Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Tag: Nativity of the Lord

  • The Nativity of the Lord – Mass During the Day

    The Nativity of the Lord – Mass During the Day

    Today’s readings

    Think about it. What did you think God was like when you were growing up? Was he someone to be feared, watching your every move, or was he a good friend walking with you in good times and bad, or was he somewhere in between those two models? And what do you think God is like now?

    I think many people don’t get how God works.  Actually, to be honest, none of us does: we do our best and we learn every day, which is good. But sometimes people either think that God is a capricious policeman who’s always looking for some kind of way to catch them in a trivial sin so that he can send them to the place downstairs, or they think he’s a friend who overlooks all their faults and doesn’t mind if they never give him a second thought.  Both positions are not how God works!

    And if you asked a lot of people why Christmas is so important, if they have any religious answer at all, they might tell you that probably God finally found the right answer after so many years of failure.  That all along, from the time of Adam and Eve, people had been doing whatever they wanted, and so God was at his wit’s end and finally just sent his only begotten Son down here to straighten things out.  But that’s not how God works!

    The truth is, as we see in today’s Gospel, that God had always intended to save the world by sending his own Son who was with him in the beginning.  The Word – God’s Son – was with him in the beginning and everything that has ever been made has been made through him.  Not only that, but in the fullness of time, the Word became flesh, and made his dwelling among us.  The Greek here says literally that he “pitched his tent” among us.  That was the plan – from the beginning – for God’s own Son to become flesh so that we could become like God.  It’s a marvelous exchange!

    And when he became flesh, he lived as one of the people in that time.  He walked among them and had all the same concerns they did.  He was like us in all things but sin.  When the appointed hour came, he took on our sins and was crucified for our salvation.  He died like we do, but so that sin and death would no longer be able to hold us bound to the earth, he rose from the dead and attained eternal life.  Now we can do that, too, one day, if we believe in God’s Word and live the way he taught us. 

    Because, friends, that’s how God works.  He loves us and can’t do anything but love us.  I always tell our school children that, if they remember that God loves them, that will take them very far.  I even go so far as to tell them that writing “Jesus loves me” on a religion test will get them at least half credit! The teachers love it when I say that! But God is, as we have always been taught, love: love in its purest and most authentic form. And because of that love, he will never turn away from us, and always desires our good. He wants us to come live with him some day, and for all eternity.  That’s how God works!

    Jesus became one of us, pitching his tent among us, so that he could gather us all up and bring us back to heaven with him, to the kingdom of God for which we were created, in the beginning.  That was always the plan.  But sin and death keeping us from friendship with God is obliterated by the saving act of Jesus.  Sin and death no longer have the final word, because that’s not how God works!

    May Christ our God, born in the flesh on that holy night, find a dwelling place, a manger, in our hearts, and may his presence in our lives bring us joy this day and every day of our lives.  Blessings to you and your families this Christmas Day and every day.

  • The Nativity of the Lord – Mass During the Night

    The Nativity of the Lord – Mass During the Night

    Tonight’s readings

    It’s all about the zeal of the Lord of Hosts!

    Because when you think about it, God doesn’t have to care about our welfare or our salvation.  He’s God, he’s not in need of anyone or anything, because he is all-sufficient.  He doesn’t need our love, he doesn’t need our praise, he doesn’t need our contrition … honestly, he doesn’t need us period.

    But because God is who he is, because he is Goodness in all its perfection, because he is Love beyond all telling, because he is Truth in its purest form, because he is Beauty beyond anything we’ve ever seen, because he is our God, he couldn’t, wouldn’t decide not to create us. He cannot not care about us.  He cannot not want us to come to salvation.  And so he pursues us, and pursues us with great zeal.

    He created us in love, and no matter how far we may stray, he still loves us, and can’t do anything but that.  Throughout time, we’ve disappointed him, and when he forgave us – which he didn’t have to do – we disappointed him again.  That’s been the story of us as a people, and also our own personal stories, if we’re honest.  How many times have we all sinned, and after being forgiven, go back and sin again?  Honestly, if we were God, we’d throw up our hands and walk away.  But, thank God, we’re not God, and our God isn’t like that.  As often as we turn away and come back, he reaches out to us with the love of the father for his prodigal children.  Our God pursues us, and pursues us with great zeal.

    When our need for a Savior was great, when ages beyond number had run their course from the creation of the world, when century upon century had passed since the Almighty set his bow in the clouds after the Great Flood, after Abraham, Moses, David and Daniel had made God’s desire for reconciliation known, our Lord Jesus Christ, eternal God and Son of the eternal Father, desired to consecrate the world by his most loving presence.  Being conceived in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit, he was born in Bethlehem of Judah and was made man.  As a man, he walked among the people of his time and lived as one of us, in all things but sin.  At the appointed hour, he took on our sins and was nailed to a cross.  He died to pay the price for all of us, in order to redeem us and bring us back to friendship with the Father.  Because of this, the power of death and sin to keep us from God has been canceled out, and we have the possibility of eternal life.  Our God pursues us, and pursues us with great zeal.

    We gather this holy night to revel in the zeal that our God has for our souls.  We who are so much less than him, and so unworthy of his love, nonetheless have his love and are intimately known to him, better than we even know ourselves.  In God’s zeal for us, he reaches out to us when we fall, walks with us when we suffer, and brings us back to him when we wander away.  There is nowhere we can go, no place we can run, no depth to which we can fall, that is beyond the reach of God’s zealous love for us.  And that’s why this night, when we celebrate the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, is such an amazing and holy night for us.  If not for this night, the night of our salvation on Easter would never come to pass.  This night we celebrate not just the birth of a baby, but the birth of God’s intimate presence in the world from the moment of his birth until time is no more.

    It’s no wonder the angels sang that night: they knew what the world had yet to behold.  They knew that God’s zeal had obliterated the chasm between the world and its maker.  They knew that the sadness of death was coming to an end.  They knew that the power of sin had been smashed to oblivion.  They new the light of God’s Radiant Dawn had burst forth upon the earth.  They knew that in this moment, the sad melody of sin had given way to a chorus of God’s glory.  They knew that the dirge of death had dwindled to the peace that God pours forth on those whom he favors. 

    That moment, all those years ago, changed everything.  Nothing would be the same.  The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will do – has done – this!

    May Christ our God, born in the flesh on that holy night, find a dwelling place, a manger, in our hearts, and may his presence in our lives bring us joy this day and every day of our lives.  Blessings to you and your families this Christmas Day and every day.

  • The Nativity of the Lord: Mass During the Day

    The Nativity of the Lord: Mass During the Day

    Today’s readings

    What came to be through him was life,
            and this life was the light of the human race;
        the light shines in the darkness,
            and the darkness has not overcome it.

    Sometimes, when I am preaching at a reconciliation service for children, I will ask how many of them are, or ever have been, afraid of the dark.  I ask the parents too.  Lots of us raise our hands.  Because darkness is a fearsome thing.  In those homilies, I liken the darkness to sin, which is fearsome as well, because it takes us out of relationship with God, out of relationship with the people in our lives, and out of relationship with the Church. 

    None of us likes darkness.  One of the things I like to do this time of year is to drive around the neighborhoods I pass through and look at the Christmas lights.  Some of them are very elaborate, some are almost what I like to call “Griswoldian,” after the characters in the movie “Christmas Vacation.”  I know that I look forward to putting up the lights for Christmas, and I always love to see the creativity of others who have lit their houses.  As the days get shorter and the nights get longer, as darkness comes earlier and earlier, having brightly lit trees and houses seems to be a way of ordering the darkness to get lost and not to terrify us any longer.  We are a people who crave the light, who need it at the very core of our beings.  We were not made for darkness, but for light.

    All during Advent, we have been yearning for the light.  Advent reminds us that the world can sometimes be a very dark place, that war and terrorism and crime and disease and sin and death can really give us a beating, that very often we experience life much differently than God intended us to, and that all of this darkness has kept us from union with our God.  But Advent also has reminded us that it’s not supposed to be that way, and that God has always intervened for love of the people he has created.  And so in Advent, we came to see that God promises salvation for the people that are his own, and that he would do everything to make that promised salvation unfold for us.

    The Old Testament unfolds for us the many ways that God has intervened in history to save his people.  He placed man and woman in the Garden of Eden, safe from all harm, should they choose to accept it (which, of course, they did not!).  He brought eight people through the deluge of the great flood on Noah’s Ark.  He promised Abraham his descendants would be as numerous as the stars of the sky.  He led his people out of slavery in Egypt, through the desert and into the Promised Land, protecting them and guiding them through the hand of Moses all along the way.  His love for his people, his desire that they be one with him, and his efforts to save them from their own folly have been abundant all through human history.  But as numerous as his efforts have been, so have humankind’s failures to follow him been numerous as well.

    Which brings us to the event we celebrate today.  Let’s be clear: this is not some last-ditch effort before God throws up his hands and leaves us to our own devices.  This is the saving event.  This is the way to salvation that has always been intended and has been promised through the ages, from the very days of the creation of the world, when the Word, as Saint John tells us today, was with God, and with God, was the Word through which everything in heaven and on earth came to be.

    This awesome event is the Incarnation: Jesus, the Word through which all were created, comes to be one of the created ones.  This is the primordial mystery of our faith: without the Incarnation, there could be no cross, no resurrection, no ascension, no salvation.  None of the savings events of the Old Testament could be as wonderful as the Incarnation and the Paschal Mystery: in fact, those previous acts of salvation led up to the salvation we have in Christ Jesus, and paved the way for that saving act.  In today’s feast, the great light of Christ has taken hold of the darkness this world brings us and shatters it forever, shining great light into every corner of our dark world, and into our sometimes very dark lives as well.

    That’s all very theological and theoretical, I know, and maybe it goes over our heads most of the time.  So let me put this all another way.  For this illustration, I have to thank one of my seminary professors, who beat this image into our heads over and over again.  Here’s the way it works:  God always intended for us to be with him.  But, that became impossible, because over time we developed this great, dark chasm of sin and death.  That chasm separated us from God, and we could not reach across it to get to God.  So, on December the 25th, in the year Zero, if you will, God sent his only Son to be our salvation.  He was born into our midst and became one of us: he walked our walk, he lived our life, and he also died our death.  But that death did not last forever: instead he rose to new life that lasts forever, canceling out that great chasm of sin and death, and forever uniting us to God, allowing us to live the life God always intended us to have.  Now, I should mention, he used to call that chasm the “deep dark yogurt of sin and death,” and he once explained that he used that image because he didn’t like yogurt!

    You get the idea.  This gift of the Incarnation is the best Christmas present we will receive – it is the best gift of any kind that we will ever receive, because in the Incarnation we have what’s necessary for us to be saved.  This is so important a mystery and so great a gift, that at the words of the Incarnation in the Creed today, we are instructed to genuflect, not just bow.  So we will genuflect when we say the words, “by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man.”  And we genuflect because we remember with great gratitude that if the Word didn’t become flesh, if he wasn’t born of the Virgin Mary, if he didn’t become one like us, if he didn’t pay the price for our sins, we would never have salvation, or hope of life with God.  Praise God for this great gift today!

    And so as we continue our prayer today, we offer God the darkness in our lives: our sins, our frustrations, our disappointments, our pain, our grief – and we hold up all of this to the great Light that is God’s Word, the one who became one like us, who pitched his tent among us, and who dwells with us now.  We pray that the Light of the world would banish our darkness, and help us to see the way to God from wherever it is that we find ourselves on the spiritual path today.  We celebrate that, today and every day, Jesus Christ is the Light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

  • The Nativity of the Lord: Mass During the Night

    The Nativity of the Lord: Mass During the Night

    Today’s readings

    The people who walked in darkness
    have seen a great light;
    upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom
          a light has shone.

    Sometimes, when I am preaching at a reconciliation service for children, I will ask how many of them are, or ever have been, afraid of the dark.  I ask the parents too.  Lots of us raise our hands.  Because darkness is a fearsome thing.  In those homilies, I liken the darkness to sin, which is fearsome as well, because it takes us out of relationship with God, out of relationship with the people in our lives, and out of relationship with the Church. 

    None of us likes darkness.  One of the things I like to do this time of year is to drive around the neighborhoods I pass through and look at the Christmas lights.  Some of them are very elaborate, some are almost what I like to call “Griswoldian,” after the characters in the movie “Christmas Vacation.”  I know that I look forward to putting up the lights for Christmas, and I always love to see the creativity of others who have lit their houses.  As the days get shorter and the nights get longer, as darkness comes earlier and earlier, having brightly lit trees and houses seems to be a way of ordering the darkness to get lost and not to terrify us any longer.  We are a people who crave the light, who need it at the very core of our beings.  We were not made for darkness, but for light.

    Some of us this Advent were reading and discussing a little book called, “The Heart that Grew Three Sizes.”  The book was based on the popular Dr. Seuss classic, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.”  If you were part of that study, you know there were a lot of gems in that book and it gave us a wonderful new perspective to look at Advent and our faith.  One of my favorite parts of the book was when author Matt Rawle took on the theme of light and darkness.  Here is what he noticed in the story:

    “When the Grinch begins shoving the Who family’s Christmas tree into the chimney at night, he notices young Cindy Lou Who standing and watching him.  She asks why the Grinch is taking the tree away.  Without so much as a blink, the Grinch says that the lights on one side of the tree aren’t working, and he’s taking the tree to his workshop where he will fix it up and bring it back.”  He goes on to say that a tree without lights is fine for holding ornaments or putting gifts under, but without the lights, it’s definitely missing something.  In the same way, the Grinch certainly had a heart, but it was three sizes too small: it was missing something.

    The darkness is like that.  When a room is dark, like when we are walking to the bathroom in the middle of the night, there is stuff between us and the bathroom, and if we are not careful, we will walk into it or on it, or trip over it.  It’s the same room during the day, but in the night, it is missing something, namely the light, which helps us to interact with the room the way we should. 

    When I visited the Holy Land a couple of years ago, I had an experience in Bethlehem that allowed me to reflect on what missing the light meant for the shepherds.  I got to visit what is called the “Shepherds’ Field,” which may or may not have been where the shepherds met the angels, but even if it’s not the exact place, one could certainly imagine it happening in there or a place an awful lot like it.  It was quiet and peaceful when we visited during the day.  It was about 90 degrees out, and so the shade from the numerous trees in the field and the slight breeze was certainly welcome.  As I sat on a bench in the field, I tried to imagine what it might have been like at night, when the shepherds were there.  Now they were used to the darkness, and probably were able to see most hazards from the ambient light of the moon and stars.  And I’m sure they kept a watchful eye through the night for the gleam of light reflecting off the eyes of any predators that might be nearby.  They were used to the darkness.

    Sometimes we get used to the darkness too, perhaps a little too used to it.  We become used to what we see: the shadows, the darkness, even the sadness around us.  Bad news doesn’t surprise us anymore.  More crime in the streets, another school shooting, people doing smash and grab robberies in stores, the latest COVID variant filling up the hospitals.  There’s a whole lot of darkness out there, and sometimes I think the way we deal with all that darkness is to let it desensitize us.  The real surprise on the evening news is the occasional human-interest story about something positive happening somewhere in our world.  We get very used to our day-to-day lives, filled as they are with long to-do lists, running from one errand or event to the next, managing the stress, frustration, and anxiety that come from falling behind in one area or the other.  This is the dim light we become used to.

    For the shepherds, the bright light of the angels’ presence was startling.  They weren’t used to the light, and in the darkness of the night, they were probably blinded by it, in much the same way as the light of the Griswolds’ house blinded his neighbor and caused him to fall down the stairs.  It’s no wonder they were afraid: they could hardly see, and what they could see was the surprising appearance of an angel into their mundane nightly watch.  But as their eyes adjust to the light, they experience the glory of God and the reassurance of an infant lying in a manger, an infant who is Christ and Lord and Savior of all.

    Into our dimly lit lives, our God wants to shine the splendor of his glory.  The birth of his only begotten Son into our world isn’t just a nice event depicted on Christmas cards or Nativity scenes.  The birth of his only begotten Son is meant to change the world, including the dimly-lit recesses of our daily existence.  This is amazing grace.  This is an indwelling of God that changes the world and changes our lives.

    It’s incredible, because when you think about it, God doesn’t have to care about our welfare or our salvation.  He’s God, he’s not in need of anyone or anything, because he is all-sufficient.  He doesn’t need our love, he doesn’t need our praise, he doesn’t need our contrition … honestly, he doesn’t need us period.  But he wants us.  Love wants the beloved.  Grace wants the penitent.  Goodness and truth and beauty want the worn and weary.  And so our God pursues us, and pursues us with great zeal.  Isaiah tells us that the zeal of the Lord of Hosts will do this.  Indeed that zeal won’t rest until it reaches its perfection in the lives of all of us.

    He created us in love, and even though he doesn’t need us, he loves us beyond all imagining, and can’t do anything but that.  Throughout time, yes, we’ve disappointed him, and when he forgave us – which he didn’t have to do – we disappointed him again.  That’s been the story of us as a people, and also our own personal stories, if we’re honest.  How many times have we all sinned, and after being forgiven, go back and sin again?  Honestly, if we were God, we’d throw up our hands and walk away.  But, thank God, we’re not God, and our God isn’t like that.  As often as we turn away and come back, he reaches out to us with the love of the father for his prodigal son.  Our God pursues us, and pursues us with great zeal.

    When our need for a Savior was great, when ages beyond number had run their course from the creation of the world, when century upon century had passed since the Almighty set his bow in the clouds after the Great Flood, after Abraham, Moses, David and Daniel had made God’s desire for reconciliation known, our Lord Jesus Christ, eternal God and Son of the eternal Father, desired to consecrate the world by his most loving presence.  Being conceived in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit, he was born in Bethlehem of Judah and was made man.  As a man, he walked among the people of his time and lived as one of us, in all things but sin.  At the appointed hour, he took on our sins and was nailed to a cross.  He died to pay the price for all of us, in order to redeem us and bring us back to friendship with the Father.  Because of this, the power of death and sin to keep us from God has been canceled out, and we have the possibility of eternal life.  Our God pursues us, and pursues us with great zeal.

    It’s no wonder the angels sang that night: they knew what the world had yet to behold.  They knew that God’s zeal had obliterated the chasm between the world and its Maker.  They knew that the sadness of death was coming to an end.  They knew that the power of sin had been smashed to bits.  They knew the light of God’s Radiant Dawn had burst forth upon the earth and Emmanuel, God-with-us, became incarnate in our midst.  They knew that in this moment, the sad melody of sin had given way to a chorus of God’s glory.  They knew that the dirge of death had dwindled to the peace that God pours forth on those whom he favors.

    That moment, all those years ago, changed everything.  Light shone in the darkness.  The glory of the Lord enveloped the earth.  Nothing would be the same.  The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will do this!

  • The Nativity of the Lord – Mass During the Night & Mass During the Day

    The Nativity of the Lord – Mass During the Night & Mass During the Day

    Today’s readings

    We settle for mediocrity way too easily sometimes, I think.  In some ways, I think, it just seems easier.  But in accepting mediocrity, we miss out on the greatness for which our God created us.  All of the “stuff” that we have to have or get to give at this time of year is an example of that.  The latest gadgets will be out of date very soon, and the hard-to-get toys will all be forgotten or broken shortly after the new year.  The things we think will make us happy are not happiness givers after all, and then we are left with a sense of want for something else, which also will leave us unfulfilled.  But (tonight/today) we celebrate that that does not have to be our enduring reality.  We are given, in this celebration, the gift that won’t ever go out of date, or be broken or useless.  Today we are given the great gift of the Incarnation of our Lord.

    The Incarnation is a great and holy mystery that tells us that God loved us so much, he couldn’t bear to live without us.  When we had gone our own way and wandered far away from him, he pursued us to bring us back.  He went so far as to become one of us: the Great and Almighty One, who is higher than the heavens and more glorious than all the heavenly hosts, this God of ours took on our frail human flesh to walk among us and touch us and bring us back to himself.  He so perfectly assumed our humanity that although he never sinned, he willingly laid down his life for us, paying the price for our sins, the price of a tortuous, ignominious death on a cross.  And far from letting death have the last word, God raised him up, gloriously throwing open the gates of the Kingdom for all to enter in.

    This, brothers and sisters, is truly a great and wonderful feast!  It’s no wonder the angels sang on that glorious night!  If it weren’t for the Incarnation – Jesus’ taking on our mortal flesh – there could never be a Good Friday or an Easter, there could never be salvation, never be hope for us.  But there is.  That’s the good news that we celebrate (tonight/today) and every day of our lives.

    Knowing God’s love in this way is the whole reason the Church exists.  That people would not know God’s love and not experience his friendship was so unthinkable to the early followers of Jesus that they went forth everywhere preaching the Good News of God’s love and grace.  

    So we come to this holy place (tonight/today), gathered together to gaze on the gift of Christ in our Manger.  The message of this peaceful scene is that God wants to save the world.  He created us in love and for love, so he greatly desired in his grand plan that we would all come back to him one day, and live forever with him in the kingdom.  But he knew that, steeped in sin as our world can be, fallen and flawed as we individually can be, that we could never really return to him on our own.  We were – and are – too bogged down in mediocrity, too caught up in things that are not God, things that are not ultimately going to bring us happiness.  So he knew that the only thing that he could do was to enter our history in a decisive way.

    And he could have done that in any way that he pleased – he is God after all: all-powerful, all-knowing and present everywhere.  John’s Gospel, though, tells us just exactly how God chose to enter our history: “And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”  He chose not just to visit us, but instead to become one of us, taking upon himself all of our weaknesses, our pain, and our sorrows – like us in all things but sin.  He was born a baby: the all-powerful One taking on the least powerful stage of our existence.  He was born to a poor family and announced to a young woman who had never had relations with a man.  The one who created the riches of the world and who himself was clothed in the splendor of the Almighty turned aside from all of it so that he could become one with his people.  Because he chose to take upon himself all that we must go through and then some, he is the way to salvation for all of us.

    The only way that the full brokenness of our human form could be redeemed was for Jesus to take on all of it when he came to save us.  That’s why his birth was so messy, why he had to be born in a manger with all the farm animals, that’s why he never had a place to lay his head all through his life.  What is amazing is that, as wretched as our earthly lives can be sometimes, God never considered himself above it all, never hesitated for a moment to take it on and fill it with grace.

    And let us be clear: God didn’t take on our form so that he could become less, he took on our form so that we could become more.  So, yes, God becomes one of us and takes on all of our infirmities and weaknesses.  But in doing that, we ourselves become more than we could ever be on our own.  Our lowliness is filled with grace, our sadness is filled with rejoicing.  That was always the plan God had for us.

    That’s our story.  It’s really important that we don’t forget it, and even more important that we tell it to everyone we can.  It’s the best and really only reason for us to celebrate so joyfully every December the 25th.  Our story is what makes us who we are, what defines us as a Church and as a people.  The story of Christ’s Incarnation is what makes us a living sign of God’s love in the world.  That is who we really are, despite the world’s attempts to define us as something far less.  The great gift of God’s love shines glorious light into every dark corner of our world and of our lives and calls us broken ones to redemption and healing and joy.

    In this year especially, this terrible year of 2020, people need to see Christ incarnate in us here and now.  They need to see us living our faith, even in the midst of a pandemic – especially in the midst of a pandemic!  Reaching out to others when we are hurting too.  Giving of ourselves in whatever way we can, even when we are in need of healing ourselves.  Jesus came to suffer and die and give us salvation through the resurrection of his own broken body.  So we too, broken by pandemic and social unrest and political uncertainty and racial injustice and every evil that has reared its ugly head this year, we can rise up out of all that and be a light to the world if we keep the faith, if we continue to live by the salvation we have in Christ Jesus.  For the believer, nothing gets to take away our joy, and that joy grows brighter when we freely share it with others.

    The Incarnation – the human birth and personhood of Jesus Christ – along with his Passion, death and Resurrection, changes everything.  When we all keep the faith in Jesus Christ, the Incarnation can change us too, so that we may then go out and change the world around us.  When that happens in us and through us, by the power of our God, the angels will sing just as joyfully now as they did on that most holy night.  Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to people of good will!

    May the Incarnation of Christ brighten your lives and fill you and your families with joy.

  • The Nativity of the Lord: Children’s Vigil Mass

    The Nativity of the Lord: Children’s Vigil Mass

    Today’s readings
    #christmasnd

    Once upon a time, there was an old shepherd named Elias. He had been a shepherd for his whole life long, just like his father, and his father’s father. Being a shepherd was hard and lonely work. He took care of a large group of sheep and did his best to protect them from wolves and to keep them together. He would lead them by day from pasture to pasture, allowing them to graze, and bring them safely to market where they would give their wool for people to use.

    Nights could be very lonely and sometimes scary. There was no one else to talk to, and he did his best to keep the sheep safe. Sometimes, if he listened hard enough, he could imagine the wind talking to him as it blew through the trees. That made him feel like he wasn’t so alone.

    One night, as he was nearing the place where he and the sheep would spend the night, he saw a bright light up in the distance. He couldn’t help but wonder what was going on so he moved toward it. When he got close enough, he got the sheep settled down for the night and he went to check out the light and make sure there was nothing to worry about.

    Other shepherds had done the same thing, and they all arrived to see the angel of the Lord, surrounded by the bright light of God’s glory. It was frightening to see, and Elias and the others just stood there, awe-struck, not knowing what to think.

    Then the angel spoke to them. He said, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Christ and Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.”

    Then the sky grew really bright as hundreds of angels joined in and began to sing: “Glory to God in the highest! And on earth, peace to those on whom his favor rests!”

    When the angels left, Elias and the other shepherds decided to travel the short distance to Bethlehem, the city of David, and to search out the Savior that the angel talked about. Bethlehem was a pretty small village, and so it didn’t take much looking to find the baby.

    He was in a manger – a feed-trough for animals. His parents looked like ordinary people, but Elias knew that this baby was special, and that the family was holy. The angel was right: there was joy and peace here, it was a special feeling that Elias knew could only come from God’s blessing.

    Elias never forgot that night. He went about taking care of his sheep, but whenever he was in town, he would try to find out about the baby he saw that night. He found out the boy’s name was Jesus, and he would often hear of wonderful things that Jesus said and did. When he was very old, Elias heard that people had turned against Jesus and they nailed him to a cross. But he also heard that three days later, he rose from the dead, and all of his friends were now starting to go out and tell the Good News about him.

    Elias knew that Jesus was special from that very first night he saw him. He knew that Jesus had come to change everything. And he was right. Got changed everything then, and he continues to change everything now, if we let him. Jesus didn’t just get born two thousand years ago; Jesus is born right here, right now for us, if we would just make a little space, a little manger for him in our hearts.  Just as Elias didn’t know exactly what God had in store for Jesus, we don’t know what God has in store for any of us in the year ahead.  But we do know this: God sent Jesus so that He could be here among us, and he is here among us now, leading us back to him, telling us that we are his special children, and loving us all with love beyond anything we can imagine.

    Things were hard for Elias and the other shepherds, and for Jesus and his family, and sometimes things will be hard for us too.  But all along the way, there are angels, guiding us to where God wants us, watching over us, shining the light, and helping us to find the Good News.  Today, God brings us here to worship, so that like those shepherds, we can find Jesus again, and we can see Jesus in those who love us, and in our own hearts.

  • The Nativity of the Lord: Mass During the Night and Mass of Christmas Day

    The Nativity of the Lord: Mass During the Night and Mass of Christmas Day

    Readings: Mass During the Night | Mass of Christmas Day

    A few years ago, I saw a musical called “Children of Eden.”  It was composed by Steven Schwartz, who is probably more famous for composing “Godspell” and “Wicked.”  The premise of the musical is interesting: it’s the story taken from the first nineteen chapters of the book of Genesis, which basically takes us from the creation of everything up to the story of Noah and the great flood.  From a musical standpoint, it was beautiful, but from a theological standpoint, it was fraught with problems.

    The first problem, I think, is that the story only captures the first nineteen books of Genesis.  That brings me to page twenty in my Bible, and my Bible is fifteen hundred pages long!  As the saying goes, we ain’t seen nuthin’ yet: God has not yet promised anything to Abraham, we don’t yet know about Moses and the Law, we’ve yet to hear from any of the prophets.  David has yet to sing the Psalms, and we certainly haven’t heard the miraculous story that brings us here tonight (today).

    And with that very limited subset of the story of salvation, Steven Schwartz portrays an image of God that is, as anyone might expect, rather stunted.  The story ends with a frustrated God seeing that even the great flood can’t scare humanity back into obedience.  And in his frustration, Schwartz’s God throws up his hands and essentially says, “I’m done.”  God backs out of the picture, and the remnants of humanity realize that, alone now, if anything good is going to happen, it’s up to them.

    And if Schwartz were right, we wouldn’t be here tonight (today).  Happily, we don’t believe in Schwartz’s God.  Because the God he casts in his musical is a God who is impotent and disinterested and completely uninvolved in his creation.  Kind of like a child who has made something out of Legos, and then become bored with them.  He has set the world in motion and then backed off, leaving his creatures to their own devices.  That’s not our God.

    Our God can’t be wrapped up in nineteen chapters and just twenty pages.  Our God takes fifteen hundred more pages to describe and even that just scratches the surface.  Our God is committed and loving and completely good and holy and transcendent and immanent.  Our God is higher than the heavens, holier than the holiest we can imagine, goodness itself, love itself.  But our God is also here among us, Emmanuel, closer to us than we are to ourselves.  Far from backing off and leaving us to our own devices, our God walks with us and shares our joys and sorrows; he sees us through pain and celebrates our healing.  Our God is beyond everything we can imagine and more wonderful than anything we can hope for.

    Our God is so invested in his creation that he made many interventions in human history to provide for our salvation.  Those interventions turned humanity’s hearts back to the Lord in moments of darkness.  Then, when the time was right, God brought salvation to the culmination of perfection.  One day in time, God sent his only Begotten Son to be our Savior.  He was born of the Virgin Mary, born a man like us in all things but sin.  The Second Person of the Holy Trinity, God the Word, put on flesh and became one of us, perfectly human and perfectly divine.  That’s what we celebrate tonight (today).

    As a man, he lived life as we do.  He grew and learned and made friends and became what he was meant to be.  He lived our life and died our death – literally dying the death we deserved for our many sins.  But his death was not the end; his death was shattered by his Resurrection and Ascension into heaven.  Because of his saving sacrifice, because of his Incarnation and Paschal Mystery, the Holy One redeemed our brokenness and made eternal life possible for all those who believe in him and live the Gospel.  That’s our God.

    All of this is made possible because of the gift we receive on this most holy night (day).  That gift we call the Incarnation of the Lord: the glorious mystery of God taking on human flesh to save his people.  This gift of the Incarnation is the best Christmas present we will receive – it is the best gift of any kind that we will ever receive, because in the Incarnation we have what’s necessary for us to be saved.   This is so important a mystery and so great a gift, that at the words of the Incarnation in the Creed today, we are instructed to kneel, not just bow, as we usually do.  So we will kneel when we say the words, “and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man.”  And we kneel because we remember with great gratitude that if the Word didn’t become flesh, if he wasn’t born of the Virgin Mary, if he didn’t become one like us, if he didn’t pay the price for our sins, we would never have salvation, or hope of life with God.

    God didn’t take on our form so that he could become less, he took on our form so that we could become more.  Tonight (Today), God becomes one of us and takes on all of our infirmities and weaknesses.  But in doing that, we ourselves become more than we could ever be on our own.  Our lowliness is filled with grace, our sadness is filled with rejoicing.

    So as we gaze upon and adore our Lord in the manger, maybe we can take some of the items in that beautiful snapshot and see what will come for him as he grows older.  We see the shepherds, lowly men despised often by society, the marginalized ones who are the first to receive the message.  We see the wise men, those who in the wisdom they have received from God, are ready to give everything to follow Christ.  We see the angels, the messengers who urge us to take a second look at an innocent child who might not otherwise attract our attention.  We see his father Joseph, who will teach him the law, as a good father would, and help him to grow in the ways of humanity, which he so completely assumed.  We see his mother, who nurtured him in childhood and followed him in adulthood, becoming the first of his disciples.  We see the wood of the manger, a foreshadowing of the wood of the Cross, which will be the means of our salvation.  And we see and adore Christ himself, the Way, the wonder-counselor, our father forever, and prince of peace.

    When we look at that manger scene with eyes of faith, we become different, knowing that Jesus paid an incredible price to bring us back to him, not just on the Cross, but even at his birth.  Human eyes can look at that manger and see with cynicism that he’s just like us, nothing special.  But eyes of faith look at the same event and see our God, wholly worthy of adoration.

    And so, as we gaze on the manger, we know that Steven Schwartz was wrong about our God, and not only that, he is wrong about us.  We are not, as one of his songs says “lost in the wilderness;” instead our lives are bound up in the very life of our God, and his in ours, and we are precious to him as he is everything to us.  The grace of our God made visible will glory with us in our joys and sustain us in our sorrows.  The Lord who is born among us today gives us peace in our most gut-wrenching moments.  May our hearts be open to accepting the grace of his Incarnation, the grace of his most wonderful presence among us.