"To you is born this day in the city of David
a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord"
Luke 2: 1- 14
The Word: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/122520-mass-at-night.cfm
The popular English essayist C.S. Lewis once said about Christmas: “Jesus came so quietly in this unobtrusive way because he was meant to slip clandestinely behind enemy lines.”
The image of the beloved Christmas scene at a cave
outside Bethlehem has become the iconic image of this beautiful time of year in
the Christian world. Yet, it sounds as
if Lewis took a more military approach to the Lord’s coming. “Slipping behind enemy lines,” implies a
battle scene, one waiting to attack the enemy and proclaim victory in the
end. It implies one who feels their undetected use
of power will overcome the opposition without warning.
Even the prophet Isaiah, like a trumpet that is blown,
begins our first reading from the Christmas Mass at night with the words: “The
people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.” He goes on to speak a
message of hope and healing to a people who have been downtrodden, burdened,
held in slavery. But it’s more than just
a comforting promise. He quickly gives a
human identity to the message and speaks of a child to be born, a “son is given
us who is named: “Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-forever, and Prince of
Peace.”
So we might imagine as the chosen people hoped for
centuries, that a mighty figure would be a man of great power and influence
over humanity. He would amass a fearless
army, live in palaces and spread his royal line well beyond himself and make a
mighty nation to rule over the world. In fact, we are faced this time of year
with an event that called for a clash of two powers: that of the earth and that
of God; the earthly and the divine. The
two faced each other in the most unlikely way.
Luke begins the familiar Christmas story with the most
powerful person in the ancient world, Caesar Augustus Emperor of ancient
Rome. This man who saw himself as a
great peacemaker, also bore the title of Savior and Lord. Whatever Caesar wants or wills, Caesar
gets. He speaks his “good news” and it
happens at his will. His power is absolute, unquestionable and he rules by fear
and force with a mighty army. Into this world, another power appears on the
scene – quietly and clandestinely – “behind enemy lines.”
The scene then shifts to a young, obscure and poor Jewish
couple who obediently travel to the village of Bethlehem to register for the
census the powerful Caesar has demanded and the mother is very near child
birth. Luke’s continued focus on this
scene powerfully tells us that the child which Mary bears will be the center of
the new order arranged by God. It is this child we now center on. This child,
we believe, is the prince of peace. In fact, Luke’s narration has more to do
with this couple and child than it does with mighty Caesar. The power of this child far out shines that
of earth.
God invites us to participate in the grand “Theo drama,”
as Bishop Robert Barron explains. In other words, the play or drama that God is
directing and his invitation now like Mary and Elizabeth, Joseph and Zachariah
and John the Baptist to take our place on the stage of life directed by God
according to his will. This is God’s plan and his story that he has written and
directed in the birth of this child to whom everyone looks as the central
figure in the new order as God has arranged.
But, he seems powerless.
The contrast could not be more stark between the fearful Caesar in a
palace the most powerful man on earth and a young couple in a tiny stable with
animals and what seems an ordinary Jewish baby whose coming challenges us to
recognize who truly rules the world and by what force – that of love and mercy.
It seems to me that this past unexpected and unwelcome
year of 2020 has been in some ways a faceoff between forces that have caused
the entire human family to fall on our knees.
It seemed some strange power had entered our world clandestinely only to
appear last March seemingly out of nowhere. In so many ways we have felt
helpless before a microscopic virus that has wreaked havoc with people’s lives,
with our economy, with the poorest of the poor among us, with our whole social
system, with our religious expression, and we have been battling those who
exercise power and the way in which that power has been exercised. Now, medical science has provided a
protection in the vaccines, a way out of this prison but more is needed for
science alone cannot answer our deepest need for meaning and purpose.
So, the Christmas story assures us that the power of God
has come. The power, unlike that of
ancient Caesar or any present day leader, to bring about an interior change in
our hearts. Earthly power affect the
external world. Laws can be changed or
enforced and other economic fallout is measured but the power of the God-Man
overcomes all of that through an interior change with the greater power of
love, forgiveness, healing and hope.
That is a power we are called to exercise ourselves and to reject fear,
force, greed, indifference, and selfishness from our hearts.
God chose to do this. He came purely out of love as one
writer stated, “to accustom himself to humanity.” He chose to come in
smallness. Not through great and
influential people in the large and dominant Empires of the ancient world. He chose a different course; that of the
simple and obscure. Instead of Jerusalem
or Rome he came to an unknown girl in the tiny village of Nazareth. God
directed this drama from the beginning and continues to do so.
What can we learn?
That we must look for God in the ordinary and the margins around us. We
see that real power is that of a love which gives itself away as the infant was
laid not in a comfortable crib but on straw, in a manger, a feeding trough for
the animals in the cave. Jesus, then
offers himself as food for the world, as the bread of life, as the Holy
Eucharist at each Mass.
As we gather around Word and Sacrament at Holy Mass this Christmastime, let’s reflect, rejoice, and embrace this new good news of the Savior that is both ancient and new. There may not be large crowds everywhere due to this strange time we're in but God will not abandon us. God entered secretly in Bethlehem so that we might find him and rejoice at his coming.
“Today is born our Savior, Christ the Lord”
O God, who have made this most sacred night
radiant with the splendor of the true light,
grant that we, who have
known the mysteries of his light on earth,
may also delight in his gladness in heaven.
Who lives and reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
(Collect of Mass at Night)
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