Christmas 2010

"Let us go to Bethlehem and see this thing which the Lord has made known to us. So they went with haste and found the babe..."
Four weeks of Advent are nearly behind us. Our focus has shifted from the second coming of Christ to the celebration of our Lord's birth in Bethlehem. The shift began on the Third Sunday of Advent with the lighting of the pink Advent candle; the candle that symbolizes both hope, and the liturgical change. Then there was the singing of the Great 'O' Antiphons which many know better as the hymn O Come, O Come Emmanuel. This beautiful hymn and the antiphons are sung between the 16th and 24th of December. The angel visitations, which began with the announcement to Mary that she would bear a child of the Holy Spirit, and proceeded with the news to Elizabeth and Zechariah, and finally to Joseph, on Christmas Eve come to a crescendo with the visitation to the shepherds in the fields of Bethlehem. "Do not be afraid for I bring you good news of great joy. For to you is born this day in the City of David a Savior who is the Messiah, the Lord." What began as a quiet visit to Mary becomes an event in which the sky is torn apart with light, and an entire host of angels appears glorifying and praising God.
It sometimes gets by us that the incarnation is the center of history. Everything that came before points to the incarnation, and everything since flows from it. Yet, all of the theology of the incarnation would be lost upon us if the story of Jesus birth was not also a great love story.
From creation's fall to the birth of Jesus our relationship with God was always about God's unfailing love in the face of continuing rejection, unfaithfulness and sin. He gave us the commandments, the Torah, the prophets, and finally to win us back forever, he sent His Son, born of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary.
As the shepherds waited out the night in the fields around Bethlehem, they had no reason to expect that if the Messiah came they would be part of the story. They lived on the edge of society. Their occupation made it nearly impossible for them to meet the demands of Torah. And since they could not meet the law's demands they could not expect to have a place in the Kingdom of Heaven. However, God always works in ways that are beyond our vision and expectations. So the angels appeared to the least likely recipients of God's grace; shepherds living on the edge. Through the visitation of the angels, the shepherds were drawn into the very center of the story.
So it is with God. First Mary, then Zechariah and Elizabeth, then Joseph, and on Christmas night the shepherds became part of the story. And the story continues. When we gather on Christmas Eve we will once again be reminded that the story of the shepherds is our own story; God coming to the least likely and inviting them to become part of the story. It is a love story we cannot resist, so let us go and see the love of God in the face of a child,-- our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.