Our Christian faith is based on the belief that the Messiah expected by the Jews is Jesus Christ. Our origins are in Judaism. We worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob like they do. We believe what the Jews believe but accept Jesus as the fulfilment of the Jewish faith.
And so the Jewish bible is also our bible. With them we accept it as revealed truth, as divinely inspired text, beginning with God’s creation of man and the fall of our first parents in the Garden of Eden.
Now I know none of this is news to you but from time to time there is no harm in being reminded of it. Our Jewish origins can never be bypassed or minimised because we cannot tell the Christian story without first telling the story of the Chosen People – and so our story is immensely long.
Today, in four separate Masses, with four separate Gospel readings we tell a tiny part of this story which is at the same time the greatest part. It is the story of the birth of the One foretold by the prophets and awaited by the people.
Firstly we celebrate the Vigil Mass of Christmas. The Gospel focuses on Joseph and his dismay in discovering that his beloved Mary was pregnant.
… being a man of honour and wanting to spare
her publicity, [he] decided to divorce her informally. He had
made up his mind to do this when the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a
dream and said, ‘Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as
your wife, because she has conceived what is in her by the Holy Spirit. She will
give birth to a son and you must name him Jesus, because he is the one who is
to save his people from their sins.’
In the Midnight Mass we are told the familiar story of the actual birth.
… Joseph set out from the town of Nazareth in
Galilee … with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. While they were there
the time came for her to have her child, and she gave birth to a son, her first
born. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger because
there was no room for them at the inn. The angel of God appeared to the shepherds nearby and said to them: ‘Do not be afraid. Listen, I bring you news
of great joy, a joy to be shared by the whole people. Today in the town of
David a saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. And here is a sign
for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a
manger.’ And suddenly with the angel there was a great throng of the heavenly
host, praising God and singing: ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace
to men who enjoy his favour.’
In the Mass at Dawn we
hear rest of the Gospel of Midnight Mass:
Now when the angels had gone from them into
heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go to Bethlehem and see this
thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us.’ So they hurried
away and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger. When they saw
the child they repeated what they had been told about him, and everyone who
heard it was astonished at what the shepherds had to say. As for Mary, she
treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart. And the shepherds
went back glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen; it was
exactly as they had been told.
At Christmas Mass of
the Day we read from the Gospel of John. This Gospel was written many decades
after the birth of Jesus and manifests the deep reflection which had gone on during
that time.
Jesus, who by this
time was crucified and risen and ascended, was seen as the Word of the Father
who was with the God from the beginning and who was God.
He was the light of
men and the life of men. He came to the world to bring light but he was
rejected by many, but to those who accepted him he gave power to become
children of God.
This is the story of
Christmas. The child wants us to become children.
Let us cast off all shadow
of doubt and rejoice that he has come. To all who accept him he gives power – power
to become children – children of God.
