Christmas Eve - Midnight Mass (December 24, 2021)

Wesley Walker

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May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be alway acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

Luke 2 tells a story we are all familiar with: Mary is pregnant with a child (which we know is from the Holy Spirit). At the same, Caesar Augustus organizes a census of the whole “civilized world” which forces Joseph and Mary to go to Bethlehem. Bethlehem was significant because it was David’s home town. Not only was David a legendary king to the Israelites but God also promised that from his seed would come a perpetual king. Luke is very keen to make that connection for us. Jesus is that everlasting King.

Yet the interesting thing about the Gospel’s account is that Jesus, who is the New David and “God from God, light from light, very God from very God” is born in the humblest of circumstances. At the same time, angels appear to the shepherds, those who would have been considered low in the social hierarchy, announcing the good news. The Angle says, “I bring you good news of great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” At end of the announcement, the heavenly host appears, proclaiming, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased!"

There’s a lot going on here. What makes the good news good, exactly?

This is what Titus 2 helps us understand. In the Incarnation, “God has appeared for the salvation of all men. At Christmas, we decisively see God. In expressing Himself by being born in a lowly manger, we see not only that he is there but also that he loves us. He exists, not just in the abstract, but in the intimate, so that he takes on real, human flesh that bears our sins, even to the point of death on a cross.

The beauty of God is that he works in patters. His interventions throughout history have discernible rhythms, patterns, and types. Throughout Scripture, God can be seen taking the initiative by taking up residence among his people. The Ark of the Covenant, the Tabernacle, and the Temple all played vital roles in the Jewish faith because they were the dwelling places of the Divine. They were the place where heaven and earth intersected and God dwelt with his people. At Christmas, we celebrate another instance of God dwelling among humanity. This time, int eh womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Mary’s womb is situated between the Old Testament instances where God dwelt among the people of Israel and the New Testament’s proclamation of God’s presence in and through the Sacraments of the Church. To put it as the Evangelist John does: “And the Word was made flesh and lived [or “tabernacled”] among us.”

In modern times, the birth of Christ is treated as one thing while his Passion, Death, and Resurrection are another. I don’t think St. Luke and the other Gospel writers want us to think this way. In Luke 2:7, the baby Jesus is wrapped in linen bands while in Luke 23:53, the body of Christ is wrapped in grave clothes, which were also linen bands. In iconography, baby Jesus’ swaddling are often depicted as burial clothes, visually linking these two descriptions that bookend the Gospel of Luke. At Jesus’ birth, they “laid him in a manger.” while at his burial “they took his body and laid it in a tomb.” Angels announce the birth of Christ to an unlikely group, shepherds, who come to see and worship the Christ child. Meanwhile, in Luke 24:1-10, an angel announces the resurrection to another unlikely group, women, when they visit the tomb bringing gifts to embalm and adorn Christ’s body. Luke and the other Gospel writers don’t want us to think about Christ’s brith as distinct, but rather as an integral component of God’s singular movement to save humanity. To many of the Early Church Fathers, when they spoke of Incarnation, they were speaking not only of Jesus’ becoming human but also his death and resurrection.

If Jesus’ brith story is about God’s dwelling or tabernacling with man, then I think we can argue that this is also what his death and burial are about. Mary’s womb which birthed our Lord is very much an image of the tomb (and vice-versa). The tomb becomes the last container of divinity, a place of waiting, until at the right moment Christ bursts forth, having destroyed death and vanquished spiritual powers. The grave was not sufficient for holding the divine. In Acts 7:48, Stephen, who we celebrate on December 26, says, “The Most High does not dwell in houses made with human hands.” The grave is the final barrier, preventing humanity from accessing the Divine. It’s a barrier which is overcome by the Incarnation.

So because of the Incarnation, we can remember three important things. First, we remember that God is love, according to 1 John 4:8. The second is what Paul says in Romans 8:38-39, “For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Finally, by the Incarnation, we are reminded what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:19, “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.”

In the Incarnation, Christ shows us what it means to be God. Simultaneously, he also shows us what it means to be human. Titus summarizes what we learn from him in light of the Incarnation: First, we learn to renounce irreligion and worldly passions. That is, following Christ’s example, we leave behind sin. Second, we learn to live sober, upright, and godly lives in this world, whereby we emulate the self-giving and self-sacrificial ethic of Christ. These things we do with the ned in view, as we await tour blessed hope and hte appearing of Christ, the glory of God, who gave himself to redeem us from iniquity and purify us to be his people. May we here at St. Paul’s be a people who declare the Incarnation, the Death, and Resurrection of Christ to a dark world in desperate need of the light and love he brings us.