Christmas, a Feast of Humility, Wonder and Joy

As the infancy Gospel of St. Luke tells us, St. Joseph and his pregnant wife Mary had to go to the place  of Joseph’s birth, Bethlehem, which had also been the city of King David’s birth. Quite a few prophecies were about to be fulfilled, promises to Abraham, Moses and David. A new king whose reign would never end and would include not only the Jews but all the nations of the earth was about to be born. Yet, because of the census that brought Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem, they found the very small city packed with travelers rushing to fulfill Caesar Augustus’ edict to place their names on the census list.  So it was that the couple could find no room in the inn and had to settle for an empty stable. The king of kings and lord of lords was born in a manger.

Thomas Merton, the great spiritual writer of the 20th century, saw this as an image of modern society where there is so much hustle and bustle, so much “breaking news” that we cannot  remember what happened yesterday because of the disasters of today being hyped on our TV news.

Merton said “There is so much news that there is no room left for the true tidings, the ‘good  news,’ the great joy.”

There is a sociological truth in Merton’s assessment. And he died before the information revolution with news stations on cellphones along with Facebook and Twitter. No wonder there are the “Nones,” the growing number of millennials who claim no religion on our national census. They are too distracted to want to give God or his son’s church any time in their lives. I guess for them Christmas is a nice, sweet story. But why should it really impact their lives? The Gospel on Christmas Day is from St. John and says, “The real light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and through him the world was made, yet the world did not know who he was.”

I believe that God through his divine providence may have arranged the birth of the baby Jesus  in that manger. As St. Thomas Aquinas noted, God seems to like to act through “secondary causes.” Maybe the Emperor Augustus only thought that the census and its timing was all his great strategy.
 

“The real light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and through him the world was made, yet the world did not know who he was.”

The Gospel of St. John

The birth of Jesus in the extreme poverty of a stable and welcomed that night only by shepherds, the humblest rung of the Jewish labor force, is the true image of our human stance before God. Prophets like Isaiah, speaking through God’s inspiration, had written that the Messiah would be “Emmanuel,” which means “God with us.” From his birth forward, Jesus willingly assumed the role of  the humble servant portrayed in Isaiah’s prophesy. In contrast to the powerful Roman and Jewish leaders of his society, Jesus would bring God’s love and saving power to the people. This contrast was noted powerfully by St. Paul in Philippians 2: “Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.”

Christmas is not just a Western feast embellished greatly by German and French culture. Isaiah’s prophesy, which we read in the second Mass of Christmas during the day, tells us that through the birth of this Messiah “All the ends of the earth will behold the salvation of our God.” And St. Luke in his infancy narrative records the angels singing, “Glory to God in the highest, and peace to God’s people on earth.” This is not a message for just Jews and Christians. As the Jesuit, Father John Kavanaugh wrote, “Christmas means that God not only created space and time: God entered them, became our flesh and blood, our kin, our child.”

Christmas is a family feast. God had only one human child, but that child grew in wisdom and strength and gathered all of us into his eternal family of father, son and Holy Spirit. St. Paul said in his epistle to the Galatians that we are all “adopted” by God through his on, Jesus Christ. Like an adoptive parent, God chose us because he loved us and brought us into his family through Jesus.

Because Jesus is our brother, true man as well as true God, we too become God’s children in a new way. He wants us to be with him, as his risen son is, for all eternity. That is the good news of which the angels sang at his birth. And this is why we pray in our prayer after Communion on Christmas Day, “Father, the child born today is the savior of the world. He made us your children.  May he welcome us into your kingdom where he lives and reigns with you for ever and ever,” Amen.

Christmas was the beginning of our salvation. So, with the angels and the shepherds, let us  celebrate it with great joy!

Merry Christmas, y’all.

Father Carville is a retired priest in the Diocese of Baton Rouge and writes on current topics for The Catholic Commentator. He can be reached at johnny [email protected].