Powerful and Powerless - A Christmas Sermon

POWERFUL & POWERLESS

I want to take you back in history to the year 63 BC. In that year a person called Gaius was born. He was the nephew of Julius Caesar, who later adopted him as his son and heir, naming him Augustus Caesar.

He became one of the most powerful men of his time, ruling over a most powerful empire.

His biographer tells us how, 'his legions policed the provinces up to the extremes of the barbarian confine. He made the Italian roads a marvel of efficiency and established or completed a similar network overseas. Milestones and pillars at cross roads gave the traveller his bearings...he did much in building new cities and amplifying old ones at

strategic points in the interior, cities which would dominate new roads and be centres of Roman influence.'

There is no doubt that Augustus Caesar left his mark. Yet, despite his power, there is only one reason why his name is remembered today, namely that he decreed a census in 6 BC.

And as a result of that decree, an unmarried couple found themselves in search of accommodation in a small village in the furthermost part of the Roman Empire, namely Bethlehem.

Of all the children born that night within the empire, the one born to this unmarried couple, in a stable at the back of an inn, has done more than anyone else to change the face of the Roman empire.

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I am reminded of some words written by Philip Brooks concerning this insignificant birth.

He writes:

'Here is a man who was born in a lowly manger, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in an obscure village. He worked in a carpenter's shop until he was thirty and then for three years was an itinerant preacher.

He never wrote a book. He never held office. He never went to college. He never owned a house. He never had a family. He never travelled 200 miles from the place where he was born.

He never did any of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but himself. He had nothing to do with this world except the power of his divine manhood. While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied him. He was turned over to his enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed upon the cross between two thieves. His executioners gambled for the only piece of property he had on earth while he was dying - his coat. When he was dead, he was taken down and laid in a borrowed tomb through the pity of a friend.'

And Philip Brooks concludes:

'Nineteen wide centuries have come and gone. Today he is the centrepiece of the human race and the leader of a column of progress.

I am within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, and all the navies that were ever built, and all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as that one solitary life.'

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When the powerful Augustus Caesar died, the people comforted themselves by saying that Augustus was a god and that gods do not die.

Alas, save for that one decree which he issued in 6BC, his name has been airbrushed out of history, and the

powerful Roman empire is no more.

On the other hand, Christians believe that Jesus was God, and although he did die, he also rose victorious from the grave and continues to live in the life of the Christian church through those who follow him.

You and I can look back over 2000 years of history and see how this 'powerless' person, born in the obscurity of a stable in Bethlehem, has had the most powerful influence in the moulding and shaping of life upon this planet.

Powerless? Never.

Powerful? Yes.

This is the great truth which is symbolised in the birth of a helpless infant in Bethlehem, some 2000 years

ago, when, as St Luke reminds us: 'A decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered.'