For today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Messiah and Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger (see Luke 2:11-12).
It was to humble shepherds that this birth was announced. It was not to palaces that the angel host came but to those tending their flocks. They announced to shepherds the birth of the one who would be the Good Shepherd, for his heart for us would be filled with compassion for us as were their hearts for their sheep. Let us go with them, then, to Bethlehem, to see this thing that has taken place. Let us go in humility, laying aside whatever we believe to be our qualifications or merits or "any righteous deeds we had done" so that we can share in the surprise and delight of these shepherds at the magnificent mercy of God. Let us lay aside our agendas and initiatives so that we can truly discover in the infant lying in the manger a marvelous sign of God's loves for us. Pride and agendas all tempt us to subvert the celebration inherent in this birth to other ends, and eventually makes us more like Herod than the shepherds. We risk becoming people who will prevent the celebration if it refuses to happen on our terms. The shepherds however had no agenda and were thus the ones to hear, to go in haste, to worship, and then to proclaim the good news they had heard from the angels.
So they went in haste and found Mary and Joseph,
and the infant lying in the manger.
When they saw this,
they made known the message
that had been told them about this child.
The shepherds saw a child in the manger but they realized that what they saw was much more than that. They believed the angels who said that this was the fulfillment for which all of Israel had hoped, a savior born for them and for all, who was the Messiah and Lord.
We too are invited to see the one who is a child but also more than a child. Even more than the shepherds we have cause to be amazed, to worship, and to make this message known. In the birth of this humble child amidst such humble conditions in Bethlehem we know that it was the Word himself who became flesh, who chose to make his dwelling among us precisely there in that way. The shepherds were among the first to look at the one who appeared to be a helpless infant and perceive the one who was in fact full of grace and truth. They were among the first to receive grace in place of grace and to become his heralds. But their proclamation was meant to show us the way to follow in their steps to Bethlehem, to see what they saw through the eyes of faith, and to open ourselves to the all of the luminous meaning of the incarnation. God so loved the world that his only Son became man in that way and in that place. We are invited to look to the child Jesus and see the heart of the Father for us.
No one has ever seen God.
The only Son, God, who is at the Father’s side,
has revealed him.
If we have the eyes of faith we will see in the gift of this child to the human race something much bigger than a manger, or Bethlehem, or even the whole world could contain, and yet somehow contained in him.
in these last days, he has spoken to us through the Son,
whom he made heir of all things
and through whom he created the universe,
who is the refulgence of his glory,
the very imprint of his being,
and who sustains all things by his mighty word.
When learn to see the way God took on human nature in this infant, the way in which this infant spoke the final word about everything that was true about God, we can also come to see what our own human nature is meant to become, the lofty destiny of which we too are meant to partake, the divine nature of God himself. If we can get this, our lives will change because we will no longer be content with mediocrity when God himself both desires and makes possible so much more.
A light will shine on us this day: the Lord is born for us.
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