Christmas Day, Nativity of the Lord, December 25, 2022 – Isaiah 9:1-6; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-14

There are actually, as I mentioned before the first reading, four masses for Christmas. And this was extraordinary, back in the days before the new liturgy, because it was one of the few times that the priest was allowed to celebrate Mass more than once. But the way the liturgy breaks up the Christmas celebration is there’s a Vigil Mass, a Mass at midnight, a Mass at dawn, and a Mass during the day. For the gospel of the Vigil Mass, they read the genealogy of Jesus, which is very boring. For this Mass, which is actually the Vigil Mass, we are using the Mass for midnight. We’ll use it again at 9 o’clock tonight, with the gospel we just heard, which is the gospel everybody expects to hear at Christmas. See, that’s the strange thing. This is the gospel that we think should be read all the time.

If you came to Mass at the crack of dawn, you would hear the second half of this story. After the angels go away, the shepherds go to visit the stable. But, if you came during the day, the gospel you would hear was the beginning of John’s gospel, which is not about Christmas at all but, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” A lot more words and then, “…As the Word became flesh and made his dwelling here with us.” And that’s the only reference you get to the fact that Jesus was born. So, it’s a good thing you came to this Mass, because this is the gospel you want to hear.

But I asked you to listen to where Jesus is. He makes several appearances in this story. But the appearance He makes most significantly is not when He’s born and laid in the manger because there’s no room for Him in the place where the travelers lodged. It’s when the angel announces Him to the shepherds. Because the angel calls him three things. In Greek, the words are Sōtēr, Christos, Kyrios. And those are powerful words in that language.

Sōtēr means Savior and, for the ancient world, the savior of the world was Caesar Augustus. That’s why Luke begins his gospel by orientating Jesus’ birth in the reign of Caesar Augustus. Because Luke is about to announce to the world a different kind of savior than Caesar Augustus.

He’s also Christos, which is the Greek word for Messiah. This is another really heavy-laden word because it tells us two things. Jesus was born a Jew, the most hated race in the Roman Empire but, ironically, the only race in the Roman Empire that had a deal with Caesar. They hondled Caesar to get a certain amount of independence.  But it also tells us the thing that’s most important for us to know. That Jesus was a human being. He belonged to a certain ethnic group. Was born on a certain date in history, when things were happening in the wider world around him. 

But he was also Kyrios, the Lord. That word in Greek is used only to translate the word Yahweh in the Hebrew language. And so, this child who has an ethnicity and a pedigree is also truly God. That’s the message of the angel.

But the angel says, “I bring you a message of great joy that will be for all the people.” The angel contrasts the message that a little baby is born, who is Savior, Messiah and Lord, with the great Augustus Caesar.

The period in which Jesus was born is called, in history, the Pax Romana because there was peace throughout the Mediterranean basin. But the peace was the peace of subjugation. Nobody dared raise an army against imperial Rome. What the Romans had done with their Navy and their Army was subjugate the whole basin and then build roads from one town to another, which is very profitable. There’s the key to the whole story. Everybody was happy because everybody was making money.  But the price of making money was that everybody lived under the thumb of Rome.  This was called the Peace of Augustine, but nobody dared cross Augustus Caesar. Very different from the peace that the angel proclaims.  “Good news of great joy for all the people.”  All the people. Jews and Gentiles. Christians and Jews.  Christians and Buddhists.  Jews and Muslims.  Christians and those that believe in the Hindu religion.  Christians and Jews and other believers and those that believe in nothing.  Arabs and Jews. Russians and Ukrainians. Immigrants and citizens.  First nations and those who came after them.  White people and people of color.  Good news to all the people.  That’s what the angel proclaimed. But apparently, over the last two thousand years, a lot of us didn’t get the memo, did we?  Because there doesn’t seem to be much peace on Earth.

I want you to think about the words of consecration that we say at every Mass.  “This is the chalice of my blood, shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in memory of me.”  You do this, in memory of me.  What’s the this? 

We don’t notice it because, right after I say that, I say, “Proclaim the mystery of faith,” and you and the choir sing a little phrase.  But then I start to speak again, and this is what I say to God.  “Therefore, as we celebrate the memorial of his death and resurrection…” The memorial of his death and resurrection, not just his death.  The memorial of his death and resurrection.  As we celebrate that memorial of his death and resurrection, it tells us something.  It tells us that the blood that Jesus shed for you and me and for the many - for all the people of the world - he shed by dying, but he rose.  And, after him, the Christians, many of them died expecting to rise. And all of us, through the centuries, collectively die and rise.  We die to certain things in ourselves, and then we rise.  We die to certain things in our wishes, plans and dreams, and then we rise.  We die to losses in our lives, and then we rise.  We die to certain things in our society, and then we rise. 

How do we rise?  It’s by our baptismal grace that we rise. But it’s hard work.  Because what Jesus said over the cup he meant literally.  “You must shed your blood for the many.  So that you can forgive the sins of the many.  That is the only way that true peace comes to ourselves, to our families, to our society and to our world.  That we do the hard work of peacemaking by literally and figuratively shedding our blood.  But what our faith tells us is that, if we do that, If we do that hard work, that painful work, there will be resurrection for us and there will be resurrection for our society. 

There was a Jesuit poet in the late years of the nineteenth centuries, wrote this about this great truth.  At the end of his poem he said, “And though the last lights off the black West went.” A good description of our world today. “…the last lights off the black West went.  Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs, Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

That’s Christmas in a nutshell.