Empire and the Birth of Jesus

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register.

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.  - Luke 2:1-4

Rome’s massive machinery is set in motion by Caesar in order to increase his wealth and power. The census would allow him to collect more taxes and fund more military campaigns. The poor and the peasants were treated without regard, being pushed to relocate for the census, all for the sake of squeezing yet more money from those with little to line the pockets of those with much.

Today we often call this the work of Empire, that combination of systems (like a intercontinental apparatus of taxation) and structures (the military hierarchy to enforce taxation) and mindsets (that extracting money from those with little of it was acceptable and even desirable because Rome was ‘the greatest’). It’s this Empire - and every one since then - that Jesus is diametrically opposed to. Instead of exploiting those on the margins, Jesus came to “proclaim good news to the poor… and set the oppressed free” (Lk 4:18), so it’s no wonder that the Empire ended up crucifying him.

So here at the very beginning of Jesus’s story, while he’s in utero, the Empire is already marshaling it’s forces against him and his loved ones through mandatory relocation for the sake of taxation.

Where do you see Empire at work in the world today? Do you have a sense of how Jesus may be pushing back against the forces of Empire? Talk with him about joining him in his mission today.