In a time long ago, in a galaxy far, far away– oh, sorry, this is the beginning of the wrong story. Let me try again. Now, what is it? Ah – here it is – to boldly go where no one has gone before. No, that’s still the wrong story. What about – once upon a time there was – no, no, no, this won’t do either.

Let’s try again.

In those days, a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. Phew! Finally, the beginning of the right story.

By mentioning Augustus, Qurinias, and the first census, Luke firmly locates the birth of Jesus in an exact historical moment of linear time. Among the other three gospel evangelists, Luke is the only one who does this. But Luke is not simply interested in accurate historical reporting. He’s more concerned with showing Jesus’ birth as a kairos moment – a moment in which time itself becomes permeable to the influence and action of the divine life of the universe – welling up and breaking through the surface of linear time.

In Saving Belief: A Discussion of Essentials, Austin Farrer, the renowned 20th-century Anglican priest and theologian, with poetic eloquence, wrote:

In the saving action of the incarnation, God came all lengths to meet us and dealt humanly with human creatures… He came among them, bringing his Kingdom, he let events take their human course.  He set the divine life in human neighbourhood. Men discovered it in struggling with it and were captured by it in crucifying it. What could be simpler? And what more divine?

This Advent, I’ve been exploring the interplay of Kairos and linear time as integral to understanding resistance as future hope embodied in present-time action. This past Sunday, I was delighted when K Casenhiser – without knowingly echoed Austin Farrer when she noted the significance of the divine life embodying in the child Mary bears as the means for God to involve human bodies in the Kingdom’s work. She said that 

God insists that bodies are the systems through which the world of the Kingdom will be built. God articulates God’s dependence upon us human creatures when God says: humanity is how I wish to become recognizable in the world. Critically, though, before God takes this action, God chooses to get the consent of the actors involved.

The Kingdom is a set of values and expectations revealing God’s desires for the world. We are invited rather than commanded to participate in the divine project of the Kingdom’s coming. Farrer rightly notes that the presence of the Kingdom creates tension in his wonderful image of the neighborhood because Kingdom values and expectations are not easy for us to live up to.

Hence, we struggle against the Kingdoms’ coming, and as Farrer noted – at an extreme moment in that struggle, we tried to get rid of the Kingdom altogether by killing Jesus, only to discover that through his death, the ultimate victory of God becomes ensured. While resisting, we become captive to Kingdom expectations because they demonstrate that love proves stronger than death – or, in Farrer’s words – Men discovered it in struggling with it and were captured by it in crucifying it.

On this Christmas Eve, we come looking for comfort and solace—a brief respite from the world’s buffetings. We come to find comfort in familiar memories of Christmas past, with a desire to once again hear the message the angels proclaimed of glory to God in the highest and peace on earth to all people of goodwill. Note the qualification – people of goodwill – here.

On Christmas Eve, we come to hear the good news of our Savior’s birth. In some churches, it will be enough to bathe worshippers in a warm bath of manger scene nostalgia of shepherds, angels, and, eventually, wise men. In others, however, something edgier will be offered – capable of speaking the good news of our Savior’s birth into the pain and chaos of the world in these times.

What many of us may not be prepared for is that in such times as these, the good news of our Savior’s birth carries an uncomfortable message. For how can we sing O Little Town of Bethlehem and ignore our fellow Christians in modern Bethlehem – for whom the commemoration of Jesus’ birth requires digging deep in their suffering for the wellsprings of joy and resilience – in a town ringed by walls and watchtowers that witness the brutalities of human inhumanity.

This Christmas finds many of us demoralized by a challenging direction of events in the nation and the world. The drift toward extreme right-wing and nationalist parties is disconcerting to anyone who knows a modicum of mid-20th-century history. Yet, among those for whom the neo-liberal economic order of deregulation, global capital flight, and the exportation of once good-paying jobs has destroyed their confidence in liberal democracy. In communities where dignity and pride once resided in a proud tradition of making useful things – a bitter cynicism takes root among men and women who no longer feeling useful. In many small towns and large, in the depth of rural poverty – the growing fentanyl epidemic is a solution of sorts to the loss of hope.

History tells us that in times such as these – many will flock to embrace the illusory certainties of right-wing and ultra-nationalist rhetoric – that so effectively channels resentment by inflaming primitive tribal fears of difference and diversity. The artful identification of scapegoat stereotypes turns the most vulnerable into enemies within.

The shock of this has come home to those of us in the more insulated reaches of the middle class, presenting a strong temptation to retreat into self-protective complicity with despair (there’s nothing to be done), while quietening our consciences by a conspiracy of silence in the face of the evils of unashamed racism, gender and transgender scapegoating, Christian nationalism, and the seemingly unstoppable rise of a homegrown oligarch class of which Musk and Bezos are only two of the usual suspects. That a tyrant like Vladimir Putin had the good sense to banish the oligarchs from politics is a lesson we seem to be slow to learn from.

To meet the challenges and seize the opportunities in our world, we need to locate ourselves in the right story – the deeper message beneath my somewhat whimsical beginning. As Luke begins: In those days, how would this story read if we begin its sequel with – in these days …?

Through the lens of history, we can look back on Jesus’ birth as a moment in linear time when the divine life entered our human neighborhood to deal humanly with humanity. What it is not is a supernatural event now firmly in the rearview mirror of history. It is a present time event in the here and now that asks a question: in the face of a world where evil continues its grip on the human heart, will you answer yes or no to the invitation to make the choices, take the actions, and travelling down pathways that do not lead us to embody the values and expectations of the Kingdom?

We are faced with the urgency of this question as our confidence in the march of progress – the arc of the moral universe bending in the direction of justice is shown to have been naïve in its inference that somehow unknown to us, things are moving in the right direction without any help from us.

Comfortable Christianity’s conflation of low-risk belief with a moderate political agenda – whether it be center left or center right – is now rudely shaken. Across the democratic West, centrism is now dying – both in its political and religious form.

For us hitherto safe armchair Christians, a more radical sense of allegiance is now being asked of us. For us, the Incarnation is a new story that must begin with – in these days …??

In these days, when Donald Trump is President and Elon Musk, oligarch-in-chief and co-president– the divine life that has taken up residence in our human neighborhood is inviting us to embody the dream of the Kingdom. Given that God must await our response – yes or no – how do we want this that begins with – in these days – to end?