Christmas Homily: Mass During the Day

Santa's most popular reindeer by far is Rudolf, Rudolf, the red-nosed reindeer. Here is his story as told in music by Johnny Marks: Rudolf, the red-nosed reindeer, had a very shiny nose. And if you ever saw him, you would even say it glows. All of the other reindeer used to laugh and call him names. They never let poor Rudolf play in any reindeer games. Then one foggy Christmas eve Santa came to say: "Rudolf with your nose so bright, won't you guide my sleigh tonight?" Then all the reindeer loved him as they shouted out with glee: "Rudolf the red-nosed reindeer, you'll go down in history!" The story of Rudolf, is the story of salvation. It is our story both as individuals and as the human family. In our own case it is not Santa who saves us but the Child Jesus.

To begin with, Rudolf was a misfit. Compared to the image of the ideal reindeer we can say that something was definitely wrong with him. What is more, he was not in any position to help himself. So are we all, misfits, as the Bible tells us. "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). "All we like sheep have gone astray" (Isaiah 53:6). Like lost sheep we are not in a position to help ourselves. Rudolf could not help himself. All that his fellow reindeer did was to makes things worse for him. Only one person could help him, Santa, the messenger from heaven.

Today we celebrate the birth of the Messenger from heaven. As we read in today's gospel, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.... And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:1, 14). He comes to liberate us from the human predicament, our sinfulness. For it is sin that mars and disfigures the beautiful image of God that we all are. Sin turns us into a despicable Rudolf, the red-nosed reindeer. But the heavenly Messenger comes, not to take away the red nose but to declare to us the Good News that we are acceptable to God even with the red nose. Rudolf's red nose was a defect. But Santa chose him precisely on account of that. The heavenly Messenger has the ability to turn the defects and red noses of our tainted humanity into assets for the service of God. Jesus is this heavenly messenger.

What makes the reindeer gospel so poignant is that Santa does not use his magic wand to heal Rudolf of his red nose defect. He let him go on with the red nose even as his chosen reindeer. Certainly Rudolf would have wanted nothing so much as to be a normal reindeer like all the rest. Similarly Jesus does not simply make us good men and women, rather he makes us into people who can use all their strengths and defects to the service and the glory of God. This is the proof to us that it is not by our own will power that we are able to become children of God. It is by God's grace, by God's unmerited and unconditional love of us. As God tells St Paul, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9).

How does the grace of God achieve this transformation in us? God's grace works two things in us: enlightenment and empowerment. "For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ" (John 1:17). God's truth enlightens us and God grace empowers us. God's truth enlightens us to see ourselves and our world in a new light. It is a word that brings reassurance, affirmation and hope. You can imagine how Rudolf felt when he heard the words of Santa, "Rudolf with your nose so bright, won't you guide my sleigh tonight?" That is why we call it the Good News. It is news that is liberating and empowering. It empowers us by changing our former disposition of insecurity, despair and hopelessness into that of blessed assurance, new hope and enthusiasm in the Lord's service.

Like Rudolf before Santa, let us today listen to the Message that the Child Jesus brings us, let us commit ourselves into his service without looking back, even when we do not know where the journey will lead us, knowing one thing for sure: that the grace of God will supply the strength we need for the long journey of faith ahead. "For to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God" (John 1:12).

George Washington cut down a cherry tree and had the honesty to admit that he was responsible for it.  Davy Crocket ‘killed him a b’ar when he was only three’. We have a tendency in our culture to take our heroes and embellish the stories of them.  We know that they aren’t true, but they point out qualities inherent in those heroes that we want ourselves and others to emulate. We admire and praise Washington for his forthrightness and honesty.  We look to Davy Crocket as an example of the strong, self-made American. This embellishing is natural and common in every culture.

The stories that we have heard about Jesus’ birth fall into somewhat the same category. Twenty to forty years after Jesus died, very few people knew anything about Jesus’ early life, much less the circumstances around his birth. The two evangelists that develop birth stories around Jesus are Matthew and Luke.  Mark ignores it completely, and John raises the Incarnation to the level of symbol and metaphor – the Word became flesh, he proclaims.

So, if we look at the two stories of Matthew and Luke and placed them side by side, we would find they are very different. Over the years we have tended to merge the two stories to try to make more sense of them.  This is especially important to people who believe in the literalness of the New Testament. So whether you want to believe that they actually happened the way it is described, or you want to see it as an embellishment on the life of the greatest man ever to have lived, what I want to do tonight is to look at the truth and the beauty of what Matthew, in particular, has developed for us, since this is the year we spend the most time with Matthew’s Gospel.

What we all have to first admit is that the story of Jesus’ birth is one of the most beautiful, moving stories in the Bible.  For all of us, it evokes memories, and even more, it has been responsible for the creation of so much beautiful music and art that humanity would be tragically poorer without it. The simplicity of Silent Night, the glory of Handel’s Messiah, are two extremes of both the simple and the complex, that illustrate how much the story has meant to people over the years.

To put it as simply as possible, what we are talking about is Incarnation. God, the creator, the all-powerful, the timeless, has become the exact opposite – a helpless human child, born in time, with no power whatsoever.

If you were Matthew, and you were writing about the reality of God becoming man, believing with all your heart that Jesus, whom you knew, was the messiah of God, the Son of God, was God himself, what could you possibly write that could capture the power, the simplicity, the promise, the joy, the miraculousness of this event.

Matthew knew some prophecies of the Old Testament that might give motive and moment to the story: Isaiah had proclaimed that a young girl would conceive and bear a son, and people would come to call him “God is with us” or Emmanuel. That would give him the idea for his story – a way to show the world who Jesus was. So Matthew tells the story of a young girl, a virgin, who was engaged to be married but had not had sexual relations with her fiancé yet. God chooses this girl and through miraculous intervention God impregnates the girl and enters her womb. Because in the real, daily life of Jews, an unmarried girl getting pregnant would be very sinful – even an act worthy of divorce or stoning – Matthew has an angel come to the rescue to explain to Joseph exactly what was going on. Matthew’s story, unlike Luke’s , is told from Joseph’s point of view.

Divine intervention in births was a common Old Testament theme as well as a common theme in many cultures’ mythologies, and would not be all that surprising to Matthew’s readers. Matthew does take it a step further, however, in that God replaces the male role but also becomes the child in the womb. Although Matthew is clear that Mary was a virgin, he does not comment on her remaining so.  It seems to be church tradition that has made that decision. As far as Joseph goes, we learn that he is a devout Jew and even though he loved Mary, was willing to follow the rules and laws of Israel in putting her away.  His compassion, however, shines though, since he did not want to publicly condemn her. The full penalty of the law of this period would have been stoning to death.

The name that Jesus is given refers to ‘God saves from sin’. I have often wondered why he wasn’t called “Emmanuel” as the prophecy suggested. The post-resurrection writers would especially see significance in the name Jesus because he achieved this salvation with his death and his proclamation of the kingdom of God arriving. It was also important that Joseph remain married to Mary and be the foster-father of Jesus because it is through Joseph’s lineage that Jesus can be seen to be a son of David. This is necessary because being a descendant of David bestows on a child a royal inheritance. The significance of the name Emmanuel is a great one, however.  Since it means “God is with us”, how perfectly the birth of Jesus illustrates this long-standing greeting.  God is now truly with us – being born just like us. It is the perfect fulfillment of the name Emmanuel.

Matthew’s story of Jesus birth is an attempt to explain three questions: who was Jesus, where was he born and why did he come. In searching for the answers to these three questions Matthew was drawn to the Hebrew Bible for answers. The geneology which we omitted tonight in opting for the shorter reading, is an attempt to answer the first question.  Jesus is a son of David, the one promised in the Hebrew scriptures. That is why the detailed genealogy of fifteen people in three groups – remember that Matthew likes threes and uses them for important things – is so crucial to Matthew. Also, it is the genealogy of Joseph’s history, unlike Luke who traces it on Mary’s side. Jesus is also identified with Moses – he is the new Moses – and we will see this when we read about the flight into Egypt in a week or so.

The second question, “where”, is also important to Matthew.  In the Book of Micah it was foretold that the Messiah would come from a small place called Bethlehem. We do not know if Jesus was really born in Bethlehem – the census talked about does not seem to be an historical event – but Matthew, who wants to stress the Messiahship of Jesus finds a way to have him born in Bethlehem, even though he grows up in Nazareth.

The last question, “why”, is the point of all of Matthew’s birth narrative.  By the time Matthew wrote, early Christians came to understand that Jesus was the Messiah, the promised one, the Son of God, God in flesh, the Incarnate One. This understanding, this knowledge, this belief, this faith gave direction to Matthew’s writings. The point of the birth narratives is to show that Jesus is truly the Son of God, God himself, the Messiah who came to be with us and save us.  That is the truth behind the Gospel narrative of Jesus’ birth for Matthew, and it is our truth today. It is what we are celebrating today and what evokes all the sentiment, messages of peace, gift-giving, and family gatherings. Let us never forget the reason – the who where and why of today – the truth that brings us all together this evening and the truth that sets us free.

By Rt.Rev.Prof. Kasomo Daniel

The Bishop of The Society of St. Peter and Paul (SSPP)

Christmas Homily Year A: Midnight Mass

Christmas is finally here. All four weeks of Advent we have been waiting and praying for the coming blessings of Christmas. And now Christmas is here. Today the angels are bringing us the good news of great joy for all the people, for to us is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord. This good news of great joy is for all the people of God. As people of God we have a claim to the joy and the peace that the birth of Christ brings to the world. But how do I personally enter into this "great joy" of Christmas? Christmas rings out "joy to the world," yes, but how do I make this joy my own? This is an important question, for, even though God has declared joy to the whole world, there are still many among us who do not flow in this joy, many among us who do not know how to claim this joy and make it their own personally.

A certain missionary was working in a rural African village that had no easy access to good drinking water. People walked for miles to the nearest river to get water. With his encouragement the people undertook a self-help project to sink a borehole. The local government supplemented the people's efforts and a borehole was sunk in the village. In the meantime the missionary had left the village. Soon the village was enjoying fresh and clean drinking water from the borehole. So they wrote the missionary to come and see them and the great difference the borehole had made in the village. He went back to the village and rejoiced with them for the borehole that now gave fresh, clean water on demand. Then he decided to go round and visit some of his old friends. He entered the house of an old woman and asked her to give me a cup of the borehole water to drink. To his surprise she said that there was no drinking water in the house. "But the village now has water," he said. "Yes," she replied, "but the trouble is with my grandson who lives with me. I tell him to go and get water from the borehole and he wouldn't listen to me. All he does is run about and play."

There you are! You see, it is possible for someone to die of thirst in a village that has abundant drinking water. Why? Because there is no way the water out there in the borehole can become your own personally until you lift your foot to go there and draw the water that already belongs to you. The water in the borehole is yours by right. You are entitled to it. But you need to do something to claim this right before it can become your own personally, before it can actually quench your thirst. So is the good news of great joy that God showers on the world at Christmas. We still need to do something, make a little effort, before we can personally experience this joy in our lives, in our families, and in our world.

How do we do that? Well, that is rather easy to explain but pretty hard to practice, so I'll explain. Look at the word JOY. You see that it is made up of three letters: first J, then O, and lastly Y. J stands for Jesus, O for Others, and Y for You. Joy therefore is: Jesus, Others, before You. To know joy in our lives we need to place Jesus first in everything. Secondly, we need to try to please others before trying to please yourself. That is the recipe for joy. That is how we can convert the Christmas "joy to the world" into a personal "joy in my life" now and always.

As we listen to the Christmas story we would do well to pay attention to the various people and groups of people that are mentioned and see whether they try to please Jesus and others before themselves, or whether they seek their own interests first. You will discover that those who practice J-O-Y are the ones who enjoy peace and joy, and that those who practice "self first" are always the unhappy and miserable ones. Here are a few examples.

On the negative side we have the innkeeper who turned Joseph and Mary out in the cold night while he enjoyed the warmth of the inn. There's also Herod who wanted above all his job security as king to the point that he was prepared to kill Jesus and others. These people never get to experience the joy of the good news. On the positive side, consider the shepherds who leave everything they own, their flock, in the bush and go to adore Jesus first. Or the magi, the wise men from the East who leave the security of their homeland and make a long and dangerous journey to Bethlehem just to worship the new-born Jesus and give him gifts. These are the one's who receive God's favour, the ones who experience in their hearts the true peace and joy of Christmas. Let us today resolve to follow their good example by always placing Jesus and others before self and then the joy of Christmas will always be ours.