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income to support their families.56 They worked in teams and took turns keeping watch at night, being on the lookout for wolves and thieves. The angel’s appearance to these shepherds echoes the theme of status reversal already sounded in Mary’s song (1:48, 52). The first to hear of Jesus’ birth will not be the religious and political powerbrokers in Jerusalem, but a group of forgotten and lowly hired hands in the lonely fields of a small town.

It may be worth noting that David started off as a shepherd caring for his father’s sheep in Bethlehem (1 Sam 16:19; 17:15; Ps 78:70–71). In the OT, shepherd is a metaphor for describing God’s care and oversight of his people (Pss 23:1; 80:1; Ezek 34:12–16; Mic 7:14). Furthermore, Israel’s kings and religious leaders were also tasked to shepherd God’s flock. Since many failed to do so properly (Jer 23:2; Ezek 34:8), God said he would remove the bad shepherds and send a replacement shepherd, that is, the Messiah, to rule over Israel on his behalf (Ezek 34:23; 37:24). These connections make the announcement to shepherds, rather than farmers, day laborers, or other forms of peasantry, especially poignant. The proclamation that these shepherds are about to hear pertains to God’s eschatological shepherd, a king from the line of David, who may also be found, like themselves, in a humble state, lying in a manger in a peasant home.57

      Dazzling brightness signifies the presence of God’s glory when an angel appears before the shepherds (2:9). The scene enacts the conclusion of Zechariah’s hymn, literally and spiritually: “The dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness” (1:78–79). When light pierces through darkness, it is sudden, illuminating, and terrifying. The shepherds’ frightened response is expected as the angel greets them with the same words spoken to Zechariah and Mary: “Do not be afraid” (2:10a; cf. 1:12–13, 29–30). Then he continues, “For behold, I am bringing you good news (euangelizomai) of great joy for all the people” (2:10b). The same verb, euangelizō, is used in Isaiah to denote the good news of God’s salvation (Isa 52:7; cf. 40:9; 61:1–2). The phrase, “for all the people,” foreshadows the expansion of God’s saving horizon from the Jews to the gentiles (2:30–32; 3:6; Acts 1:8). Israel’s good news is destined to be good news for the whole world.

The content of the good news is focused on one figure: “to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord” (2:11). The wait is over. God’s promise to Israel’s ancestors has come to fulfillment with the arrival of the Davidic Messiah. Savior, Messiah, and Lord—these three titles encapsulate the function and status of Jesus. He is the “horn of salvation” in Zechariah’s hymn (1:69–71); he shares the title “Savior” and “Lord” with YHWH;58 he is also the Messiah, the anointed king born in “the city of David” who belongs to the house of David and will sit on the throne of David forever (1:32–33, 69). Luke’s readers already know this Messiah is God’s divine Son. Paradoxically, the sign that verifies the truth of the angel’s words is “a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger” (2:12). Instead of a heaven-sent warrior on horseback, ready to annihilate the Romans, the Savior-Messiah-Lord enters the human stage as an infant gurgling in an animal feeder.

To the bright light we now add the collective voices of the attendants of God in a heavenly chorus. The angel is joined by “a multitude of the heavenly host (stratias) praising God” (2:13). The Greek word stratia, often translated as “host,” also means “army.” YHWH is a mighty warrior (1:51–52; cf. 10:18), thus the sending of the Davidic Messiah is both good news and the battle cry of God’s salvation.59 The angels sing of the effects of the Messiah’s birth, that God in heaven is glorified and exalted, and people on earth experience true peace (2:14). Recalling Zechariah’s prophecy, this Savior will guide “our feet into the way of peace” (1:79). This peace does not mean cessation or absence of war and strife, but reconciliation between God and those who receive by faith his gracious gift of salvation through Jesus. God’s peace will have its ultimate expression when God’s reign is manifested in the eschaton, so that life in that blessed eternity will be characterized by perfect security, harmony, abundance, and health. The coming of the Messiah is the beginning of a journey with eternal peace as its destination.

The Greek phrase, en anthrōpois eudokias, introduces some ambiguity (2:14b). Translated word for word, it reads “among men of goodwill (or favor).” Whose goodwill or whose favor is in view? On the one hand, human beings are blessed only because God bestows his favor upon them, as Elizabeth and Mary have testified (1:25, 48). On the other hand, the recipients of God’s blessings have to demonstrate an attitude of goodwill to be ready to receive God’s benign intervention (1:17, 77). In the end, God’s initiative meets human response to actualize eternal peace between both parties. Because God’s initiative always comes first, human responsiveness presupposes divine favor. Therefore, 2:14b is better rendered as “peace on earth among the people whom God has favored.”60

      The angel departs, leaving the shepherds to decide what to do with what they have just seen and heard (2:15). Like Mary, they proceed with haste to follow the sign (2:12, 16; cf. 1:36, 39). When they find Mary, Joseph, and the infant, they relate everything that has been told to them, which Mary treasures and ponders in her heart (2:17, 19–20). The three-stepped pattern of hearing, seeing, and repeating the message becomes the means of bearing witness to the good news, from the shepherds to Mary and Joseph, and to others who are present.

      Hearing or reading the story of Jesus’ birth, Theophilus and his community would probably notice subtle similarities with common inscriptions or writings concerning Augustus. For example, below is an inscription concerning Augustus’s birthday (italics mine):

Since Providence which has ordered all things and is deeply interested in our life, has set in most perfect order by giving us Augustus, whom she filled with virtue that he might benefit humankind, sending him as a savior, both for us and for our descendants, that he might end war and arrange all things, and since he, Caesar, by his appearance, surpassing all previous benefactors, and not even leaving to posterity any hope of surpassing what he has done, and since the birthday of the god Augustus was the beginning of the good news for the world that came by reason of him . . .61

      Worldwide salvation, benefaction, and peace are attributed to Augustus, a suprahuman-like emperor sent by Providence as a gift to humankind. Is Luke’s description of Jesus’ birth intentionally polemical against the laudatory praise of Augustus? How will Jesus, Israel’s Savior-Messiah-Lord, compare with Rome’s Savior-God? Will Jesus’ kingdom be set on a collision course with Caesar’s empire? Luke’s readers are invited to contemplate such possibilities by holding in tension the welcome of Israel’s Savior on the one hand, and his rejection on the other.

      Dedication of Jesus at the Temple (2:21–40)

      A male child would normally be named before his circumcision on the eighth day, but Luke reports the two as a single event both with John and with Jesus (1:59; 2:21). “[The child] was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb” (2:21). God the Father, not Jesus’ earthly parents, names his Son “Jesus,” as implied by the passive voice of the verb. The name, meaning “YHWH saves,” is exactly what Jesus will come to embody and actualize.

      A woman remains ceremonially unclean for seven days after giving birth to a boy (Lev 12:2). On the eighth day the infant is circumcised (Gen 17:12; Lev 12:3). His mother’s state of purification continues for thirty-three days, during which she may neither enter the temple nor come in contact with holy things. At the end of her purification period, she offers a lamb for a burnt offering and a pigeon or turtledove for a sin offering. For the poor, another turtledove or pigeons may take the place of the lamb (Lev 5:11; 12:1–8). In general, Luke’s account reflects closely the stipulations of the law except for two minor details (2:22–24). Only Mary, the mother, is in need of purification, but Luke speaks

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