"Neither the Roman procurator nor the recognized native rulers made their appearance at the crib to receive ratification of their power. Power can only be genuine and good when it is rooted in the divine. These people possessed power in their own right and used it only to further their own ends. Theirs is the mystery of power. Those who possess power have an implicit duty — and the opportunity — to serve as God's deputies. The French, more realistic than we are, have two different words, force and puissance. Puissance conveys the awe-inspiring impression of inner power. Power in itself and as the sum-total of all the means of enforcing it becomes destructive in the hands of arrogant totalitarian authority and ruins both the one who wields it and the subjects on whom he exercises it. The tyrant in possession of such power is no longer capable of spiritual sensitivity. He is suspicious of everything that does not fit into the narrow limits of permitted and regimented expression. There was no paragraph in the rules at Jerusalem covering the birth of the Child in Bethlehem. Hence the reaction of perplexity and fear and the prompt recourse to the sword. In circumstances like these the subject beings grow timid and cowardly; they accept that their claim to life is cut to the basic minimum of official permission.
"Dare we ignore this message and judgment? The history of power in the western world is one long story of ruthless force. There is no room in it for the glory of God which is neither safeguarded nor respected. The great are concerned only with their own importance and spend their lives jockeying for position. And the consequences, as far as they concern humankind as a whole, are only too obvious. Fear has become a cardinal virtue. This is not said in the spirit of anarchy. But power must regain its proper dimension, allying itself with eternal purpose and genuine mission. Otherwise it will merely evoke counter-action and the ghastly struggle for survival will never end. And as a subordinate being, a human being must waken to the inherent sovereignty of his spirit, believing in conscience and in his relationship to God.”
