Midnight Mass

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shown.”

Have you ever gotten away from the city, out where there’s no pollution, and looked at the sky? You look up there and see millions of stars. Some are bright. Some are so dim you can’t even see them. But you know that each one of them is as bright as, or even brighter than our own sun.

I don’t know for sure, but I imagine that most of those stars have planets circling them, just like our own sun. And a lot of those planets are probably bigger than our own planet earth, since earth is just a medium sized planet, even in our own solar system.

But each of those stars, each of those solar systems looks like a tiny point of light to us because it’s so far away. And there are thousands more that are even farther away that we can’t see at all. That how big the universe is. It’s so big that we can’t even begin to understand its size. Now try to imagine the One who created this universe.

Whether you believe in some kind of a “big bang” or if you think that He made every single star and planet one at a time the whole thing is just too big to comprehend.

But that Creator, that being who’s beyond our tiny minds’ ability to understand, cares about you. And He cares about me. He cares about us so much that one night more than 2,000 years ago this Creator, this all-powerful, all-knowing, magnificent being chose to become a tiny, human baby; one of the most helpless creatures in His entire universe.

You know, human babies really are helpless. Baby horses can stand up almost as soon as they’re born. A lot of animals lay their eggs and then leave the babies to fend for themselves. Baby sea turtles come out of their eggs laid on the beach and have to find their way to the ocean before something eats them. A baby rattlesnake comes out of the egg with enough venom to kill you.

Even baby animals that are born helpless grow very quickly and are ready to go out on their own in a matter of weeks. But a human baby is absolutely dependent on its parents for months, even years. But the all-powerful God, the Creator of the universe, lowered Himself to become one of these helpless creatures. Why? To save you and me after we’d basically turned our backs on Him. If you can think of a greater love than that, please see me after mass. I’d love to hear about it.

________________________________________________________________

“Now there were shepherds in that region living in the fields and keeping the night watch over their flock. The angel of the lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were struck with great fear.”

So this all-powerful God chose to become a helpless human baby and He gave the news to shepherds. Shepherds? Shepherds were so far down the social ladder in Jesus’ time that there’s really nothing today to compare them to. If somebody had to be at the bottom, they were it. Their only friends were sheep. . Their only role in life was to keep the sheep safe. If a lion showed up, the shepherd had to fight him off. If one of the sheep wandered off, the shepherd had to go get it. That was their job and the sheep were their only companions.

Mothers of little kids can relate to that. When you spend your whole day with no one to talk to but a two-year old, you begin to get a little crazy. Imagine having no one but sheep to talk to for months on end. It was a tough life.

A sheep is an eating machine and the middle east is more sand than grass so shepherds had to be constantly moving their flocks around to find something to eat. Shepherds didn’t even hang out with other shepherds because they were basically in competition with one another for scarce food. They often went deep into the wilderness looking for new pastures.

A shepherd’s job was twenty-four hours a day, seven day a week, with no vacations or holidays.

So imagine yourself as a shepherd. You’re sitting on a hill, watching your flock, talking to my friend here about your day. Suddenly an angel appears and says “Do not be afraid.” (Right!) “I PROCLAIM TO YOU GOOD NEWS OF GREAT JOY THAT WILL BE FOR ALL THE PEOPLE. FOR TODAY IN THE CITY OF DAVID A SAVIOR HAS BEEN BORN FOR YOU WHO IS CHRIST AND LORD.”

Notice the angel said “A savior has been born for you.” Not for mankind. Not for the world. Not for the rich. The angel tells the shepherds that the Savior has been born for them. Sheepherders. Outcasts. Loners. They’ve never been invited to a party in their entire lives. They don’t own a suit. Their only friends are sheep. But a Savior has been born for them.

The angel tells them where to find the Child then “suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom His favor rests.”

“On whom His favor rests.” A multitude of the heavenly host is telling these lowly men that God’s favor rests on them. Can you even imagine what that must have felt like?



You don’t have to imagine it because His favor rests on you, just a surely as it rested on those shepherds. There were a lot of people in Bethlehem that night. They were there for the census. The angel could have appeared at the inn. Remember it was so full that there was no room for Mary and Joseph. The angel could have appeared to the rich and famous. But he didn’t. He appeared to shepherds. Why?

Two reasons, I think. First, the angels didn’t have iPods. They didn’t have televisions. They didn’t spend their days trying to build up their social status by schmoozing with one another. They were just sitting there, talking to their sheep who never answered back. The angel could have the shepherds undivided attention.

Second, there was no one more lowly than a shepherd. Nobody on earth, either in year number one or in 2007 could say “Well, Christ may have come for the shepherds, but He didn’t come for someone like me.” You can’t say that because He came exactly for someone like you, or like me. He came for the poor. He came for the lonely. He came for men and women in prison. “He came to call sinners, Christ have mercy.”

That’s what this night is about. It’s not about presents. It’s not about who has the most stuff. It’s about the Creator of a universe so big that we can’t even begin to imagine it deciding to become a tiny baby to save us from ourselves. It’s about the angel announcing His birth to the most lowly members of society, men whose only family and friends were sheep, so you and I wouldn’t feel left out. It’s about the single most important event in the entire history of the world, the night that even non-Christians use to set their calendars. A night like no other that ever was or ever will be. Tonight we recall that night.

When you leave church tonight, look up. Imagine the immenseness of the universe. Think of how the One who created it became a tiny child on that holy night so many centuries ago. Then think about the shepherds looking up at that same sky when the angel appeared with the greatest news that ever was, the news that a savior had been born for them and for us.

Merry Christmas!

4th Sunday of Advent

My granddaughter, Isabella, is nineteen months old, so this is her second Christmas. Since she was so small last year, this is really her first time to be aware of what's going on. Rather than put out the expensive Precious Moments Nativity scene, my son and daughter-in-law decided it would be better to buy something that she could appreciate, so they bought a Fisher Price Little People Nativity scene. Now, instead of telling her to stay away from the expensive, breakable figures, she can look at them and pick them up, and mom and dad can tell her the story.

For whatever reason, she's decided that Joseph is her favorite. She carries him around the house, plays with him, and calls him "Joey". I like that because Joey's always been my favorite, too. Maybe it's because I'm a father myself, but I've always felt like Joseph is the least appreciated of all the players in the Nativity story. Maybe it's because Joseph isn't Jesus biological father. Maybe it's because we don't have a single recorded word that Joseph ever said. Maybe it's because we don't know what happened to him. He just disappeared from Scripture after Mary and Joseph found Jesus in the temple. When and how did he die? Did he just leave when he heard the painful words, "Didn't you know I must be in my FATHER'S house?" Mary outlived her son, but we just don't know what happened to Joseph.

[pause]

Obviously God's plan was for Christ to become human with a human mother. He could have just appeared as a man. After all, that's what the Jewish people were expecting. In fact, it's what they're still expecting. But that wasn't the plan. In the ninth chapter of the book of Isaiah, the prophet wrote "For a child is born to us." Jesus had to be born of a human mother.

Nothing in the scriptures said that He had to have a human father. It was the Holy Spirit that caused her to conceive. She could have been a single mom, except for one thing. This was the first century, not the twenty-first. Right or wrong, single women proudly bear children today. In Jesus' time, that just wasn't done. Mary most likely would have been stoned to death before Jesus was ever born. Even if she and the baby had survived, who was going to listen to a Messiah that had been born out of wedlock? No, there had to be a human father in the picture. And Joseph was the man for the job.

If you think about it, Joseph was chosen to be Jesus' earthly father just as surely as God chose Mary. He could have walked away from Mary and no one would have thought anything of it. In fact, by accepting this pregnant girl as his wife, he shared in her shame and humiliation.

There's a movie that was released last year at Christmas time called "The Nativity". It tells the story from the time that the Angel visited Mary until just after Jesus' birth. It's a pretty good movie. They've taken a few liberties with the story, but for the most part, it's faithful to the Scriptures. The discrepancies in the story aren't bad enough to keep you from seeing it. The reason I liked the movie and I would recommend that you see it is that seeing this story acted out makes you appreciate some of the things that happened.

For example, Matthew's Gospel says, "Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame, decided to divorce her quietly." In those days, the Jewish custom was for a man to take a woman for his wife but not to live with her for a year. It was during that year that today's Gospel takes place. She was technically his wife, but she still lived with her parents.

So, when the Angel told Mary that her cousin Elizabeth was going to have a child, she went to visit her. She was gone for several months. All the time she was gone, Joseph the carpenter has been building a house for them to live in when their year was up.

Picture this scene from the movie. Because Nazareth was such a small town, and because Mary was a popular girl, the whole town turns out when they hear that she’s coming back. They're all standing there waiting, including Joseph and Mary's parents, when her wagon pulls into town. Everyone gathers around. They're all excited to see her until she climbs down off the wagon, obviously very pregnant. The mood changes from happiness to disbelief. Imagine what must have gone through Joseph's mind.

Of course, Mary told Joseph and her parents what had happened, but who could believe such a story? Parents, put yourself in Joachim and Anne's place. Would you have believed Mary? It wouldn't have been easy.

There were only two possibilities that anyone could imagine. Either Joseph had gotten Mary pregnant before she left, which was a horrendous sin for both of them. Or, she had gotten pregnant while she was away which was even a worse sin for her, but not so much for him. What was he going to do?

Matthew tells us what he did. He was going to divorce her quietly. But the angel came to him in a dream and confirmed Mary's story. He took Mary into his home as his wife; but not exactly as his wife. Under Jewish law, Mary was technically God's wife. She must remain a virgin for the rest of her life. "Blessed Mary, ever virgin." If Mary was to remain a virgin, Joseph must do the same.

[pause]

No, Jesus' birth couldn't have happened without Joseph. Not only that, if Joseph hadn't been willing to give up his business; give up the house that he had carefully built for his new wife, and take off in the middle of the night for Egypt, Jesus would have surely been executed when Herod ordered every male child to be killed, hoping that by killing all the little boys, he would kill this new "King" that he had been hearing about. Then when Herod died, after Joseph had built a life for his family in Egypt, he had to turn around and move them back.

Face it, the world today has a lot of problems. One of the biggest is the breakdown of the family. God placed his Son in a traditional family for a reason. Until the world returns to accepting the model of the Holy Family, many of the other problems can never be solved. If we can’t accept God’s plan for families, it’s not very likely we’re going to accept His plan for anything else, is it?
[pause]
Even though they were expecting someone who looked more like a king, it's very possible that the Jewish people might have accepted Jesus as their savior in spite of his ordinary appearance if He had just shown up one day and begun to preach. But God never does anything without a reason. And by giving Jesus the human experience of growing up in a normal family He gave us an example to endure for all time. If the Holy Family was good enough for God's Son, isn't that the example we should all follow? Not a family with two mothers. Not a family with two fathers. Not a family where the parents haven't bothered to get married. Not a family where the child doesn't know who his father is.

No, God defined the family very clearly when He sent the angel first to Mary and then to Joseph to ask them to be part of His plan. Thanks be to God, they both put their own interests aside and said "yes".

Being Jesus' parents was hard. It was very hard. But having a child today is hard too. At least, it should be. If we're not making sacrifices for our kids, just like Mary and Joseph, are we really being the best parents we can be?

On this last Sunday of Advent, when the Savior is so close we can almost hear Him crying in the manger, let's pray for God's blessings on all families, even the ones that don't look like that very Holy Family from Nazareth so many years ago. Let's pray that all parents will give of themselves and especially that they'll set an example for their children of faith and fidelity to God's wishes, even when God's plan interferes with their plan. And let’s pray that this Christmas will be a reminder to all God’s people that it is possible to live in a world of peace and love.