A while ago, I came across a t-shirt that proclaimed: “Rejoice in the birth of a brown-skinned Middle Eastern undocumented immigrant.” My response was immediate and heartfelt: “Yes!” Those words carry a profound truth, more potent than the contents of many dusty theological tomes.
On this day, we celebrate the birth of a child—wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger in a barn. It is a story of humility, resilience, and hope. We are drawn to the profound symbolism of new life, to the hope that each newborn child offers a bleak and suffering world. Silently, we may whisper, “Dear child, save us from ourselves; redeem us from the weight of our failures, from the brokenness we so often bring upon the world.”
Yet, in celebration of this day, it is easier to hold onto the image of the innocent babe than to embrace the radical, revolutionary figure that child would become. The infant Jesus is safe and comforting—a vessel of pure hope. But Jesus, as a man, is far more challenging: a disruptor, a truth-teller, a force that overturned the stifling norms of power and privilege.
Over the centuries, this revolutionary figure has been sanitized. His brown skin, his cultural identity, and his lived experience as an outsider have been erased. His ministry—rooted in the struggle for justice, compassion, and liberation—has been co-opted, diluted, and reshaped to serve interests far removed from his original mission. When stripped of its counter-cultural power, his message becomes a thin and tasteless gruel, devoid of its life-giving sustenance. Twist his words far enough, and they stop being his words altogether, becoming tools for oppression.
This distortion is more than a theological tragedy—it is a Judas-like betrayal. His teachings have been crucified, again and again, nailed to the crosses of greed, political ambition, and cultural imperialism. Instead of following his radical example, many offer empty gestures of adoration, soothing their consciences while perpetuating the very systems he opposed. In our own political season, we have even seen some of his corrupted followers anoint a new savior, replacing Jesus with Pharaoh—a ruler who embodies greed, oppression, and cruelty. This act is not only absurd but obscene, a heartbreaking betrayal of everything Jesus stood for.
It is time to reclaim the revolutionary spirit of the child born so long ago. Time to overturn the money-changing tables of the oligarchs who exploit all of us at every turn. Time to resist the Pharaohs of our world and their minions who seek to rule by destroying justice and freedom. It is time for a new Reformation—one embraces the true essence of Jesus’ teachings rather than translating them into a gospel of greed.
The birth we celebrate today is not merely a sentimental story; it is a call to action that reminds us that love, justice, and radical hope can—and must—challenge the forces of greed and oppression. May this day inspire us to carry forward the revolutionary message of that brown-skinned, immigrant child, born in a barn, who dared to proclaim a Kingdom of Love in a world, then as now, consumed by Empire.
#Jesus #Pharoah #Love #Christmas #Revolution
