First Mass of Christmas
First Mass of Christmas
Nowadays, we like things to be big. We measure the success of something by how big it is, by how many people are involved, or how many people saw it happen.
Each year the Rose Bowl game is attended by nearly 100,000 people. This year’s Super Bowl was only attended by 71,000 people, but 130 million more watched it on television in the United States and as many as a billion around the world.. Our St. Louis Cardinals are one of the most successful franchises in Major League Baseball because the regularly draw more than 3 million fans to the ballpark.
Yet, the biggest event in the entire history of mankind was attended by just two people, Mary and Joseph. If bigger is better then why are people all around the world gathered together tonight to celebrate something that went completely unnoticed when it actually happened?
This past weekend, Jan and I and three of our kids went to Branson. It’s a tradition that we do every year. We go to Silver Dollar City, and the outlet mall, and the Port O’ Lights in Kimberling City.
I have to tell you about the Port O’ Lights. If you don’t know the Branson area, Kimberling City is one of the quieter parts of Table Rock Lake, especially this time of year. There are no music shows or big name hotels. It’s mainly a fishing and boating area. And there’s not much fishing and boating in December. All of the action is over in Branson.
But they have this drive-through Christmas display in the campground at the Kimberling City marina. It can’t begin to compete with all the shows and things to do in Branson. In fact, it’s kind of hokey, but it’s very nice as small town Christmas displays go. It’s $7.00 for a carload of people and takes almost an hour to drive through. We’ve been going there since the kids were little, and it’s become a tradition for us.
But, that‘s not what I wanted to talk about.. I wanted to talk about Silver Dollar City. It’s a special place at Christmas time. It’s a business that’s not afraid to promote Christmas. Not the Famous Barr, Wal-Mart kind of Christmas, but the kind of Christmas that we’re here to celebrate tonight. They sing songs about Jesus. They have a live Nativity Scene. They’re a business, a very successful business, but they’re not interested in being politically correct. If Christian values offend you, they don’t mind you taking your business elsewhere.
One of the biggest attraction during Christmas is the five story musical Christmas tree. Every evening when it gets dark, they fire this thing up every fifteen minutes. It plays music and the lights blink and change colors in time with the music and the people love it. I’m not sure, but that one tree probably has more lights than the entire Port O’ Lights. Which one is better? I guess it depends on who you ask. If you go by the size of the audience, then Silver Dollar City wins hands down. But if you go by more traditional values, then I’d give the nod to Kimberling City. Each individual display is sponsored by a local business, or a family and it’s obvious that many of them are home made.
That brings me back to the reason we’re all here tonight, the birth of the Baby Jesus. It wasn’t big. It wasn’t spectacular. There were no lights, no music, just two people a long way from home, having a baby in a cattle stall. Imagine how scared they must have been. What was happening? What had they gotten themselves into? Why had they ever gone along with this? Only time would tell.
Most of the time, when you see a manger scene, Mary and Joseph aren’t alone. Sometimes they almost get lost in the crowd. There are the shepherds, and maybe even the Magi, even though the shepherds didn’t arrive until sometime after the birth, and we know that the three kings came later. But, we know that’s not how it was. Yet, this seemingly small event changed the world.
We have a Nativity scene at home. It belonged to my wife’s grandmother. It has two Mary’s and two baby Jesus (we only use one of each) a three-legged sheep, a cow with one horn, and a tiger. But, if you offered Jan a thousand dollars, she wouldn’t part with it. It’s small. It’s simple. It’s a lot like the real thing.
And, of course, the real thing happened in the middle of the night. That’s why I like this mass. Even though it’s technically still Christmas Eve, this is the closest mass to the actual time that the event occurred. Like the 3:00 service on Good Friday, we’re remembering something that changed everything that was to come after it, at the same time of day when it actually occurred. It’s very easy to picture those early-morning hours in long-ago Bethlehem, here in the dark of night.
This mass brings back a lot of memories for me. Of course the other one was Easter. We used to go to my mom’s house, when she was still alive, on Christmas Eve. We would have dinner and exchange gifts. Then we would leave her house and go to Midnight mass. Sometimes she would even go with us, even though she wasn’t Catholic.
In those days, you had to get here early to get a seat. And since we almost always had a young child who had to be held, you didn’t want to have to stand. There’s not much in this world that’s heavier than a three-year-old who’s full of sugar and caffeine at Midnight on Christmas Eve. We would attend mass and then go home to wait for the kids to go to sleep because everyone knows that Santa doesn’t come when there’s anybody still awake in the house.
I look back on those midnight masses with mixed emotions. In one sense, I remember them as one of the best, most peaceful times of the whole year. The church was decorated for Christmas, the baby Jesus was here, there was joy in the world, just like tonight.
On the other hand, I look back on them with a tinge of regret, because they remind me of a time in my life when I had pretty much turned my back on God. In spite of all the things that He had done for me, I thought that I didn’t need Him. I didn’t need to go to mass on Sunday. Twice a year was plenty and I even complained about that. My poor wife struggled to bring our kids to church the other fifty-one weeks of the year. But she always did. Even when they were old enough to argue that if Dad didn’t go to church, they shouldn’t have to either.
And, you see how I turned out. When I was sitting where you are, wrestling with a squirmy kid and looking at my watch, I couldn’t have guessed in a million years that one day I would be standing here, talking to you at Midnight mass.
I tell my kids when they’re faced with a hard decision, that I regret some of the things that I’ve done, but the things I regret the most are the things I didn’t do. And the one thing I regret the most is the time in my life that I didn’t get the message of this night.
That first Christmas wasn’t the Super Bowl. It wasn’t a block-buster movie. It was just the most important thing that’s ever happened on this planet. Nothing before or since can even come close to the significance of that one birth. One small baby, born more than 2,000 years ago.
He wasn’t born in a hospital, or even in his parents’ home. He was born in a manger, a long way from home, with just His mom and dad as witnesses.
As we continue our celebration this morning, on behalf of Father Gary, Deacon Mike and all the parish staff I pray that the Christmas season is all that you want it to be. I pray that it finds you and everyone you love healthy, happy, and full of the spirit of the season. I pray that in the midst of the presents, and the food, and the celebrations, that all of us remember the reason for it all, the little baby born without fanfare, in that stable so far from home, so long ago.
Nowadays, we like things to be big. We measure the success of something by how big it is, by how many people are involved, or how many people saw it happen.
Each year the Rose Bowl game is attended by nearly 100,000 people. This year’s Super Bowl was only attended by 71,000 people, but 130 million more watched it on television in the United States and as many as a billion around the world.. Our St. Louis Cardinals are one of the most successful franchises in Major League Baseball because the regularly draw more than 3 million fans to the ballpark.
Yet, the biggest event in the entire history of mankind was attended by just two people, Mary and Joseph. If bigger is better then why are people all around the world gathered together tonight to celebrate something that went completely unnoticed when it actually happened?
This past weekend, Jan and I and three of our kids went to Branson. It’s a tradition that we do every year. We go to Silver Dollar City, and the outlet mall, and the Port O’ Lights in Kimberling City.
I have to tell you about the Port O’ Lights. If you don’t know the Branson area, Kimberling City is one of the quieter parts of Table Rock Lake, especially this time of year. There are no music shows or big name hotels. It’s mainly a fishing and boating area. And there’s not much fishing and boating in December. All of the action is over in Branson.
But they have this drive-through Christmas display in the campground at the Kimberling City marina. It can’t begin to compete with all the shows and things to do in Branson. In fact, it’s kind of hokey, but it’s very nice as small town Christmas displays go. It’s $7.00 for a carload of people and takes almost an hour to drive through. We’ve been going there since the kids were little, and it’s become a tradition for us.
But, that‘s not what I wanted to talk about.. I wanted to talk about Silver Dollar City. It’s a special place at Christmas time. It’s a business that’s not afraid to promote Christmas. Not the Famous Barr, Wal-Mart kind of Christmas, but the kind of Christmas that we’re here to celebrate tonight. They sing songs about Jesus. They have a live Nativity Scene. They’re a business, a very successful business, but they’re not interested in being politically correct. If Christian values offend you, they don’t mind you taking your business elsewhere.
One of the biggest attraction during Christmas is the five story musical Christmas tree. Every evening when it gets dark, they fire this thing up every fifteen minutes. It plays music and the lights blink and change colors in time with the music and the people love it. I’m not sure, but that one tree probably has more lights than the entire Port O’ Lights. Which one is better? I guess it depends on who you ask. If you go by the size of the audience, then Silver Dollar City wins hands down. But if you go by more traditional values, then I’d give the nod to Kimberling City. Each individual display is sponsored by a local business, or a family and it’s obvious that many of them are home made.
That brings me back to the reason we’re all here tonight, the birth of the Baby Jesus. It wasn’t big. It wasn’t spectacular. There were no lights, no music, just two people a long way from home, having a baby in a cattle stall. Imagine how scared they must have been. What was happening? What had they gotten themselves into? Why had they ever gone along with this? Only time would tell.
Most of the time, when you see a manger scene, Mary and Joseph aren’t alone. Sometimes they almost get lost in the crowd. There are the shepherds, and maybe even the Magi, even though the shepherds didn’t arrive until sometime after the birth, and we know that the three kings came later. But, we know that’s not how it was. Yet, this seemingly small event changed the world.
We have a Nativity scene at home. It belonged to my wife’s grandmother. It has two Mary’s and two baby Jesus (we only use one of each) a three-legged sheep, a cow with one horn, and a tiger. But, if you offered Jan a thousand dollars, she wouldn’t part with it. It’s small. It’s simple. It’s a lot like the real thing.
And, of course, the real thing happened in the middle of the night. That’s why I like this mass. Even though it’s technically still Christmas Eve, this is the closest mass to the actual time that the event occurred. Like the 3:00 service on Good Friday, we’re remembering something that changed everything that was to come after it, at the same time of day when it actually occurred. It’s very easy to picture those early-morning hours in long-ago Bethlehem, here in the dark of night.
This mass brings back a lot of memories for me. Of course the other one was Easter. We used to go to my mom’s house, when she was still alive, on Christmas Eve. We would have dinner and exchange gifts. Then we would leave her house and go to Midnight mass. Sometimes she would even go with us, even though she wasn’t Catholic.
In those days, you had to get here early to get a seat. And since we almost always had a young child who had to be held, you didn’t want to have to stand. There’s not much in this world that’s heavier than a three-year-old who’s full of sugar and caffeine at Midnight on Christmas Eve. We would attend mass and then go home to wait for the kids to go to sleep because everyone knows that Santa doesn’t come when there’s anybody still awake in the house.
I look back on those midnight masses with mixed emotions. In one sense, I remember them as one of the best, most peaceful times of the whole year. The church was decorated for Christmas, the baby Jesus was here, there was joy in the world, just like tonight.
On the other hand, I look back on them with a tinge of regret, because they remind me of a time in my life when I had pretty much turned my back on God. In spite of all the things that He had done for me, I thought that I didn’t need Him. I didn’t need to go to mass on Sunday. Twice a year was plenty and I even complained about that. My poor wife struggled to bring our kids to church the other fifty-one weeks of the year. But she always did. Even when they were old enough to argue that if Dad didn’t go to church, they shouldn’t have to either.
And, you see how I turned out. When I was sitting where you are, wrestling with a squirmy kid and looking at my watch, I couldn’t have guessed in a million years that one day I would be standing here, talking to you at Midnight mass.
I tell my kids when they’re faced with a hard decision, that I regret some of the things that I’ve done, but the things I regret the most are the things I didn’t do. And the one thing I regret the most is the time in my life that I didn’t get the message of this night.
That first Christmas wasn’t the Super Bowl. It wasn’t a block-buster movie. It was just the most important thing that’s ever happened on this planet. Nothing before or since can even come close to the significance of that one birth. One small baby, born more than 2,000 years ago.
He wasn’t born in a hospital, or even in his parents’ home. He was born in a manger, a long way from home, with just His mom and dad as witnesses.
As we continue our celebration this morning, on behalf of Father Gary, Deacon Mike and all the parish staff I pray that the Christmas season is all that you want it to be. I pray that it finds you and everyone you love healthy, happy, and full of the spirit of the season. I pray that in the midst of the presents, and the food, and the celebrations, that all of us remember the reason for it all, the little baby born without fanfare, in that stable so far from home, so long ago.
posted by Mike at 5:40 PM
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