Some longtime friends of mine sent me a Christmas card. On the front of the card was your typical picture of Mary and Joseph and the baby, and the shepherds in the stable. The bottom of the front of the card said “Remember the Miracle.” Remember the Miracle. I opened up the card, and the wife had written on the top, “Yeah, like you would forget it,” which I thought was really a kind of comment on a whole bunch of things. But it got me thinking about what we remember, what we remember.

I already mentioned once or twice during this Advent/Christmas season that St. Luke has constructed the first two chapters of his gospel in a very precise way, and he has several points that he makes over and over again in his gospel. One of them is that Jesus comes for all people. Glory for Israel, revelation for the gentiles, for the pagans. So Luke is all- inclusive in his message about salvation - Jesus comes for everyone; no one is left out.

At one point in my life, I collected crèche sets. I must have wound up, at some point, with about 10 or 15 of them. All very different, one from another. Over the years I either gave them away or put them out in yard sales until, now, I have only three left. They’re all on display in the rectory. One of them is just three statues of a Native American man, a Native American woman, and a Native American papoose - the Holy Family as envisioned by the First People. Then I have a set that’s only about an inch high. They’re perfect replicas of the very famous Italian set, made in resin which, for a while, was very popular as an alternative to plastic. But, on the buffet in the dining room, I have the set that my family had when I was a child growing up. They were very cheap. We bought them a piece at a time in the five and dime store. But I still have them all. Some of them I repainted when I was a teenager because they were chipped and cracked. When I put them out each year, I get very nostalgic as I place them all in place where they belong, where they always go. But this year, something else happened to me as I put them in place. I want to share that with you.

When we hear the story of the Annunciation, our minds are trained to go immediately toward the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. This is where, in scripture, the roots are found of that doctrine. But that’s not the way it was at the beginning.

The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was a legitimate progression from something else. What was the something else? It was the doctrine of original sin. The words “original sin” do not appear anyplace in the entire scripture, from beginning to end. Saint Paul, in his letters, frequently talks about the sin of the first Adam and the salvation brought by the second Adam. That’s as close as we get. But the question arises then, for Christians, “saved from what?”

“Oh, somewhere … hearts are [happy] … and somewhere children shout, but there is no joy in Mudville - mighty Casey has struck out.” Those are the stirring last words of a poem by Earnest Thayer written at a time when people wrote and recited poetry for entertainment.

I chose it to begin my homily because, as I mentioned at the beginning of Mass, today is Gaudete Sunday - the Sunday of Joy. It seems to me that if you feel like I do, you feel like joy is in pretty short supply these days. And so I wanted to talk a little bit about what joy means in the sense of our scriptures and in the sense of our liturgy.

When I was working for WABC radio, their headquarters were at 1330 Avenue of the Americas, between 53rd and 54th St., and their building occupied the whole length between the two side streets, and halfway down the block. It had a beautiful outside plaza with two big fountains. You walked up two or three stone steps onto the plaza, then a couple more steps up to the entrance of the building. It was one of the most prestigious buildings on a prestigious avenue. Avenue of the Americas is really 6th avenue, but from 42nd St. up to 59th St., because of the tremendous amount of money installed there, they changed the name to the majestic Avenue of the Americas. But, outside that building every day, was this very strange character. I forget the nickname he was given, but he used to wear a Vikings helmet with horns and a leather coat with fur on it and buskins on his feet, and he had a spear. And he would accost the people coming in and out of the building all the time. Now you would think, considering the fact that this was the headquarters of ABC network for the entire United States, and that the building represented the attempt to capitalize on popular culture, to economize it and create money out of it, there must have been a whole flock of lawyers in the building. That they could not figure out how to get one homeless man off the front steps of their building is incredible. However, I think that they chose not to. Because people would avoid this character going in and out of the building, and certainly tried to stay downwind of him. But, I think in some strange way, they saw him as a countercultural symbol. A way of saying, “Yes, all this is about money and profit, but yes, there are other realities in the world.” And so they tolerated, having to go past him every day. I tell you this because both our first reading and our gospel are countercultural. And not understanding that, prevents us from understanding what each of these sacred writers wants to say.

Now Saint Mark, in his gospel, begins with the story of John the Baptist. But he asks his readers to see his story, not only the story of John the Baptist, but the entire story he’s about to tell - the Good News about Jesus Christ. He wants us to see the whole thing through the lens of one particular phrase in the prophet Isaiah. And that phrase is hidden in today’s first reading. I’ll show you what I mean.