seems strange that it would contain such a comment, so I cannot give a full citation because I think they are referring to something different.