Important people from all over the Empire file into the Palace for the festivities. All the members of the Senate, magistrates and other officials, wealthy personages and diplomats, enter by invitation for the official showing of the Emperor's new son. He is fitted with royal finery and placed in a kind of mini-throne graced by precious metals and stones. He is being officially named and welcomed as an heir of one who is hailed not only as political leader but also as deity.
From that scenario two millenia back, we look at tonight's gospel pericope [Luke 2: 1-20] for a tale about the birth of another royal personage. Here the action is not in the palace but in a barn. The newborn King lies in an animal feeding trough and wears, not royal apparel, but swathing bands of cheap cloth. He is not greeted by the rich and famous, but rather by outcasts, nobodies. Shepherds, namely, who were considered near the bottom rung of society and to be avoided by respectable folk.
The story, like all our stories, is intended to teach us something about God. Christians are often criticized for being out of touch with reality, for opposing science. In our tradition, nothing could be further from the truth. We don't try to explain, or explain away, the Big Bang or evolution. Those are science questions. But, as Stephen Hawking said, science cannot and will never be able to explain why the Big Bang happened, or who or what preceded it. In other words, science is in the "how" business. We are in the "why" business. We say that is in the nature of God to create and to care about the creation. We believe that God loves all of God's children equally, and that we are called with our lives and labours to witness to that reality.
Let us analogize to parenthood. Many here are parents; others one day will be. Although only human, we surely want what is best for every child, especially to have that a life that is decent, fulfilling, and makes a difference in the world. Would we want one of our children to live well, whilst knowing that another was starving to death? Would we be happy knowing that some of our children were killing others? Would we be satisfied if we knew none of our children would ever share with the others? No, none of that is tolerable for us, and all of it is surely intolerable to God.
We must hurt with the things that hurt the heart of God and struggle to work for the best outcomes throughout humanity.
Tonight's birth announcement is earth-shattering because the one who has come, the incarnation of the Divine, represents the ultimate sign that God cares, that we matter, and that what we do to each other means everything. This child will grow up to call us to full humanity -- to be all that we are capable of being -- by the radical reordering of human priorities. Like good parents, the key to development is involvement. Jesus means God cares enough to be involved, to show us in Jesus the human face of God, to show us how to live and love rightly, how to inaugurate God's Reign by our working to create a world in which God's will is done on earth as it is in heaven. Christmas means God cares and what we do matters, that life has real meaning. It is Word that we can move beyond our selfishness, narcissism, and tribalism and build the Kingdom. Happy Christmas!
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