For unto us a child is born…and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and his only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. Welcome to all of you. Welcome to our faithful parishioners whose pledges of financial support won you tickets which allowed you to enter early and find a good seat. Now your job is to lead the way in singing and participation. Welcome to all those of you who waited outside in the cool and dark for the doors to open and filled up the rest of the church, including the galleries. I went out to visit you, and I commend your enthusiasm and spirit; if you make a pledge next year, you can get a ticket!
Seats are much easier to get on regular Sundays, by the way. No tickets are necessary, and the Men and Boys’ Choir sing for superb liturgies all school year. Which reminds me to welcome and thank the families of our choirboys. They give their sons to our residential Choir School for five, sometimes six years. It’s the experience of a lifetime; but they give up their family Christmases at home to be here, including tonight and tomorrow morning. Then they get to travel home on Christmas day.
If you think about it, the Holy Family themselves were dislocated for the very first Christmas. Their home was in Nazareth, in Galilee. But because of Caesar Augustus’ tax census, they had to go to Joseph and Mary’s city of lineage, Bethlehem, the city of David. They were of the house of David of the tribe of Judah.
One year, during the children’s service on Christmas Eve afternoon, I mentioned the tax census and asked why that meant the Holy Family had to travel from the town of Nazareth and district of Galilee down to Judah and the city of Bethlehem. Up flew a young boy’s hand: “Lower taxes!” he cried out. Perhaps he thought it was like going from New York to New Hampshire.
As if dislocation were not hard enough, there was no room in the Bethlehem inn, as the city was crowded with others obeying the same requirement from Caesar. So Joseph and Mary went to a stable, and Mary’s baby was born there, with a manger for his crib. He had animals, and then shepherds, for his attendants; but they were doing the bidding of angels! Depend upon it: the baby in the manger is the child spoken of by the prophet, the Son and Christ of God. The government of God’s kingdom, long after the passing of Caesar’s empire is on his shoulder. He is rightly called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
When I was a boy my father’s career required that our family move from Louisville, Kentucky, to Chicago. Dad was happy enough about it, but my mother, my sister and I were distressed at being uprooted from a home that we loved to go live in an unknown, intimidating, place. So my mother sat me down and said she understood how upset I was, but that I needed to understand that, as she put it, “Our family is our home and our love goes with us.”
The Holy Family and their love are the very heart and soul of the Church, the Body of Christ. They went from their Nazareth home to Bethlehem where Jesus Christ, the Head of the Church, was born while they were enrolled with Caesar. They even had to flee for dear life and became refugees in Egypt for a time. But theirs is the love that will never die. Thirty years after the first Christmas, the enemies of Christ thought at last he and his difficult, inconvenient love was finished and done with. Far from it! Christ’s crucifixion and death and his resurrection from the dead secured his homecoming to all times and all places, to this very moment on this street corner. Christ’s family, his mystical Body, is our home and his love goes with his people everywhere.
I finish with one thought. Let us think of ourselves as though we were the place where Christ is to be born; that is, “born in our hearts” in terms of our receiving his rule of love and graciousness. Let us not be like an inhospitable inn which has no room for him, but rather let us join forces with those animals and the shepherds who took the angels at their word. He made do with a stable. I am sure he can make do with the likes of us. You can tell Christ has come when you warm to the thought of a gesture of kindness, a “grace note,” towards another person; especially if that person cannot reward you with something you want or is someone you do not like. You can tell, because God is love, and those who love are born of God. Have a joyous and happy Christmas by allowing Jesus Christ to be born in you today.
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Amen.
