CHRISTMAS EVE

And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth,
and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

Luke 2:7

Tuesday, December 24, 2024
Isaiah 9:2-7
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-14(15-20)

We conclude the season of Advent and now enter into the celebration of the holiest night of the Christian year – Christmas.

It is important to realize that this is not just some imaginary fictional event, but a birth that changed the world.

The Gospel according to Luke, more than any of the four gospels, does more to place the Christ event into a historical context.

The following excerpt is from The God of Life, a book written by the late Peruvian priest and theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez. It illustrates the impact that Jesus’ birth had on our lives as Christians and how it shapes our faith.

An Irruption Smelling of the Stable – Gustavo Gutiérrez

Jesus was born in a particular place at a particular time. He was born under Emperor Octavius, who had himself named Augustus when he reached the pinnacle of power; when Quirinius was governor of Syria; during the reign of Herod, who was traitor to his people and had sold out to the occupying power.  It was during this time that Jesus was born, a man of no importance in the eyes of the cynical and arrogant authorities as well as in the eyes of those who disguised cowardice as peace and political realism.

It is often said at Christmas that Jesus is born into every family and every heart.  But these “births” must not make us forget that primordial, massive fact that Jesus was born of Mary among a people that at the time were dominated by the greatest empire of the age. If we forget that fact, the birth of Jesus becomes an abstraction, a symbol, a cypher.  Apart from its historical coordinates the event loses its meaning.  To the eyes of Christians the incarnation is the irruption of God into human history:  an incarnation into littleness and service in the midst of overbearing power exercised by the mighty of this world; an irruption that smells of the stable.

Christian faith is a historical faith.  God is revealed in Jesus Christ and, through him, in human history and in the least important and poorest sector of those who make it up. Only with this as a starting point is it possible to believe in God. Believers cannot go aside into a kind of dead-end corner of history and watch it go by.  It is in the concrete setting and circumstances of our lives that we must learn to believe:  under oppression and repression but also amid the struggles and hopes that are alive in present-day Latin America; under dictatorships that sow death among the poor, and under the “democracies” that often deal unjustly with their needs and dreams. (pp.84-85)

Although the excerpt references Latin America, the birth of Jesus stirs hope in all the world.

Merry Christmas!

Let us pray.
Almighty God, you have given your only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and to be born of a pure virgin: Grant that we, who have been born again and made your children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit; through our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom with you and the same Spirit be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen.
(Book of Common Prayer, p. 213)

Photo: Nativity at Notre Dame de la Garde, Marseilles, France (Personal photo)