Luke 2: 1-14
The Word: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/122524-Night.cfm
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, as C.S. Lewis wrote, Jesus came, “Slipping behind enemy lines,” which 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. Darkness and Light face each other in the most unlikely way. In other words. For all of its sentimentality, Christmas is not about sweetness and cuddly little babies. Rather, there is an element of confrontation between the powers of light (God) and the power of darkness (Satan). God comes to reclaim the world and to rescue us from certain destruction: to replace evil with love, violence with peace, division with unity, isolation with community. And to establish the power and God’s kingdom with the promise of eternal life so that death is not the result of sin but rather a door to salvation.
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 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.
If we can remove sentimentality around the manger scene for a moment it brings us to see this as a great playing out of God’s plan from the beginning. If we can see this as the culmination of centuries of human experience planned in the mind of God to send his Son among us then we cannot ignore what God is saying. What drama do we participate in? The Christmas message is a proposal to all humankind that humanity and all creation is worth saving; that we are loved by a God who operates only out of love for the other and that he comes to set us free and that no matter how far to the dark we may have gone, no one is beyond conversion if we follow the path he shows us.
Mary and Joseph, Elizabeth and Zachariah and John the Baptist as central figures in this unfolding of God’s plan are not figures of power and influence. They come as simple and ordinary. Yet through their cooperation God changes the world. This is God’s plan and the story he has written and directed in the birth of this child to whom everyone looks as the central figure in the new order God has arranged.
But, a child 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.
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 Christ replaces fear with faith, doubt with trust, and hopelessness with hope. Through an interior change of heart and mind 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. The birth of this good news was brought to the world not through a mighty army, the blast of a trumpet or some unexpected proclamation. It came through the cry of a new born child. The cry of a baby is the sound of Christmas; it announces a new beginning, a new hope, a promise beyond our expectation, and a love beyond all telling.
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. The Lord comes to us once again is that great sign of unity to go from the manger to the altar to our lives as food for our journey back to him.
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. God entered secretly in Bethlehem so that we might find him and rejoice at his coming.
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