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KINGDOM CONTRASTS "Caesar Augustus vs. Jesus" - December 11, 2016 - Pastor Eric Robinson

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St. Paul's Lutheran Church Orange, CA

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good morning first sermon at St Paul's turn this last night and a little bit this morning too cuz you know we're hoping he's not terrible I do know that I typically in the service Pastor C would preach from a Podium just you know call it what it is I can't I can't preach standing behind a Podium I learned that part way through Seminary I just have this weird kind of natural twitch while just start like drumming on it not realize and just irritate everybody so that's why I'm so before we really begin I do want to say thank you do the Saint Paul Community you have been incredibly accommodating incredibly understanding I took us my wife and son a while to move out here it took us a while to discern the call those are both very difficult and complicated processes and then we had events this Summer that just complicated everything so I really appreciate your patience and understanding want to say thank you Pastor Scott because I know he is like alright I'm ready to not be the only full-time Pastor here when can you get down but we're adjusting and if I interact with you and and you find yourself thinking wow he's pretty aloof he looks like he know where he is or what he supposed to be doing it's because I'm not sure where I am or what I'm supposed to be doing just yet but we're getting there thank you for your generosity and patience I really appreciate just the community as a whole alright so now we can begin the sermon now that I've that off my chest Loop to the most famous of the stories of Jesus birth even people who I have no interest in religion or the whole Jesus thing have probably heard it at some point it was the text that was read in Charlie Brown's Christmas it just gets terminated this time of year and one of the things that you'll you'll discover very quickly about me and probably about a minute is that I have a real passion for history I specifically ancient near Eastern history and late second temple Judaism so basically everything that's going turn on in the backdrop of the New Testament is just something that I love in part because it helps open up the biblical narrative in neat ways we journeyed together over the next years or decades or till whenever I'm run out of town hopefully you will kind of appreciate and what's some of that and maybe we'll stir a little bit of passion and you as well  Luke is a very clever writer and he uses. Lowe's in an interesting way it's pretty rare that he'll just put a detail in there like we would in a modern novel where it's just kind of helped pad story a little bit or helps you paint a picture in your mind looks very rarely does that when he includes details he means something by them and so it is extremely important that he begins the story of the birth of Jesus with the inocua sounding in those days Caesar Augustus that has a very profound meaning if you're reading this in the first century it would it would have Oak emotions something like a  I don't know what emotion that is but that would be the in order to understand that we have to actually go a little bit further back in time to Julius Caesar and if you remember your friend like 10th grade history class Julius Caesar was the great Roman general wildly respected and loved by the average person who following his Conquest return to Rome and established for himself unparalleled and unprecedented amounts of power in Rome itself and the Senate Roman senate I got very nervous about that because they always fear Tyrant or an emperor they wanted to remain a republic so they got a plan together and on the Ides of March assassinate Julius Caesar  they didn't anticipate that that would create this giant power vacuum and it sent the now Empire effectively of Rome or the Roman world into Civil War that lasted about 14 years which incredibly long time for conflict on that level eventually one person one General became of the Victor over all of the others who wanted the position of imperator or Emperor and his name was Octavian and he's significant because he was the adopted son of Julius Caesar and much like in the modern-day know what's the difference between a biological and adopted child nothing so he was effectively the son of Julius Caesar and now he has conquered all of their enemies throughout the empire because he was a political genius he took then his father's name because it carried so much clout he Khan the name Cesar  and this had an interesting effect and he knew exactly what he was doing and a few years where are the Roman senate would confront him the title of August one and she got a Caesar Augustus but he knew how to play the game he knew how to manipulate he was extraordinary powerful very Adept at using violence and power to manipulate and control and he by taking on his name his father's name he took on another title  see when Julius Caesar was a fascinated they held all these like games like gladiatorial type games in his honor because if you're Roman that's apparently what you do and a while they were observing these games a Comet appeared in the sky and Romans were incredibly superstitious and so they they assume that that meant set Julius Caesar  had ascended to the Roman Pantheon he had been conferred by the gods the title of the they would call him from then on divis you list the Divine Julius he was in fact a God in their eyes now ask Dad is a God and your is son what does that make you the son of a god a title and a label that Caesar Augustus was more than happy  to use for his advantage the fastest growing religion at the time when Jesus was born was the worship of the Roman Emperor as Divine it became incredibly useful you don't have to maintain armies quite as much throughout the Empire if the people that would be rebelling or actively worshipping in a temple he was very very good at controlling people but it gets turn weirder because he said he had brought he had brought peace to the Roman world after years in cheers of civil war never mind that it was Peace by killing everybody that opposed him  and so he was hailed as more than just a son they were a bunch of other labels applied to him and they're kind of summed up in in these various inscriptions that archaeologists have found and I'm going to paraphrase and kind of bring them together but they would say that over dance at the right time has given us Caesar the son of a God who is the savior of the world and the bringer of Peace in all of history has led to this moment of his coming  by the way the technical term for that last part that waiting for his coming Advent  now can you see why Luke would begin the story of Jesus birth within those days Caesar Augustus the one the great conqueror  who had a bot count that we couldn't even begin to begin to sum up  who brought peace to the nation's got them to Proclaim that Caesar is Lord in a very clear-cut way you would say announce that Caesars Lord they would say no and he would take a sword and hold it to their necks you know metaphorically and they would say hey you know what Caesar is Lord cuz I like my head where it is  it was this use and abuse of power and manipulation that allowed him to stay in power and it's a reminder it's it's a bunch of things but at the very least it's a reminder Luke's part that Jesus was born into a very dangerous world We tend to sentimentalize his birth let me nits what's my baby and babies are cute for the most part and it in so I mean you can see it in our songs and that these songs are bad but they betray certain one-sidedness like a silent night holy night all is calm all is bright no honestly obviously the obvious anyway I have never given birth but I was there for the birth of my son that is not a silent calm or quiet process even remotely  it is not a particular particularly fun process and I did learn that if you talk about during the process how much fun this is how much fun you're having that's the wrong thing to say one point of nurse had to lean in and whisper in my ear that's normal no we're good we're good and it's a dangerous process it's dangerous to the mother and the child the scary process  not to mention that Jesus is born at an in an area or at a time when the infant mortality rate was high home with the mother's mortality rate in that process Jesus Took on flesh and was born in an incredibly normal way with these the shadowy figure Caesar Augustus the symbol of Roman might and Power looming in the background this is not a Sentimental heartwarming moment this is a very dangerous and audacious Invasion by God himself who instead of just appearing in the clouds  was born turn the normal dangerous gruesome sort of way  under the thumb of an emperor who was very very good at using power and violence to get his way Jesus when he is with somewhere between 10 and 12 years old and is home area of Galilee would have witnessed first-hand a giant massive Slaughter on behalf of the Romans do to a Revolt that and throughout Jesus ministry you get these hints these reminders that there are powerful forces at work in the backdrop of his entire life no I don't know about you but I don't have some Empire breathing down my neck and holding a sword to to my neck and saying hey submit or whatever but but the use misuse and use of power  and the use of manipulation and unselfish use of well for games is Rife and rampant throughout the entire Human Experience whether it be like a like a boss who just absolutely has to have his way tell me who who must have his way it's his way or the highway or it among your family is there there are always going to gather that Uncle ooh that Grandparents were that that son or daughter who who's very good at me make sure things are done precisely as they intend  and by the way if you're thinking I wonder who that is in our family I have bad news but realistically as human beings were all like this we all have this kind of spirit of Caesar Augustus within it we all weather admit it or not like to have our way we have opinions about how things need to be done but sometimes we express that passively the passive person a relationship is actually usually the the person that has the most power because it's just very manipulative turn it that bring this out it kind of brings the worst out of us when we can see those Dynamics a lot more easily this this inner desire to control and manipulate which the Bible would call sin  it's important to talk about this during Christmas at season cuz on December 21st that is the shortest day of the year and then 4 days where is the longest day of the year when you have to spend Christmas with your family and try to pretend like you're getting along  and yes that's a joke there's some truth to that unfortunate I grew up in a very loving family  I'm not going to pretend like those Dynamics aren't real not going to pretend that I don't have that same impulse  to control to build my own little Empire in and around me whether it is in my family or in my work life or in my community we all have inner impulse and so as the as the story of Jesus life plays out you have you know in the beginning here this the epitome of fire control and power and then you have its opposite Luke he constructed just this paragraph brilliantly because it begins with Caesar fastest the symbol in reality of Roman power might and violence which Echoes just that sinful human nature and at the end of this paragraph you have the baby Jesus born and there is nothing more vulnerable than a newborn child and Jesus will live his life as a life of vulnerability where he would say that that the kingdoms of this world use power they Lord it over each other but the kingdom of God is about being a servant it is about giving up you're right it is about ale down your interest for the interest of your brothers and sisters That Jesus Lives a life of vulnerability and love so as it is if it were a movie it has this narrative Arc and at some point the kingdom of power and authority in manipulation control  is going to come in direct conflict with this kingdom of God and its bloody  and its desire to love and serve their neighbors  I'm so weird we we are left with this question as the story stop what is going to happen when the kingdom of Caesar in the case of Jesus epitomise by Pontius Pilate and the kingdom of God  which finds itself rooted firmly in this Jesus of Nazareth what is going to happen in Jesus in his courage does the vulnerable thing and lays his life down that rather than fighting cuz Jesus said when he was arrested if if my kingdom was of this world my servants will be fighting but we are not and is that is very terrifying for the kingdom of power and control and so there is one option one option only and that is the symbol the ultimate humble of Roman power and domination which is the cross it was considered shameful and immensely powerful the great Rome an order Cicero would say that a good Roman citizen would never even speak  of acrossed it is a four-letter word it is too offensive too terrible to terrify  but as Jesus gives himself up in pure vulnerability an out of pure love and he takes the focus of an entire Empire this this symbol of Rome indominus which if you think about it is really the symbol of the worst Humanity has that has to offer that dark impulse control that every single one of us have  Finds Its way to the cross and put Jesus there and it exhausts its power it's everything they've got and it crushes Jesus only because Jesus why was it to happen and deaf which is the final weapon of any Empire  exhaust set self on Jesus and Jesus goes into his grave  Christmas would be nothing  if story ended there  I mean from a Roman perspective the birth of a son of a god a please we got plenty of those that unique one-off moment when this symbol of vulnerability this Ambassador for the kingdom of God actually brings the kingdom of God on earth when he walks out of that tomb as if to say to all the powers and authorities in the world that would use power and can roll a manipulation and even those dark impulses within us we've got nothing on the one who was raised from the dead because by doing so the kingdom of God now is breaking in you are reality  that when we gather together as the people in Jesus family redeemed and forgiven by him we start to live lives of vulnerability and it's always invulnerability in written in our relationships when real intimacy happens when were willing to have the courage to admit our failures their fears no Joys and our sorrows at the Spirit of pause Works to build his church all began with this god-man in the messy gory way of being born of a woman under the nose of the symbol of power and my only to live a life of vulnerability so that we may do the same because that's what it means to be in Jesus so how might my final point to hear that the people of St Paul and orange I'm getting trying to get used to say Redeemer Lutheran Church in Redwood City California yet but that's probably going to happen because you know my brain is weird I want to say Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas and I hope you have a nice holiday or have a nice you know I don't know Sunday morning I hope you get that guitar you wanted or something like that or a good luck with that and onto drives me nuts but no no no no Merry Christmas  because our God raised the dead and our God continues to please the dead in us Merry Christmas

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KINGDOM CONTRASTS "Caesar Augustus vs. Jesus" - December 11, 2016 - Pastor Eric Robinson

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