Friends
Peace be with you. And Merry Christmas! Christ is born for us and we join the angels in singing “Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace to people of good will”.
One of the things that astounds me about the way God works versus the way humanity works is that humanity likes to mandate things. Ever pulled up to a stop light late at night right when it is turning red and there isn’t another car in sight? Did you feel frustrated? Why do we have to follow the law when it isn’t protecting anyone? It’s just making me another minute or two later to get into my bed. But there could be a camera pointing at me. There could be a police officer hiding somewhere just waiting for this scenario and, suddenly, instead of missing a minute or two of sleep, I’m missing 30 minutes, a hundred dollars, and a whole lotta peace. So, I just sit there and wait while grinding my teeth.
As I was praying over these readings, I noticed something I’ve never really paid too much attention to from the Gospel of Luke. The reading starts off with a census, or an enrollment as St. Luke calls it. The enrollment is a mandatory return to your hometown to make sure no one is being missed during the tax collection. It appears, you would have to go back to you or your husband’s town of birth until the census is complete and then you’d get a signal that you could go home. Mary goes there with Joseph at some point after she’s already three months pregnant. How do I know that? Because St. Luke said she spent three months with Elizabeth, John the Baptist’s mother, before returning home. Maybe, in fact, she had to return home because of the enrollment. They likely travelled through Capernaum, down the Jordan River, through Jericho and Jerusalem before getting to Bethlehem. Imagine, if you can, starting somewhere up by Postville, walking over to Gutenburg and following the Mississippi River until you got to Bellevue and then walking from there through Springbrook to Andrew because that’s where you were born. I think that would roughly be the equivalent of how far they walked. As I said, they stayed in Bethlehem until they got the all clear because they were forced to by the government. It’s not clear if the all clear came before or after the birth of Jesus because this isn’t a story about a census, despite how entertaining that would be. It’s a story about a humble birth of the most powerful messiah and Lord to ever be born. It’s a story of contrasts.
In contrast to this forced relocation, there are shepherds out in the fields, most likely to the east of Bethlehem, so let’s imagine they’re in that valley that is a mile or so to the East of Andrew. Now, remember for a second that, in the Old Testament, King David was a shepherd in Bethlehem. He may very well have worked in these same fields with the ancestors of these sheep. It says a single angel appears to them to tell them the details we just learned, that a child is wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger back in town who is messiah and Lord. It says that the glory of the Lord appeared with the angel, which is quite striking because, since the time of King David’s Son, King Solomon, the glory of the Lord only appeared in the Holy of Holies in the Temple in Jerusalem. The last detail that we learn is that these same shepherds find themselves surrounded by countless angels singing Glory to God in the highest.
What is the response of the shepherds? This is why I wanted us to hear both the reading for Mass at night and Mass at dawn: because we have to hear how they reacted. The angel didn’t force them to go to Bethlehem. Instead, they say, “Let us go, then, to Bethlehem to see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” They choose to freely go. Now, when they do, there’s something important that happens. They share with Joseph and Mary about the angels that appeared to them singing glory to God in the highest. It says here and in a later verse that “Mary kept all these things reflecting on them in her heart”, leading some to speculate that it was Mary herself who related this story to St. Luke for his inclusion in the gospel. Recently, someone asked me how we know any of this took place, how we can know that there’s truth in these infancy stories considering the gospel writers don’t join until much later. I think St. Luke is telling us how: because he may be working with original sources.
But, secondly and more importantly, what happens to the shepherds after they see Jesus? It says they go back to their flocks glorifying and praising God. They have had a transformation. Shepherds are laborers staying out in the weather and constantly having to protect their flocks. It’s possible their job has been made harder because of people like Jesus, Mary, and Joseph because the “in town” places they where could have kept their flocks were being used as guest rooms while the enrollment was going on. Shepherds weren’t known for their holiness of life. Quite on the contrary, they would have been rough both in their appearance and in their manor of life. These guys would have known how to swear and how to fight to protect their flock. They’re tough. And they return glorifying and praising God from Bethlehem. This is significant because the name Bethlehem means “house of bread”. So, they freely go to the house of bread and witness the real presence of their messiah and Lord in the person of a tiny baby wrapped in swaddling clothes. You’d think it would be the glory of God as manifested by the angel or the heavenly chorus of angels singing Glory to God in the highest that would have changed their life but, no, it was witnessing Jesus in the manger that causes them to return and, at least for a time, glorify and praise God.
Each sunday, we are given a choice whether we want to return to the house of bread that is the church to witness the real presence of Jesus. It’s given to us freely. We took God up on his offer today and praise and glory to God for that. Can we freely choose to do it again next week?
