Lectionary Commentaries for December 25, 2025
Nativity of Our Lord (II)

The birth of Jesus (2:1–7) 

Luke closes John’s story temporarily to continue Mary’s narrative (Luke 1), painting Jesus’ birth in terms of both the emperor’s world and the outworking of God’s purpose. The references to Augustus, Quirinius, and the census serve three functions. First, unlike the earlier chronological reference focused on Judean history (1:5), this one concerns “the world,” implying that, while John’s ministry was focused on Israel, Jesus’ would be universal. Second, power and privilege occupy center stage: Augustus and Quirinius are introduced as wealthy, elite rulers, with Joseph portrayed as their subordinate. Finally, the census locates Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, fulfilling Micah 5:2:

But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah,
     who are one of the little clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
     one who is to rule in Israel.

Augustus, born Gaius Octavian and adopted by Julius Caesar, was recognized as sole Roman leader in 27 BCE. Having restored Roman rule as an empire, he was honored as divine. The Myrian Inscription declares: “Divine Augustus Caesar, son of a god, imperator of land and sea, the benefactor and savior of the whole world.” Even the name “Augustus” identified him as possessing quasi-divine characteristics. His census signals an unwelcome intrusion into Jewish affairs, reminding the people of Israel’s conquered status. Luke’s progression—from “all the world,” to Syria, to Joseph and the newborn—draws Jesus’ birth onto a universal stage, while underscoring its redemptive significance for the world.

Joseph travels to his ancestral town, “the city of David,” Bethlehem. Luke explicitly shows Joseph as having fulfilled Scripture and, with it, God’s purpose. Gabriel had announced that Jesus would receive David’s throne (1:32, 35), and this is echoed in Zechariah’s song (1:69, 78). Luke indicates how this plan, echoing God’s promise of a Davidic dynasty (2 Samuel 7:12–16), is now realized. Like David, Jesus hails from Bethlehem; born there, he is of David’s house (Micah 5:2; see above).

In this opening material, then, we find a conjunction of intentions: Joseph’s journey results from Augustus’s decree, but even universal Roman rule serves God’s greater purpose. This is ironic (Rome unwittingly serves a greater Sovereign) but also prophetic, and it reveals Roman rule’s provisional nature.

Luke records the birth with simplicity. The “fulfillment of the days” signifies both the realization of Gabriel’s announcement and the end of Mary’s pregnancy. The account specifies that this is Mary’s “firstborn,” supporting Luke’s claim of the virginal conception and designating Jesus as the possessor of inheritance rights. Luke’s account attends to the child’s care (with “bands of cloth” and a “manger”), locating Jesus’ birth on the lower level of a typical house, where the livestock would be kept, since there was “no place in the guest room” (2:7, New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition). In other words, Mary and Joseph were guests in a home (and a town, Bethlehem) that was overcrowded.

The angelic message and shepherds (2:8–20)

This section, framed by references to shepherds (2:8, 20), recounts interpretive responses to the promised son’s birth (with parallels to responses to John’s birth [1:58–79]). Anticipated through continued references to David (himself a shepherd-cum-king), the shepherds represent the lower rungs of society’s ladder—peasants inadequately resourced, hiring themselves out for wages. Indeed, the contrast between Augustus/Quirinius and these shepherds displays a central motif of Mary’s song: the high and mighty versus the humble and lowly (1:52). As recipients of this divine visitation, shepherds are highly esteemed in Luke’s narrative account, while rulers are overlooked. Good news comes to peasants, not rulers. The lowly are lifted up.

The “angel of the Lord” (2:9) is probably Gabriel, joined by “a multitude of the heavenly host” (2:13). This appearance of divine glory on a farm is astonishing, given the earlier respect for the Jerusalem temple as the presumptive meeting place between humanity and God. At least implicitly, the temple’s socio-religious importance is questioned, putting us on notice that the coming new world is radically different. Holiness, purity, status, and values—all must be reexamined.

The angels interpret Jesus’ birth from a heavenly perspective, pointing toward its universal implications. Good news is “for all the people” (2:10); peace has come “on earth” (2:14). This contrasts sharply with Caesar’s earlier demand on “all the world” (2:1).

The introduction of the shepherds and the angelic message they hear share elements of the birth-announcement-type scene: angel appearance (2:9a), fear reaction (2:9b), birth announcement (2:10–11), and sign (2:12). This one departs from the norm in significant ways, though.

1. 1. 1. Unlike earlier, similar announcements, this one concerns what has already happened on “this day”; for Luke, today emphasizes the present as the moment of eschatological fulfillment (see 4:21; 5:26; 19:9; 23:43).
      2. The announcement goes not to prospective parents but to outsiders—to persons outside Jesus’ family and to society’s outsiders—and this anticipates the boundary-crossing ramifications of Jesus’ birth.
      3. The shepherds do not learn the child’s name, yet in receiving the “good news,” they are given his identity: “Savior,” “Messiah,” and “Lord.”

With regard to this last point, Luke thus straddles cultural fences, drawing both on Greco-Roman “good news,” related to contexts of victorious battle and emperor worship (Augustus’s birthday was celebrated as the beginning of “good tidings”) and to the prophet Isaiah, for whom “good news” signifies God’s coming, God’s salvific reign (Isaiah 40–66). “Savior,” “Messiah,” and “Lord” (Luke 2:11) recall Isaiah too (Isaiah 9:1–7), as well as echoing titles given to the Roman emperor. 

Clearly, Luke presents this newborn child as a counter to Augustus, leaning heavily on the anticipation of a messianic figure in Israel’s Scriptures and associating this baby with the coming of Yahweh. Again, then, Luke transforms Greco-Roman language by vesting it in a baby laid in a manger, with the message of good news directed to peasant-shepherds.

For Luke, the “multitude of the heavenly host” demonstrates the appropriate response to God’s gracious intervention: divine worship (2:13–14). These angels proclaim heavenly glory and earthly peace, drawing on the scriptural hope of shalom—peace with justice, universal healing, the flourishing of creation—grounded in the promise of God’s rule and the coming of salvation (Isaiah 52:7). Note that the expression “those whom he favors” does not limit the scope of the good news. After all, the end-time shalom for Israel introduces cosmic shalom. God’s mercy has fallen on the world.

The shepherds respond like Mary, going “with haste” (1:39; 2:16). They find everything “just as it had been told them” (2:20), authenticating the angel’s message and sounding the note of God’s fidelity. They become, with Anna (2:38), Luke’s first evangelists: “They made known what had been told them about this child” (2:17). Their testimony produces different responses: amazement from those who heard, but also Mary’s further reflection. Even with exalted affirmations of the newborn’s identity, more layers of the importance of God’s work remain to be explored.

Someone once said that life’s storms force us into one of three positions when pondering a response: We are either entering a storm, in the midst of one, or coming out of one. If we are honest, none of us welcomes storms. They toss us back and forth, leaving us unsteady in turbulent waters, grasping for an anchoring lifeline. Doubt and fear whisper that we will be overtaken as we sink into despair and desperation. In those moments, even our faith seems fragile. We question God’s ability—or willingness—to rescue us. Like the psalmist, we ask, “Why have you forgotten me?” (Psalm 42:9). This is the conundrum the writer of Isaiah 62 seeks to address. 

The people had heard the assurances of comfort and security throughout Isaiah 40–55, where God’s presence and commitment to a struggling community were on full display. “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are mine. … Do not remember the former things or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing” (Isaiah 43:1, 18, 19a).

However, instead of a vibrant, thriving community, the exiles had returned to a devastated city, a temple in ruins, and a people too traumatized to invest in its restoration. Here, we find a community experiencing a crisis of faith, one burdened by memories of suffering and humiliation, a community yearning to know whether God’s promises were still sure. The writer responds with a resounding “Yes! God is a promise-keeper!”

In Isaiah 62:6–7, the community is encouraged to hold fast to the promises of God, even if it goes against their present reality—they are to hold in tension the now and the not yet. The stationing of sentinels on Jerusalem’s walls is a powerful image of the need for persistent hope and prayer when faced with a crisis of faith. During their vigil, these sentinels are “never silent”; their voices are heard “all day and all night.” They stand watch not only over a city but also to remind God of God’s promises, to make sure God takes “no rest” until “God reestablishes Jerusalem as a city renowned throughout the earth” (62:6–7). 

These verses make it plain that a holy boldness must accompany our prayers, an insistence like Jacob wrestling with the angel of God, refusing to let go until he received a blessing (Genesis 32:36), or the widow whose persistence in seeking justice from an unjust judge resulted in the judge granting her petition (Luke 18:1–8). 

The demand that God be God is not an act of insubordination but an act of faith. Faith that the God of this world can and does move mountains, that stumbling blocks can become stepping stones, that weeping only lasts for a night, and joy does come in the morning. It is an act of courageous faith that believes against all odds that God’s promises will manifest in our lives in God’s time. 

The writer confirms, “The LORD has sworn by his right hand and by his mighty arm: I will not again give your grain to be food for your enemies, and foreigners shall not drink the wine for which you have labored, but those who harvest it shall eat it and praise the LORD, and those who gather it shall drink it in my holy courts” (62:8–9). This is what the Lord promises: restoration to a depleted people, a people who have been waiting for change to come. 

This confidence in God’s faithfulness is not passive. It requires our active participation as we become the sentinels who await the manifestation of God’s promises. “Go through, go through the gates; prepare the way for the people; build up, build up the highway; clear it of stones; lift up an ensign over the peoples” (62:10). The barriers that God wants to remove require that we participate in our deliverance. While we are called to persistently wait for what only God can accomplish, we are also called to actively remove the barriers and obstacles (for example, inequity, injustice) that hinder God’s Spirit from working in us and through us. 

The people of Isaiah’s community are to prepare as they await a new reality yet unrealized: “The LORD has proclaimed to the end of the earth: Say to daughter Zion, Look, your savior comes; his reward is with him and his recompense before him.” (62:11). Centuries later, God’s salvific plan would unfold with the birth of Jesus Christ, the long-awaited and promised Messiah.

The saying goes that “the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” What cannot be seen does not mean that God is not with us. What we cannot comprehend does not impede the furtherance of God’s will. The human condition is to doubt, but God has been faithful in delivering on promise after promise. 

This passage from Isaiah is read as we celebrate Christmas and pause to commemorate the birth of our Savior before returning to the routines of daily life, when trials and tribulations undoubtedly resurface. During these moments, God’s word reminds us that we are still God’s people, a holy people who, like the sentinels of old, continue to cry out not in despair but in hope. We raise our hallelujahs not in fear, but in faith, not in restless worrying but in worship. For the God who was faithful in times past is the same God yesterday, today, and forevermore.  

Christianity is, in many ways, a faith built on paradoxes.¹

Old and New Testaments alike bear witness to a God characterized by both mercy and justice, both grace and truth (John 1:14). This God we worship is both One and Three, both transcendent and immanent—and this God teaches us that power and victory come through weakness and submission (Philippians 2:5–11), that the last will be first (Mark 10:31), and that those who seek greatness should become servants (Matthew 20:25–28).

Reading Psalm 97 at Christmas reminds us of these paradoxes. Today we gather with shepherds around the manger where a young, displaced mother has laid her new baby boy, and we celebrate the fact that “God with us” means we have an intercessor who has experienced all our vulnerabilities, fears, and hurts. Today, we also rejoice with all creation that this powerless infant reigns as God of the universe. On Christmas Day, Psalm 97 gives us an opportunity to place the Nativity in its larger theological context and revel in one of the central paradoxes of our faith.

The theme

Psalm 97, an “enthronement” or “Yahweh is king” psalm, is part of the collection of Psalms 93–100 that reflects a major theme in Book IV of the Psalter: No matter what seems to be going wrong in the world, we can have confidence that God reigns over all. Most of the “Yahweh is king” psalms, including Psalm 97, begin with the proclamation “Yahweh is king!” or “Yahweh reigns!”

These psalms may have been read each year at the temple as part of a fall festival in which the people would dramatically reenact and celebrate Yahweh’s enthronement.² The vivid language and imagery certainly lend themselves to community performance—whether in the Second Temple period of Israel or in a 21st-century church.

The “Yahweh is king” psalms highlight different aspects of Yahweh’s reign and its practical implications for our lives. The Psalter largely took shape during a time when Israel held little to no political power. Psalm 97’s prompt to confess that “Yahweh is king” is not the triumphant shout of privileged movers and shakers.

Instead, it represents a desperate cry of hope for those who look around and see the effects of human injustice and evil intentions. In particular, Psalm 97 encourages those who read it to remember that God is the only true hope we have: The idols and false gods we build up for ourselves—whether in the form of golden calves or political parties or personal accomplishments—are powerless to bring real justice, reconciliation, wholeness, peace, and joy.

The text

Psalm 97 unfolds in three sections as the psalmist slowly builds a picture of Yahweh’s character: powerful (verses 3–5) and glorious (verse 6) and exalted (verse 9), but also righteous and just (verses 2, 8) and concerned for the vulnerable (verse 10).

The first stanza (verses 1–6) describes a “theophany,” an appearance of God to humanity—all humanity, as the psalmist emphasizes by saying that “the many coastlands” will be glad (verse 1) and “all the peoples behold his glory” (verse 6). The imagery of dark storm clouds, fire, lightning, and earthquakes is standard language for describing times when God appears physically (compare with Exodus 19–20; Deuteronomy 5; and Psalm 18). These are dramatic, terrifying occurrences, and they stand in sharp contrast to the physical appearance of God in Christ. When Yahweh appears in Psalm 97, the whole earth shifts in response; when Jesus appears in Bethlehem, most people remain unaware that something radical has happened.

The second stanza (verses 7–9) spells out what Yahweh’s reign means for worship. Yahweh does not share the throne. Originally written in a polytheistic context, verses 7–9 proclaim that the gods of the nations surrounding (and even dominating!) Israel were nothing compared to Yahweh.

At a time when a god’s power was judged by the military and economic status of its worshippers, Psalm 97 makes the bold declaration that no matter how strong a human king might seem, he’s a shameful fool if he bases his strength on “worthless idols” rather than the true God. Ultimately, everyone—even the false gods of Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, and the 21st century—will bow down before Yahweh, the bringer of justice (verses 6a, 8b).

The final stanza (verses 10–12) describes what implications Yahweh’s reign has for the lives of worshippers. Yahweh brings justice and righteousness to a world characterized by false justice (verses 8b, 10b), so Yahweh’s worshippers should also seek justice and righteousness in the world (verse 10a).

This call to “hate evil,” and the assurance that Yahweh will “guard” and “rescue” those who do so (verse 10b), acknowledges that the world is not yet at peace, but it also confidently assures us that the same God whose glorious throne is hidden by clouds and fire reaches down to care for “the upright in heart” (verse 11). In Psalm 97, divine judgment merits rejoicing because it means the restoration of justice in the world (verse 12).³

Psalm 97 and Christmas

Psalm 97 puts flesh on the bones of the angel’s announcement to the shepherds that the birth of Jesus would be “good news of great joy for all the people” (Luke 2:10). This psalm gives us a picture of who this glorious “God in the highest heaven” really is and how God’s work will bring peace on earth (Luke 2:14). And it confronts us with the paradoxical truth that the mighty God of Psalm 97 is the same God-child “lying in the manger” (Luke 2:16): “Rejoice in the LORD, O you righteous, and give thanks to his holy name!”

Notes

1. Commentary previously published on this website for December 25, 2022.
2. Frank-Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger, Psalms 2, trans. Linda M. Maloney, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), 495.
3. W. Dennis Tucker Jr. and Jamie A. Grant, Psalms, vol. 2, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2018), 430.

Everything has changed! With the breaking of Mary’s water and the infant Jesus taking his first breath, glorious light floods the plains where shepherds keep their watch. Triumphant declaration upends the monotony on this world-altering night as a gospel for all people heralds the arrival of Christ the Lord (Luke 2:8–11), who signals the in-breaking of divine peace (verse 14). 

Everything has changed! Now, with the washing of new beginnings and the refreshing that comes from the Breath of God (the Holy Spirit, Titus 3:5), our chaotic world has been breached by the bursting-out of God’s “generosity [chrēstotēs] and human-loving goodness [philanthrōpia]” (verse 4). This is the eagerly anticipated life “promised before the ages began” (1:2), which is the very “life of the age to come” (zōēs aiōnios, 3:7; 1:2)! 

Mary coddles her firstborn, carefully enveloping him, secure enough for him to settle into a nap nestled in the cradle of the manger (Luke 2:7). Across the fields, this hush of naptime is interrupted by the thundering applause of heavenly hosts and trumpeted pronouncements by angels regarding God’s peace for those in whom God is delightedly pleased (Luke 2:13–14). 

God has poured out the very divine Spirit who carries us along, comforting and reassuring us of God’s rich presence surrounding our lives (Titus 2:6). The delivery of God’s gracious favor, lavished upon those whom a meritocracy would account as destitute, has granted a status of vindication and bestowed an inheritance underwritten by divine life (verse 7). 

A new way of seeing the world has been granted by God’s messengers. The shepherds could “see this thing that [had] taken place, which the Lord [had] made known” (Luke 2:15; see also verse 20) because God’s angelic messengers had declared it to them. Likewise, Mary listens intently to the story relayed by the shepherds. True to her form as both God’s faithful servant (1:38) and a doting mother, she “treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart” (2:19; see also 1:29; 2:51). Likewise, these shepherds themselves continued to respond by glorifying and praising God as the proper response to what the angels had announced to them (2:20).

A faithful reader of Paul’s letter receives this hopeful message as one promised before the ages, proclaimed by Christ’s entrusted emissary (Titus 1:1–4), and absorbed by his delegate to be dependably transmitted to the gathered community (2:1, 15). The way God’s people talk should be an appropriate response to the saving message we have received. Our activities and habits should match the newness of life and the enabling nourishment of the gifted Holy Spirit. 

Just as the priest Zechariah could extol the light “appearing [epiphanai] upon those perched in darkness, even in the shadow of death, to guide our feet in the way of peace” (Luke 1:79), so Paul here applauds God our Savior now that God’s “goodness and lovingkindness appeared [epephanē]” (Titus 3:4; see also 2:11; epiphaneia in 2:13). As a proper response to the appearance of our Savior, we gather and then we go out, “being made right by God’s grace and having become beneficiaries according to hope for the life of the age to come” (3:7).

The epiphany of the Christ-child came into a world under Caesar’s regime. This period is marked by a census, a call to submit names and numbers for the enhancement of the imperial order (Luke 2:1–2). It is the dark side of this foreign, occupying administration that will lead to the miscarriage of justice under the prefect Pontius Pilate as Jesus is crucified as “King of the Jews” (Luke 23:38). 

As true as this placard was, it mockingly confirms what Luke’s audience knows from Jesus’ noble lineage from the household of David (2:4). His royalty is further confirmed by the announcement of Gabriel to Mary that her child would inherit “the throne of his ancestor David” (1:32) as he is destined to rule over Israel and inaugurate an everlasting kingdom (verse 33). These two kingdoms were destined for fateful confrontation, having rival visions of peace and opposing systems of salvation. 

The clash of these kingdoms is also experienced among those receiving the salvation of God on the island of Crete, whose condition can be described as “foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing [their] days in malice and envy, despicable, hating one another” (Titus 2:3). And yet, the conflict does not have to be settled by the terms of this disturbing world order. 

The inhabitants of God’s household are called to “be subject” to those who are administering governance (3:1), and to practice life-giving speech habits, being “gentle and showing every courtesy to everyone” (3:2). This is precisely contrary to their life before they were rescued, washed, and given a new start from their previous destructive habits and hostile dispositions (3:3, 5). 

The newness is identified by being “not warlike” (amachos) but “conciliatory” (epiekēs), and by “showing all manner of gentleness [praytēs] toward everybody” (3:2). The believing community may continue to operate in this age (2:12), but they will conduct themselves according to the ethos of a different age defined by divine kindness and hospitable love for others. The distinction from the ways of the old regime comes in a mold that is shaped by God’s own “goodness and loving kindness” (3:4), demonstrated by the great God and Savior who has appeared in the person of Christ Jesus and exhibited in the communal culture now proclaimed by God’s emissary and delivered to his delegate (1:1, 3–5). 

What was true on the night Jesus entered our world must be made true and given witness by the community that bears Christ’s name. If this community can claim to be those who “wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (2:13)—that is, those who are defined by what Christ has done and who live into the future that Christ is sure to bring—then its witness can only be true by embodying the same way of life as Jesus himself lived. 

Identified as heirs (3:7), even “joint heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:17), we must speak and interact and embrace the ways that Jesus himself did in his prophetic ministry to the poor, the captives, the blind, the oppressed (see Luke 4:18–19; see also Isaiah 61:2; 58:6). Just as Jesus was empowered in his ministry by the Holy Spirit (Luke 4:14, 18), so he poured out this same Spirit upon the community of his followers (Acts 1:5, 8; 2:4, 33; Titus 3:6). Let us celebrate this Christmas by imitating our Savior and receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit with graciousness. Everything has changed!