Christmas Homily – 2013

Midnight Mass readings

(Isaiah 9:1-6; Psalm 96:1-3,11-13; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-14)

           What an incredible event we celebrate tonight! These events of 2,000 years ago still are remembered and observed. For as Isaiah says, “a son is born to us, a child is given for us – and we call him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever”. “Today is born our savior, Christ the Lord” our Psalm proclaims.

            For the past 2,000 years, artists and iconographers and songwriters and poets have memorialized this night. And we have been graced with the beauty of their efforts to the point where each of us has a picture in our minds of what this night looked like all those years ago. And they are beautiful images – so many glorious and joyful representations of that special night.

            But I want you to put all of those images aside for a moment – including the beautiful nativity scene that you see in front of you. Instead, I want you to picture a night when a transient young woman and her betrothed stop in a remote village as she gives birth to her child. I want you to see a young couple, far away from home, scared and anxious about this child they are about to have. See the meager surroundings – a stable that is not even totally enclosed – all that was available to them as strangers.

            And now see the baby – naked and cold until his mother wraps him in rags. Hungry and crying until his mother nurses him to feed him.  Born far from family, friends, - homeless and without anyone to witness his birth and celebrate with his parents other than some dirty shepherds that were in the neighboring fields.

            This is how Jesus comes into the world – naked, hungry, cold, homeless. Is it any wonder that he would later teach us to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, welcome the stranger? I wonder sometimes if this deep compassion that he felt came from his very own experiences from the moment of his birth.

            Jesus born hungry, cold, homeless - means that Jesus is, yes, Emmanuel, God With Us, but he is also God OF us. God became what we are. And what are we? Well, we are frequently weak, unpredictable creatures, tied down by the limitations of time and space. Jesus not only took on our flesh and bone but took on our frailty as well. We are prone to illness, and moodiness, and loneliness…but God OF us means that we have a way out of all of that – we have a God who is not distant from us but is so close to us because God became OF us.

            God OF us means that just as Jesus shared in our humanity, we have the possibility of a share in his divine life. We no longer need to be afraid. No matter what it is that we are experiencing, all of our trials, all of our challenges, our loneliness, our discomforts – we know that God understands because in Jesus we have God OF us.

             That means that our faith is a faith of hope and not of despair; a faith of joy and not of anxiety; a faith of confidence and not of fear. For God came so very close to us in Jesus of Nazareth. And so tonight we celebrate those events of 2,000 years ago knowing that because of this night our lives and the lives of all people are changed – because God is OF us.