Episode 46: The Nativity Shepherds and Caesar's Good News

We have a way of sentimentalizing the Christmas story and imagining the news of Jesus’ birth was harmless and disconnected from the world in which Jesus and his family lived, like a self-contained little scene in a snow-globe.  But when the Luke the storyteller recounts the birth of Jesus, he is well aware of the struggles of empires and the political messages of Caesar, the Roman ruler who saw himself as divinely chosen and a god himself with a right to rule the world.  And in fact, the angels over the Bethlehem suburbs were not the first to use the language of “good news of great joy” regarding the birth of a new king and “savior”—that was the official imperial party line about Caesar Augustus.  So when the Nativity angels speak to the shepherds, they are poking holes in the spin of Rome’s press secretaries and propaganda machine.  Join Erica and Steve as they unpack the message of the angels in the Christmas story, as we hear a well-known story with new ears!