CHRISTMAS
25 DECEMBER 2014
Imagine the “breaking news stories” on this day if
the ancient had our technology and our twenty-four hour news cycle. The leading stories would feature the
complaints of so many citizens that they have to return to their home towns to
be counted. Everyone knew that the
government was counting them only to get more taxes out of them. News from Rome would feature the problems
caused by unending deployment of troops, along with problems caused by
insurgents in the Middle East. Local
news would feature the continued reconstruction of the Temple in Jerusalem
under King Herod, a real tyrant with ties too close to Rome, but a pretty good
builder.
The news would certainly not include
the reason why we are here tonight. The
birth of Jesus Christ would not have been featured at all. There had been no royal caravans heading to a
magnificent palace for the birth of an important person. Instead, two peasants had walked from
Nazareth and had no choice but to give birth in a stable. The angelic chorus had chosen to announce
this birth to a bunch of shepherds.
Today, we tend to romanticize the shepherds. But in that day, they lived on the fringes of
society. When I was pastor of Saint Paul
of the Cross in Columbia City, I learned how shepherds would have been
regarded. In that small town, no one
ever locked their doors, except when the carnival came to town at the end of
every summer. The locals did not trust
the traveling carnival workers and considered them criminal, just as the residents
of Bethlehem would have regarded the transient shepherds as thieves who would
steal from them and move to the next town as soon as possible.
The birth of Jesus was completely
unnoticed by most of the culture of the time.
Even today, the twenty-four hour news cycle is interested in other
stories. However, the Mystery we
celebrate tonight is just as present now as it was 2,000 years ago. God has taken on human flesh and dwells in
our midst. God continues to announce
this Mystery through the lowly and the insignificant. The Lord speaks especially through our little
children, who can hardly contain themselves with joy and expectation at
Christmas. He speaks the news of this Mystery
with ordinary human words just proclaimed in the Scriptures. He humbles himself by identifying himself
with ordinary bread and wine and feeds us with his very Body, as his physical
body had lain in a manger in Bethlehem (which means “House of Bread”). Formed by our encounter with him in these
sacramental signs, we more easily recognize the ways in which he dwells with us
in our families gathered for Christmas.
We look beyond whatever family conflicts and dysfunctions may be present
to see him present in the mess of our family gatherins. We open our eyes to recognize him in the
homeless, the poor, the stranger, and those who live on the margins of our
society.
When we leave Mass tonight, we will
return to a world that really has not changed much. But we leave with changed minds and
transformed hearts. We leave more convinced
than ever that God so loved the world that he sent his only Begotten Son. That Son dwells in the midst of our messy
world. He has shared in our humanity, so
that we can share in his divinity. There
is no better news that that!
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