Augustus Is the Imposter

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[0:00] read the whole thing again, but I'm going to reread one or two sentences. And the first is actually verse 1, chapter 2, verse 1 of Luke, which reads like this, "'In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered.'

[0:22] And this was the first registration that was taken or the first census that was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria." And so from there, we understand that Mary and Joseph had to return to Joseph's home, sort of his ancestral home in Bethlehem, even though he was from Nazareth. And so he traveled there with Mary, and that's where they had Jesus. So Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but his family was from Nazareth. But I want to focus for a moment on one name, and that's Emperor Augustus. And so we think today is about Jesus, and it is, but we have to kind of lead into it with figuring out a little bit. Who this Emperor Augustus was and how important he was. So a little bit of detail. He was born in 63 BC. His name was actually Gaius Octavius. Anybody love Roman history? It's very interesting stuff. Gaius Octavius. And during his life, he was also known as Octavian. So it's very confusing because he has a lot of different names, Augustus, Gaius Octavius, and Octavian. And he was the undisputed emperor of the Roman Empire. From 27 BC until the end of the 19th century, he was the emperor of the Roman Empire. So he was the emperor of the Roman Empire. So he ruled the Roman Empire from the beginning of his lifetime until he died in 14 AD.

[1:29] Before that, it wasn't clear exactly who the solitary emperor of the emperor was. There was challenges. Because before that he had been in this long struggle to reach power. First it was in a war to assassinate—to eliminate—the assassins of Julius Caesar—remember Julius Caesar—and the Ides of March—and Julius Caesar was his great uncle—and then whom he had shared the throne in what is called a triumvirate. So a triumvirate is when you have three rulers and they're all trying to rule the empire simultaneously. And it should be obvious anyone that that could never work, right? It just could never work. And so it's kind of like Highlander, there can only be one. And so in the end, it was Augustus. He survived and he was the undisputed emperor from 27 BC until 1480. And so clearly his reign overlaps with when we believe Jesus was born. He had also vanquished some other leaders, pretenders, Mark Anthony and his wife, Cleopatra, somebody else named Marcus Lepidus. But, and this is important, it sounds like there was a lot of war and there was. But after he basically cleared up the empire, he was able to out all of the rivals that may have kind of opposed him. The empire experienced very expansive peace and prosperity at the same time. And so this is one of the most productive and peaceful times

[3:05] in the life of the empire. And so he's counted as one of the greatest leaders of all time. But, you know, he wasn't like a super sweet next door neighbor. Like if you stepped on his lawn, I don't think you'd make it to the next day, right? Because he had some sharp elbows. But that's how he got to be where he was. And stay where he was. There were Roman emperors whose reign was just a few months. They couldn't hold on. He held on for some 41 years, which is actually astounding. So I want to let you know a few of his accomplishments. And I'm not saying I admire him, but it's just he's one of the more fascinating people in history. He inaugurated a longstanding peace that led to great prosperity. It's also known as the Pax Romana or the Peace of Rome.

[3:52] Some people actually name it after him, the Pax Augustus. And he enlarged the boundaries of the empire and gained a peace treaty with a foreign empire, the Parthians. And so he was also a diplomat as well as, I guess, a good general or at least a good, he managed to kind of expand the empire. He instituted a system of Roman roads to connect the world along with a reliable postal service. So that's pretty good. And then he reformed the system of taxation, which is why a census was necessary.

[4:24] So he made it possible for his nodig of So So So ! ! the forms in but if you don't do that they'll come to your door and and they're like you need to do the census because they need to count you because then they know how you know how to allot all sorts of things like members of congress but also a fire station and things like that so but for augustus was it about that no it was about money it was about taxation you need to know how many people you have so you can plan how much money you're going to extract from all of them and this is indeed why god got angry at king david because he took a census of the kingdom and it was not out of trust for god it was out of him trying to to plan a little bit too much and have too much control and before that god had always helped david now david was trying to help himself and so there was there were some problems there with uh a census so censuses are problematic and it led to great turmoil in the empire because people had to leave where they were living and go back to their ancestral homes so that they they could sort of line up with the lists that may may have existed in those ancestral homes so but speaking of fire departments going back to augustus he created a fire department for the city of rome so there's that the fire department

[5:47] i don't have buckets or a little chariot with a bucket on the back um so also augustus was a patron of herod the great and he gave the green light and the funds for the construction of the temple of the king of the kingdom of the king of the kingdom of the king of the kingdom of the king of the kingdom small religious group way in the corner of the Roman Empire, but to locate it in place and in time, Luke mentions two people, the Emperor Augustus and the governor named Quirinius. And we should ask why Luke does this, right? Aside from helping us with the date of Jesus's birth. And for one thing, it's not specific enough. 41 years, that's not specific enough to figure out when Jesus was born. So it's the detail about Quirinius that helps us get the date a little more exactly. And he was actually governor of Syria starting only in about 6 AD. Do you see the problem here? So when was Jesus born? Zero? Probably not. The earliest Jesus could have been born is 6 AD. So happy 20, happy 2020 in a week, if that's what it is. So I remember all that stuff about Y2K and the end of the world. That was not paying attention to any of this, unfortunately. And there's still time to avoid COVID. So get on that one if you can. Okay. But so the earliest Jesus could have

[7:40] been born is 6 AD. So we have our years wrong. The system we have was designed in 525 AD and they didn't have the best historical records to do it accurately. So that means, yeah, we're closer to, we're closer to 20.

[7:55] Yeah, we're closer to 2020 or 2019 right about now. So again, why Augustus? And I think there's this subversive contrast here. There's one more thing that Augustus is known for and that we should add to our list. And this is really the important part. All the other stuff was just history and fascinating, but it leads up to this. He started, Augustus started what is known as the imperial, which is like a community of So So So adding steps steps from the !

[8:48] ハ had been chosen to be where he was and who he was. And the requirement to hold this belief varied at times. There was times when this belief was used to sort of subjugate people. At other times, I think it was relaxed.

[9:04] But there was some expectation that he should be worshiped alongside the pantheon of the Roman gods, right? Zeus and all the rest. And you can see this as a strategy for control. Believe me, this is going somewhere. You're like, what? Is this lecture time or is this a sermon? Just wait. We'll get there. So this is a strategy for control. He had already enhanced his control over commerce by creating the roads and the postal system. Do you know how much easier it is to tax people if you have roads to carry the money back to Rome? You know, everything works together, right?

[9:35] But he also brought peace, so there was sort of a peace dividend. He had military control, police control of the cities. And so he had control over people's economic life. He had control over their wealth. He had control over their physical life. They had to use his roads to get around. They were subjugated by his army. They were kept in line by his police. And so there was one area that was left that he needed control in, and that was their spiritual life. And so the cult of the emperor. You have to worship him too. You have to set aside whatever gods you may have, and you have to worship him alongside all these other gods if you want to be a good Roman. And if you want to be a good subjugated person, you have to. You can't be too upset about it. Now the Jews actually had a special dispensation to continue to practice their own religion, and they did. And they did, but they had to be careful.

[10:33] And so even the Roman soldiers, they would carry something called a standard, I guess you would call it. It was sort of a pole, and it had an eagle at the top, often if they were going into battle. But sometimes there was a staff and it had sort of a three-dimensional bust or statue of the emperor at the top of it. And these were things that everybody was supposed to look up to and rally around. It was sort of this visible evidence that the emperor is always with us. And so you really couldn't go anywhere without seeing signs of Emperor Augustus. You had the roads, you had the soldiers, you had the standards, you had the flags, you had all the things. Always a reminder. Always a reminder that somebody's on top, somebody's in charge, and it's not you. And so there was really nowhere to go.

[11:25] You had to use their money. In most cases, you had to use their money to buy things. And so as part of this cult, this imperial cult, Augustus received or gave himself several new titles. In Latin, he was called Dominus, but in Greek that would have been called Kyrios, and if you know Greek. That's the word we translate into English as Lord.

[11:50] Kyrios is Lord. Dominus is Lord. He was also called in Greek Soter, which means Savior. We're talking about Augustus still. We're not talking about Jesus yet. We're talking about the Roman emperor. His title was Lord and Savior. And there was more. He also had the name Pontifex Maximus. We were going to name our third child Pontius. Pontifus Maximus, but veto, veto power. No, I'm kidding. We never, we're going to, his name is Asher. Much better. Pontifus Maximus. I think he'd get beaten up at school a lot with that one. But that means that Pontifex means priest. Maximus means top, maximum, biggest, the high priest of the entire Roman religion. So Augustus is occupying every sphere of human life, the financial, the physical, and the spiritual.

[12:46] And he has all the titles. Lord, Savior, high priest. Do you see it all? It's all there. So here's where the subversive contrast begins. Here we're finally getting to our reading from Luke. The first sentence of the first paragraph has Augustus, the highest of the high. But then in the beginning of the second paragraph, we have a host of angels appear to shepherds who are the lowest of the low. And you may remember. Shepherds. had really no prestige whatsoever in that time. They were not really trusted very much. And what do they say? What do these angels say to the shepherds? They say, to you this day in the city of David is born a Soter, Savior, born a Savior, who is the Christ, the Messiah, the Kyrios, the Lord. Now, wait a second, Luke, be careful. Those words are reserved for somebody else. You can't put them on Jesus, or can you? That's the question, right? So, this is sort of something dangerous that Luke is doing. And I think it could have been dangerous to carry a copy of this gospel around. Now, it probably wasn't written until after Augustus was dead. In fact, it wasn't. But that was the time when the gospel was written. Them's fighting words. That's dangerous stuff, to call somebody else Lord and Savior.

[14:17] That's dangerous talk. So, you've been told that Augustus is the Lord, the Savior, the pontifex Maximus, and there's no place or domain in life where he doesn't have control over you. But the angels are saying, here is the true Savior, the true Lord. But he's born into simplicity. He's born into a lowly place. He's born into a place where the animals eat their food. He's not born in a royal palace. He's not born into a fancy place. And so, this is the true one. And what Luke is saying is that Augustus is the imposter. I'm going to say that again, because I think that's really the theme that comes home tonight. Christmas is partly about this.

[15:05] Augustus is the imposter. He's not born into a lowly place. He's born into a place where the animals eat their food. He's not the true Lord. He's not the true Savior. He's not the true high priest. He's not. He's none of those things. He's just a bloodthirsty guy who managed to get to the top, and he's got a great amount of wealth and a great amount of power, but he's going to die in the end. And we still talk about him as a very interesting person, but he's not with us anymore. So, the imposter, the pretender, is Augustus. And the angel who proclaims this to the shepherds has more power in the world. He's got his little pinky than Augustus ever would, when you think about the angels and this heavenly host that appear in the sky and talk about, and tell the shepherds about it.

[15:48] So, this is, I think that, this is a little different tonight, but Christmas is one of those things that kind of pushes back against the power structures of this world, and says, you're all imposters. All these power structures that you've created around yourself, all the, all the money that you're extracting from everybody, all the political power that you have, all the military power that you have, all the roads that you've built, all the priesthoods that you've anointed yourself with, those are all fake. Those are all nothing. All of those rightly belong to this little baby that's born in a manger in Bethlehem 2,000 and, actually, 20 years ago, because we've got the date right now. So, I want to give another example of this. About 1900 years after that, but about what we would say about, about 100 years ago, a little less, there were a few faithful Christians in Nazi Germany who dared to write something that was called the Barmen Declaration, and it was their, there was their subversive answer. It was their, like, their version of Luke chapter 2, because there was this attempt by the Nazis to infiltrate every aspect of German society, everything, everything in German society had to bend to the Nazi party and to the Nazi party's leader,

[17:14] including dictating what the church would preach. And speaking of flags, the Nazis had flags. They, do you ever see those, those old videos of, like, the, the rallies and the flags? They really loved the flags. Like, they really, really, really liked flags. In fact, they told, they told the pastors, you have to put a Nazi flag on the church pole.

[17:38] And the, the, that, that was a party flag, you know, before this was a state flag, it was a party flag. And evidently, one of these pastors, he didn't want to go to jail, so he got a tiny Nazi flag from, like, a novelty shop the size of a postage stamp, and he stuck it right outside the church, you know. That was his sort of, that was his civil disobedience, and they took him away anyways. What are you going to do, you know? But this is partly what the, the Barmen Declaration was. The Declaration reads, there's a copy of it there in that blue hymnal in front of you, if you want to read it afterwards, it's fascinating. But this is what the Barmen, in part, reads. They, they wrote this together, the pastors of the confessing church in Germany. They wrote this, We reject the false doctrine that the government should and can, beyond its special duties granted by God, and the government does have duties granted by God, they were, they were clear on that. But beyond those special duties granted by God, the government should not become the single and total order of human life, and thus also fulfill the purpose of the church and of the gospel.

[18:51] The government cannot have all of that. It can have some, and it should, it should build roads, it should build fire departments, it should run the postal service. We need those things, absolutely. But it can't be your church. It can't fill that spot. It can't be your thought and your soul. It can't be your savior. If the government's my savior, I have a lot of, that's like, that'd be like my number one problem right now. If, if I was going to be saved by the government, I hope you agree with me. Like any government, doesn't matter which government I'm talking about, doesn't matter who's in charge. If we think the government's going to save us, I'm sorry. It's not.

[19:29] And I'm telling you all this sort of dramatic history from the Nazis, but also from Augustus, because I want you to have much more than a Merry Christmas. And by the way, Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. I mean, praise God. We love, we love Christmas. I want you to have a subversive Christmas. Okay? Could you have a subversive Christmas too at the same time? I want you to push back. I think we need to interrogate any, anything, any system, any flag, any oath that comes to us and says, you have to give every aspect of yourself to us.

[20:07] We have to push back at that because we have to say, no, you can't have all that. Jesus has huge parts of that. And I want to give that to Jesus, right? So we have to push back at all these. There's all these things that are clamoring for your attention. There's all these things that want to control you. And honestly, I think for every person in this room, it could be something different. So I'm not speaking of any one thing. I'm speaking of whatever is in your life that's barreling down at you and asking you to bend the knee, whatever it is, that wants to take you down. That wants to take control in some way.

[20:39] And what is the answer to the all-encompassing might and power of whatever it is in this world that will invade every moment and every thought and every transaction and every prayer? What's going to come and get in the way of that?

[20:56] But a little child. Can you hear him crying right now? You know, that actually does get your attention when a baby cries. Everything stops. Wah! You know how it sounds. And it's both a beautiful sound, but it raises, and it should, it raises your blood pressure and it raises your adrenaline right into the moment because you have to do something then. It's either hungry or cold or wet or all three. Or tired. Or all four. Any of those things. Or something else. And you've got to jump up and move. And the baby is crying.

[21:30] And you need to wake up and say, I'm not, I don't belong to all that. I belong to him. I belong to the true Savior. I belong to the true high priest. The true Lord. I have a true Lord. And that's Jesus. It's the light of the world. So my wish for you this Christmas is to let the Christ child come into your life in all of his simplicity. He comes in simplicity. He comes in meekness.

[21:55] It's a free gift on offer. It's not a form of control. He will never try to force you to follow him. He never does. He never will. He only takes people who join him willingly. And they do. And we do. And that's what Christmas is. Is Christ coming into the world to be its true Savior. Let's pray.

[22:19] Father, thank you for this word. And we ask that you add your blessing to it. And thank you for Christmas. Give us a merry Christmas this Christmas. Give us a subversive Christmas this Christmas. Help us to push back at this world and give our hearts and our hearts to you. And our lives to little baby Jesus. Amen.