ROME

As Christmas draws near, my thoughts are drawn to the very first Christmas and how Jesus was received by a world desperately awaiting His arrival, yet caught so off guard by the humble form He took. 

Israel had long been awaiting their promised Messiah—their savior. Yet, confusion seemed to remain about what exactly they were being saved from. The Israelites were no strangers to hardship throughout their nation’s history as they endured slavery, war, captivity, and oppression at the hands of other nations. At the particular time Jesus made His earthly appearance, Israel was being occupied by Rome and the Jewish people were groaning under the weight of Rome’s rule and the imposition of their laws and taxes. So naturally, the Jews living at this time were hoping/expecting that the Messiah would come to deliver them from their current greatest enemy: Rome. 

Every year around this time, I hear fellow Christians make comments along the lines of “I don’t know how they could have missed Him! They were waiting for the Messiah. Jesus came! He fulfilled countless prophecies. How on earth did they not see it?”

And with the privilege and perspective of hindsight, I have thought along those same lines. I can hold up the accounts of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection and see how He was a perfect match to details that were foretold about Him hundreds of years prior, and there is no doubt in my mind that Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah. 

However, this year I’ve placed myself back in that setting over 2,000 years ago and imagined how I would have responded to Jesus’s arrival if I were alive at that time. And for the first time, I get it. I can see how so many missed it—how they missed Jesus. He was not who they were expecting. 

The Jews were expecting a conqueror—a mighty military leader who would come and overthrow Rome, delivering them from their hardships and suffering. In their defense, God had acted in this manner on behalf of His people many times in the past—delivering them from slavery in Egypt, defeating their enemies in battle time and time again, leading them by a mighty hand into the Promised Land and showing them unmerited favor. So why wouldn’t they expect God to move in the same way again?

Nine months before Jesus came to earth, an angel of the Lord appeared to a virgin named Mary and her scared fiance and told them Mary would bear a son. The angel said, “you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). 

The two people who ushered Jesus into this world were made privy to the very reason He came—to save people from their sins. Jesus would go on to deliver this same message throughout His earthly ministry. Jesus didn’t come to overthrow Rome. He came to save His people from their true enemy—their own sin that separated them from God. 

The burden of Rome’s rule would remain for the Jews. And for the followers of Christ, conditions would continue to worsen as the early church faced immense persecution. I imagine those early believers couldn’t help but feel disappointed that their savior hadn’t actually come to save them from what they saw as their greatest hardship in life. But God knows that what plagues us on earth is only temporary, while separation from Him is eternal. Thus, our sin truly is our greatest enemy.  

I similarly have imposed my expectations on God and tried to form Him into the savior I had expected and hoped for Him to be. As a mother of a child with special needs, disability is my Rome. I understand what it feels like to live under a daily burden of hardship. Disability means inconvenience at best, heartbreak at worst. Being a caregiver for a disabled loved one is taxing on body, mind, and soul. As the Jews did, I long for God to overthrow the Rome in my life and free me from the anguish it causes me daily. I too have wrestled with disappointment when my expectation for God to defeat “my greatest enemy” has gone unmet.

However, God’s word reminds me that the trials and struggles I face in life are a “light and momentary affliction [that] is preparing for [me] an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17). My Rome won’t last forever, but my standing with God will.

Jesus didn’t come to earth to give me an easy life. He came to defeat my sin on the cross and make a way for me to be called a friend of God. Because of this, I can have hope in the midst of my temporary circumstances and eagerly wait for Christ’s return, where “Rome” no longer has any power over me.  

Be encouraged, friend, as the same is true for you. Jesus is calling you to Himself and longs to defeat your greatest enemy—sin—so you can live with hope and joy regardless of the Rome you are facing today.