Catholic Caucus: Daily Mass Readings, 12-25-18, The Nativity of the Lord, Midnight Mass

"Today . . . a savior has been born for you who is Christ the Lord"

Luke 2: 1-14

The Word for Christmas: http://usccb.org/bible/readings/122518-night.cfm

The prophet Isaiah, like a trumpet that is blown, begins the 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, Prince of Peace.”

Now we might imagine as the ancient people did that this child would grow to 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.

Yet, we come to the familiar Christmas story and we are forced to stop and wonder. Luke in his Gospel narrative sets the scene between how the world orders itself and how God has ordered the world. It begins with the most powerful person in the ancient world, Caesar Augustus Emperor of ancient Rome. He calls a census of his empire. The scene then shifts to an obscure and poor Jewish couple who obediently travel to the village of Bethlehem to register for the census but the mother is 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.

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 we cannot reduce to a passing emotion or a momentary celebration of sharing gifts.

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.

The tension for us is that we normally feel we need to be our own director; we participate in the “Ego drama.” I am the director of my own life, I make my own choices, I freely choose where I go, what I do, and who I invite to participate in my own life; I call the shots and arrange my players accordingly. I will invite God to participate in my life if I so choose. Our present day culture which is so centered on the individual and my rights and my freedoms and my free choice surrounds us. The significance of the Christmas story is that God found individuals who put their own plans aside and submitted to his will – to his Theo (God) drama. The same choice is offered to every one of us in our individual unique way according to how God wishes us to be.

First, 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 see shepherds who are first gifted with the announcement of Jesus’ birth. Shepherds who were considered the lowest of the low, untrustworthy figures, the least expected to whom God speaks. So 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.

God now becomes approachable and invites us to come and see. It is not the high and mighty who rule through ruthless power and subversion but a God who now rules through a life of service, self-sacrifice, mercy and love for others.

God is bound in swaddling clothes, a tight band of garments around a new born as he embraces the binding of our own sin, only to be freed for new life after the resurrection. God has emptied himself for our sake and in that way proposes a new direction for history. A new way in which we are called to relate to one another not through control and domination but through service of our neighbor. Historically, force, fear and domination have always lost through self- destruction. Love, compassion, humility, self sacrifice always wins. To do so as Christ has shown us is to know the way to the Father.

With the birth of this child, a new age begins. A new light enters the world as never before and a new hope dawns for all humankind. But, we must choose to embrace that new light and that new hope. So, God proposes a new way of life for those willing to embrace his Gospel.

As Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI wrote pointedly as few years back: “Christians fight poverty out of recognition of the supreme dignity of every human being . . . Christians work for more equitable sharing of the earth’s resources out of a belief that, as stewards of God’s creation, we have a duty to care for the weakest and most vulnerable. Christians oppose greed and exploitation out of a conviction that generosity and selfless love, as taught and lived by Jesus of Nazareth, are the way that leads to fullness of life. Christian belief in the transcendent destiny of every human being gives urgency to the task of promoting peace and justice for all.”

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 will be large crowds everywhere. Let’s not judge but welcome and encourage.

“Today is born our Savior, Christ the Lord”

December, 2018

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