After centuries of fiery prophecy and
heightened expectation, generations of longing, suffering, and hope, that first
Christmas night the Messiah, the long-awaited Savior, finally comes to
inaugurate the Kingdom of God—which He in fact is. But how small and gentle is
his coming, as we just heard in St. Luke’s Infancy Narrative!
It is paradoxical that the Word who was
“from the beginning and was with God and was God” came into the world to make
his dwelling among us, but without a sound, hidden from almost everyone, and
remained for many years unnoticed. St. John Chrysostom, the 4th century Doctor
of the Church who preached God as the “friend of humankind,” as the one who in
Christ became the brother of the poor, marveled at this in a homily:
Christ did not come with a crash of thunder
amid a great upheaval, earthquakes, flashes of lightning, and disturbance in
the heavens. He did not come with an escort of angels, tearing the heavens
apart to descend upon the clouds. No, he came without a sound. For nine months
he was carried in the womb of the Virgin. He was born as the son of a carpenter
and laid in a manger. He was plotted against while still in swaddling-bands,
and with his mother he fled into Egypt. Later, after the death of the
perpetrator of such great crimes, he returned and continued to live a wandering
life, being to all appearance just an ordinary man.
I think it is fair to say that the two most
popular images we have of Jesus is of him on the Cross, and in a manger as a
newborn baby—the mystery we celebrate this Christmas night. They are not
unrelated, if we listen to Luke’s telling of the story. But probably for most
of us the meaning of Christmas is uncomplicated and goes way back to our own
childhood. Over time it is natural to approach the nativity scene with a
certain amount of sentimentality, for there is hardly any feast more familiar
to us. Yet we might ask ourselves: what do we really see as we gaze at the
crèche and celebrate this birth?
Caryll Houselander suggests that “there is
something hidden here for each of us,” to which I would add, something ever new
and at the heart of the Gospel: namely, “God approaches gently, often secretly,
always in love, never through violence and fear.”
Moreover, he comes to us, as Jesus himself
told us, in those whom we know in our own lives. (When he comes again he will
say to us: “Whatever you did to the least of these, you did to Me.”) But very
often we do not recognize him. Why? Again, Caryll Houselander: “He comes in
many people we do not like, in all who need what we can give, in all who have
something to give us—for our great comfort.” Tonight let us be grateful that
God comes also in those whom we love—in our fathers and mothers, our brothers
and sisters, our friends and those with whom we share life in this monastery.
This tiny infant enables and guides us to love Him in them, with his love in
us—not on our own steam, not with sentimentality, but with wonder and new
freedom of heart.
That is a great mystery that takes a lifetime to encounter! But it is one that the shepherds no doubt experienced as they came in from the countryside to look on in wonder at the baby the angel told them they would find in a manger. Truly Zechariah’s prophecy we heard in yesterday’s Gospel, and every morning at Lauds, was fulfilled: “In the tender compassion of God the dawn from on high broke upon them, to shine on them who dwelled in darkness and the shadow of death, and guided their feet into the way of peace.” When they returned, walking back to the fields to tend their flocks, their hearts were full and they walked “in the way of peace,” for in the darkness of that night they had been led to see the salvation of Israel with their own eyes. They went back to the ordinary, but changed, transformed, by this soundless Word. There was something hidden for them in that encounter, and the same is true for us. We call it grace.
The Evangelist John tells us in the Prologue
to his Gospel that “of his fullness we have all received, grace in place of
grace, because while the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came
through Jesus Christ.”
It is in this soundless Word whose human birth we celebrate tonight that we have received not mere understanding, or virtue, or righteousness, or whatever else religious people aspire to, but grace. This is the wonder for us to re-discover every Christmas.
Grace comes from the primary source of love, from the heart of God—warm, renewing, creative.
Grace reaches beyond all distinction of merit and demerit, achievement and feebleness.
Grace is the pure beginning.
Grace comes from the intimacy of God that is manifest in a unique way in the human birth of Jesus. So let us allow ourselves to be drawn in, even as we were in the Christmases of our childhood.
In conclusion: the Good News tonight is
that this newborn Savior, laid in a manger with swaddling bands, invites us to
behold as for the first time the opening of the heart of God to us, just as we
are at this particular time in our life. The Word came to seek us out, and lest
his presence inspire fear, he made himself a tender Child. He came as a
wordless revelation, that he might make us also children of God.
Orazio Gentileschi, Madonna with Sleeping Christ Child, Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum. Christmas Eve homily by Father Dominic.
