In the last few years, we have heard a lot of noise from the left concerning the victimization of minorities in the United States by the white majority. They talk of “white privilege” and “white fragility” which, according to them, prevents us from recognizing that all white people were born oppressors and all non-white people were born oppressed. Those ideas would have been laughable to the Muslim hoards, many of whom were “people of color,” who swept across Europe, defeated only by the French at Poitiers and at Vienna by a combined Christian army. The Emperors of Abyssinia, now known as Ethiopia, would also have disputed their innate victimhood, as would the Mongols who terrorized much of eastern Europe during the 13th century, as well as the Aztecs and Incas with their empires in the Americas. None of these empires, powerful though they were, were run by Caucasians. Throughout history, various peoples have created huge empires that conquered other lands and subjugated their people. Until the 1400’s, those empires were largely made up of what the left refers to as “people of color.” Thus, to label all white people as oppressors and all non-white people as victims is to deny history for purely political motives.
But to the true Christian, this patter about blacks and Asians and native Americans and whites is all nonsense. God created man and woman, Adam and Eve, whose skin color is never described to us, and from them eventually developed all the people of the world, redheads, blonds, brunettes, black skinned, brown skinned, round eyes or slanted eyes – – – these are all the varieties in which we come, but no one description is superior to another. To call a black man a victim is as asinine as calling a blonde woman a victim (dumb blond jokes aside). There is nothing in our skin or hair color or the shape of our eyes which makes us as a group more intelligent or “better,” richer or poorer, more or less important in the eyes of God.
But it is not only creation which teaches us this truth, but the very birth of Christ Himself. We were reminded of this in last Sunday’s sermon, that it would seem illogical to many for the Son of God, to be born in a cave kept for animals, wrapped in ordinary cloths, and laid in the trough from which the animals ate their hay. The One who was from the very beginning, from the creation of the stars, the sun, the moon and the earth, shouldn’t this deity be regaled in silk and the finest blankets inside a golden cradle in the finest palace on earth? But He was not. He came as a poor baby born to a simple carpenter and his young bride to live the life of an ordinary human to show to us that He understood the harshness of our lives, the fatigue, the callouses on a man’s hands.
And He came for everyone, not just the poor. Unlike the left, He never separated the rich from the poor, only the good from the evil, the stingy from the generous. And at his birth, the first visitors, the first to be personally told of His birth by a band of glorious angels, were the poor, uneducated shepherds in the fields of Bethlehem. They had no gifts to bring to this King, this Savior of the world. But they brought themselves.
Yet God did not leave out the important and the wealthy, for He loves us all. And so, wise men came from the East, following the new star that appeared above Bethlehem’s stable. Though the Bible tells us little about the wise men, tradition tells us that their names were Melchior from Persia, Gaspar from India, and Balthazar from Arabia, and it is believed that at least one was black skinned. They are often referred to also as the three kings, but whether they were kings or not, they were no doubt members of kings’ courts where, as astrologers, they studied the skies and offered priestly advice to the kings. They were rich, as evidenced by their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and they were important.
So while God sent Jesus to be born in a humble stable, his first visitors and worshippers were both the lowliest of men and the most important. In those few days in Bethlehem, God reminded us all that Jesus had come for all of humanity, not only for the Jews, nor only for the poor, nor only for the rich, nor only for those of a certain skin color. Jesus demonstrated this throughout his ministry. He praised a Samaritan in His parable of the Good Samaritan, even though the Samaritans were disliked by Jews. He ate with tax collectors, who were both rich and despised for their corruption. He gathered as his disciples and closest friends Peter, James, and John, who were fishermen, Matthew, who was a tax collector, and Luke, who was a physician.
And in one of His last appearances to his disciples after His resurrection, he gave them what we refer to as the “Great Commission.” Matthew recounts His words in Matthew 28, 18-20. “Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’”
The birth of Christ, His life, and His ministry show us through example upon example that all men and women are equal and equally valuable in the sight of God. Let us not allow ourselves this Christmas season or at any other time to evaluate someone based upon the color of their skin or their wealth or position in the world. Remember that even the kings from the East bowed their knees before the Christ child and worshipped him with as much fervor as did the lowly shepherds. Most of the problems we face in the U.S. now would disappear if we would all remember Martin Luther King, Jr.’s words, and judge people by their character and not by the color of their skin. Remember that in Sunday School we used to sing, “Red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in His sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world.” Those words should resonate in us.
There is no Jew, no gentile, no black, no Hispanic, no native American, no Asian, no man, no woman to God. There are only souls that serve Him or that need to be saved. Let’s make that our mantra from now on. We are all God’s children and we are all equal in His sight. Let us make everyone we encounter equal in our sight as well. That is the true message of Christmas!