December 24, 2017
St. Patrick’s Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas
Isaiah 9:1-6
Psalm 96: 1-2, 2-3, 11-12, 13
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-14
“There was no room for them in the inn.” So Mary and Joseph and the unborn Christ child go to the stable where Christ is born. He is wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. All of us recognize this verse and these images, even if we are only vaguely familiar with the story of Christmas.
Yet, this expression that there is “no room in the inn,” the image of swaddling clothes, and the symbol of the manger are so much more than a commentary on the human condition’s insensitivity to the plight of those in need. These images also reveal to us that in coming to us through the Incarnation, God will no longer tolerate man only making room for God as a small compartment within man’s life. Humanity has no other option in moving forward than to decide whether or not to belong to God.
For now at Christ’s birth, when man has no room for God, God makes room for man in the fullness of divine life. God meets us where we are in our humanity — in the stable, in the darkness, in the margins of society and family life, in the dank smell of sin and corruption — but God does not leave us there. The Son of God, the Prince of Peace, does not first reveal Himself to the exalted and the powerful because they are not like the shepherds who are keeping watch; the exalted and the powerful think that they already have made a small place for God in each of their lives that He might fit into their own plans. The exalted and those esteemed greatly by the world are not keeping watch tonight, because they are preoccupied with their own purposes.
This idea of “keeping watch” is a central theme of Jesus’ message as presented throughout Luke’s Gospel. Luke’s Gospel begins with shepherds keeping watch and staying awake in the dark of night. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus asks His Apostles present to keep watch with Him and to stay awake in the dark of night. The shepherds are watchful people because in their poverty they cannot offer God a small part of their lives. They depend totally on His Providence; it’s all or nothing and so they are watchful for Him. As Pope Benedict XVI once observed, “Only a watchful heart can instill the courage to set out to find God in the form of a baby in a stable.”
The shepherds arrive at the stable and they find the Infant Jesus swaddled in rags. They encounter God who has swaddled Himself in the human condition so that humanity can be swaddled in Jesus’ divinity through the grace of Baptism. This swaddling of the Infant Jesus highlights that God has made Himself to be vulnerable through the full humanity of Jesus — but even more so, God has made Himself to be the most vulnerable among all vulnerable human beings: He has become a swaddled infant. In the vulnerable Infant Jesus we see God’s refusal to tolerate any longer His being offered only a spare room in man’s life. God demands not capitulation to His power on our part, He only asks for our love.
The celebration of Christmas Mass at Midnight has always most vividly called to mind the mystery of God made Man, Emmanuel, God-with-us. The celebration of warm joy in the midst of cold and darkness reminds us most beautifully that Christ is the light of the world shining brightly in the darkness — the darkness of our lives and of the world. In a special way, the placing and blessing of the statue of the Infant Jesus in the manger scene places all of us gathered here tonight in that original manger scene. It helps us to belong in the manger spiritually and to remember who belonged there on that great night so many years ago.
Who belonged there in the stable? The angels proclaim the birth of the Christ child and the shepherds hear them. The shepherds were in the outskirts and fields, caves and valleys seldom venturing into the town. The shepherds are watchful because they have no place of their own so they have no spare room for God in their lives. In their watchfulness God reveals fully in the Infant Jesus their place in God’s life and not God’s part in their lives. The shepherds who are unrecognized by so many are the first to recognize the Infant in the manger as the Christ. In so doing, the shepherds belong to Him in the stable.
Mary and Joseph, having heard their respective calls through the Archangel Gabriel and through another angel are blessed by their respective and extraordinary graces; they recognize the true identity of the Infant Jesus who is born tonight because they have been watchful and attentive to God in faith and in reverential love. In so doing, Mary and Joseph belong to Jesus in the stable.
As we look at the stable, we see the ox and the donkey on either side of the Infant Jesus with Mary and Joseph. Even the ox and the donkey belong to the Christ child as the Anointed One — Emmanuel — God-with-us. Why aren’t the donkey and ox mentioned in the Gospel story? The ox and donkey are not mentioned in Luke’s Gospel, many literalists object. Yet we read in the very first chapter of Isaiah in its third verse: “An ox knows its owner, and a donkey its master’s manger; but Israel does not know, my people have not understood.” The presence of these animals fulfills the prophesy of Isaiah and the ox and donkey belong there.
Who isn’t watchful and who chooses not to belong in the stable? Herod, the Roman Empire’s bureaucrats, the inn keepers, and others who are too busy and too preoccupied to belong.
The philosophers, the experts, and those who already have a spare room for God in their lives miss the song of the angels and the birth of the Christ Child. In keeping a spare room for God, they choose not to belong to Him but to treat Him as an occasional guest whom they invite when they are bored. They are either asleep or about other evil business transacted in the dark of night; the very darkness in which the light of the Christ Child now shines so brightly.
Reason itself, unaided by faith, does not permit us to watch for the mystery of God’s victory in the defenseless Infant Jesus who conquers humanity by vulnerable love. Reason, unaided by faith, fosters isolation and selfishness in each of these groups who choose not to belong in the stable. This is the selfishness which darkens the intelligence of human beings so that they miss their true identity of belonging to God and to each other as His children; they sadly prefer the tinseled allure of individualism. This darkness still pervades in much of our world today. Yet, the light of the Christ Child shines ever brighter in its midst on this Christmas morning.
As Pope Francis remarked about this Gospel, “The newborn Child challenges us. He calls us to leave behind fleeting illusions and to turn to what is essential, to renounce our insatiable cravings, to abandon our endless yearning for things we will never have. We do well to leave such things behind, in order to discover, in the simplicity of the Divine Child, peace, joy and the luminous meaning of life.”
So fallen humanity receives its Savior in a manger, a place where animals go by instinct to feed. Yet, the same Christ child will grow and as a man nourish our fallen humanity with the redemptive banquet of His Body and Blood, the Eucharist — the Sacrament whereby we can truly belong.
Yet, do we belong here tonight? Or, are do we prefer the company of the cunning Herod who sees the Christ Child as a threat to his power and caprice? Are we with the indifferent Roman bureaucrats who ignore the Christ child until the status quo is threatened? Are we in commerce with the inn keepers who have not even a spare room for the Christ child or His parents except insofar as they could add to the profit margin?
Are we willing to accept the gift of belonging in the stable with Mary and Joseph? Mary, weary from travel and child birth, exhausted in the stench of a stable, the only place of refuge; Joseph, saddened and shamed for not being able to provide more in the keeping of his promise to the angel in serving as the guardian of Mary and Jesus.
Our gift of belonging to God in Christ requires our not having a spare room for Him but embracing in our weakness His room for us; it requires our swaddling in His divinity through the gift of Baptismal Grace; and it requires our being nourished and transformed at the banquet of His sacrificial love, the Eucharist.
Christ is born again in our lives. His light shines in the darkness of our selfish human condition. He welcomes us back to belong again to our redeemed human nature that was wounded by sin but now in the manger surpasses even the original state of our humanity in the Garden of Eden. Today is born our Savior, Jesus Christ the Lord. May His light and His love bless us with watchful hearts.
