Homily:
Christmas Midnight Mass: 2014
And an angel of the Lord
appeared to them
The
odd thing about St. Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus, the first seven
verses or so, is that there is nothing at all odd about it. It could be the
birth of any child. Jesus was born when Caesar Augustus was Emperor and
Quirnius was governor of Syria. I was born when Harry Truman was president of the United
States and Alan Shivers was governor of Texas. Doesn’t prove much except that I
am an old codger. Mary and Joseph were displaced from home by the imperial decree. My parents had to drive to Oklahoma
City because Chickasha, Oklahoma didn’t have a hospital. Even ‘no room in the
inn’ was not an unusual circumstance for that time and place. Probably not all that
unusual when I was born. We can easily imagine that there were other children
born that night in similar circumstances.
But
I am pretty sure that there were no angels singing when I was I was born.
The
first hint of something odd, something supernatural is when an angel appears to
the shepherds. If we think the appearance of angels is weird, so did the
shepherds: ‘they were filled with fear.’ Actually from a strictly logical
standpoint, it is easier to believe in angels than in human beings, angels make
more sense than human beings: angels are pure spirits, while we are really
strange concoctions of body and soul, half beast, half angel. In any case it is
an angel which preaches the gospel tonight: as is so often the case in Luke’s Gospel:
“I bring you good news” the angel says. It is the angel Gabriel which tells
Zechariah that his barren wife Elizabeth will give birth to John the Baptist.
It is the same angel which tells Mary
Do
not be afraid, Mary, (-- a persistent problem apparently when angels appear to
human beings)
for you have found favor with God.
Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son,
and you shall name him Jesus.
He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High,
and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father,
and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever,
and of his Kingdom there will be no end.
for you have found favor with God.
Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son,
and you shall name him Jesus.
He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High,
and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father,
and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever,
and of his Kingdom there will be no end.
And
two angels on the morning of the Resurrection tell the women “Why do you look for the living
among the dead? He is not here; he has risen!”
So
if we want to receive the Gospel tonight, we have
to be willing to listen to angels. If you don’t believe in angels, you are out
of luck. What does the angel say?
“To
you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord; this
will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and
lying in a manger”
“To
you” the words echo the great affirmation of the Nicene Creed pro nobis – ‘for us’ ‘for us men and for our salvation’. “Who, for us men
for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the virgin Mary, and was made man.” The
apparent ordinariness of his birth is for us men and for our salvation.
Just
as the angel causes the shepherds to say “let us go over to Bethlehem and see”
so we too have to look again at the circumstances of his birth.
The
mention of Caesar Augustus is not just name-dropping; he is mentioned by way of
contrast with the child. Caesar rules the world, but this child is the King of
the Universe, the King not of this and that, but of everything for us men and
for our salvation.
Still
the emperor’s decree serves God’s purposes, for us men and for our salvation.
The child must be born in King David’s city for ‘of his kingdom there shall be
no end’. The child has to be born in poverty – no room in the inn is no
accident-- so that he may partake of our poverty and redeem it.
The
child must be vulnerable to heal our wounds. He must be vulnerable enough to
die for us men and for our salvation: swaddling clothes will become burial bands;
born in manger a feeding trough because he will become our food and drink.
Angels,
St. Thomas, the Angelic Doctor, tells us, being immaterial and non-corporeal
are pure intellectual beings. That makes their theology always right on the
mark. They are pretty smart, smart enough to know that they are not made to
write theology but like us they are made to worship God, to praise. So theology
is not the last word; Doxology is.
And
suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God
and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men
with whom he is pleased!" That is the final thing, in the end the only
appropriate response to the good news of this child’s birth. The single angel
is joined by a multitude of angels and not only angels but the whole Catholic Church
in all times and in all places. Finally it is that song which is the only thing
to say about Christmas: Glory be to God
on High:
We
praise thee, we bless thee,
we
worship thee, we glorify thee,
we
give thanks to thee, for thy great glory
O
Lord God, heavenly King,
God
the Father Almighty.
O
Lord, the only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ;
O
Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father,
that
takest away the sins of the world,
Thou
that takest away the sins of the world,
receive
our prayer.
Thou
that sittest at the right hand of God the Father,
have
mercy upon us.
For
thou only art holy;
thou
only art the Lord;
thou
only, O Christ,
with
the Holy Ghost,
art
most high
in
the glory of God the Father.
And an angel of the Lord
appeared to them
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