Nativity of Our Lord, Night

Is 9:1-6
Ps 96:1-2, 2-3, 11-12, 13
Ti 2:11-14
Lk 2:1-14

Just like children who cannot wait until Christmas day to open presents, we are here in the middle of the night, with a cold front coming in, and a possible chance of snow.  We are here to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  I love being Catholic, I love our faith, I love the very fact that we would be up in the middle of the night to go to Church!  You all are here because you want to be here!

Tonight I have the challenge of retelling the greatest story ever told.  Christmas and Easter stand as the two greatest celebrations in the Church’s year because they convey two sides of the same mystery of the person of Jesus Christ.  The birth of Jesus in this world is a sign for all of us that salvation has literally come into our midst.  All of creation has been waiting for this moment.  At the darkest hour of the darkest day of the darkest month in one of the most remote backwater places in the world, Christ – the light of the world is born to us.  That God would become a man to dwell amongst us is already an incredible act of love, but how He chooses to do it shows us the perfection of that love.  God had planned this from the very beginning of time.  He didn’t just happen to find the perfect gift for us on the shelf as He was passing through.  He had been preparing us to receive Him since the beginning and yet all the while, allowing humanity to make the free choice and decision on whether to follow Him.

Luke begins his account of Jesus’ birth by calling the time and place of the occurrence.  This is for us to understand that this was not a fable, not a made-up morality story or play, but that this really did occur in time and history.  The location? Bethlehem, the City of David – King David’s hometown.  This point of fact recalls Joseph’s lineage back to the house of Jesse and King David and that from this little town of Bethlehem was promised a king like David but even greater than him.  And the Virgin Mary gave birth to this child, fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah of a virgin giving birth.  She gave birth to Him in a manger and wrapped Him with swaddling clothes.  The shepherds in the region came to Him and see what had happened.  To the lowliest of people came the greatest news that they would hear: their savior is born tonight!

We have heard this story told many times and each time we hear different variations or different parts highlighted.  What is most fascinating to me is how fitting He has designed everything to be and then how the gospel writers are inspired to write those details for us to uncover.  As we hear in the first reading, the people who have walked in darkness have seen a great light.  During the darkest time of the year, it would make sense that Jesus, the light of the World, would come to bring light and life back into our darkness.  He is our hope, He is our light.  God has prepared the cosmos, the seasons to coincide with His coming.

The Mystery of the Incarnation on Christmas cannot be fully realized until we are connected with the Paschal Mystery – that is, Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection.  In other words, without Good Friday and Easter Sunday, we won’t and cannot fully understand Christmas.  As tradition has it, Good Friday and the Feast of the Annunciation were placed on the same day, March 25.  The day when Christ really enters the world is when He is conceived, when the Angel Gabriel announces to Mary that she will bear a son.  The day that He enters the world is the day that He redeems the world, March 25.  Count nine months ahead and we have December 25 the day of our Lord’s birth.  Here you can see that even calendar and time are ordered to and preparing for Christ.

How is Christ brought into the world?  After He is born, He is wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger.  Swaddling is a common way to quiet a child, wrapping them up so they feel secure: like a baby burrito.  I can think of another time of when someone is swaddled and that is after they have died.  Back in the day, they would wrap clothes around a person like a mummy – like you would swaddle a baby.  There is a bit of a symbolic connection of swaddling at the beginning and at the end of your life – in a sense almost one in the same.  As the Lord was laid in the manger, we come to understand this meaning even more fully.  Manger comes from the word “to eat”.  Our Lord was laid in a manger, a feeding trough for beasts and animals.  Christ, just born for us was already being prepared to be sacrificed, to die, and to be offered as food.

Finally, Christ is born in Bethlehem, which many of you know is Hebrew for “House of Bread”.  I could think of no more a fitting place than for Christ to be born in the House of Bread.  Because for us as Catholics, we know that He is the Bread of Life.  The Savior of the world, born for us, swaddled in anticipation of His death and laid in a manger for animals to eat, in the town called “House of Bread”.

For any other person this image would be disturbing, but for us who believe these images are amazing.  That Jesus in a prophetic and symbolic way was already telling us that He has come, not to be heralded as king, but to die for us and give us His life so that we may have relationship and communion with Him.  Today is born our Savior, Christ the Lord – Let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoice! In the celebration of the Holy Eucharist tonight, let us adore and worship in holy reverence to Christ.  God, out of love for us became man – humbling Himself for our sake that we may have communion with Him and be transformed into Him.  Our Lord has come to us, in the humblest form of Bread to sustain us and to bring us life.  All of Creation has waited in anticipation for this day and now that is here, let us enter into the celebration.  Let us truly bring Him into our hearts.  He has been waiting for us and preparing us – come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.