TIDINGS OF JOY

SERMON PREACHED BY FR. TONY NOBLE ON CHRISTMAS DAY, 2006

Luke 2:10 "Behold I bring you news of great joy."

And more familiar words from a carol: Tidings of comfort and joy.

In my sermon at Midnight Mass last night I pointed out how Christmas is overwhelmed by the secular season of lights, trees, Santas, gifts, etc. Yet when you reflect upon it, Christmas is the only feast that comes to us labeled by the highest authority. "Tidings of joy" said the angel. This is surely the only feast in which a message from heaven commands us to be joyful.

Christmas is not, of course, the feast of greatest joy. That is Easter - when the Christ-child fulfills his destiny to lead us to heaven. Easter is the promise of Christmas. That is the promise of his birth. And that greatest joy of Easter can only happen because of this first joy of his birth.

In our happy and joyful celebrations today we do well not only to ponder the words tidings of comfort and joy, but to ponder if there was any joy actually on that first Christmas Day. Was there an occasion of laughter and rejoicing in that smelly stable?

Think of the shepherds roused in the middle of a cold night, bewildered at the angels, and what they found in the stable. But at the stable their lives were not changed. They were given no gifts to take home. They saw what they expected.

And what did they make of it?

Did they realize that God had become visible? I think not.

Did they realize that from now on life would be illuminated from within?

Or did they look at the baby and go away wondering what it was all about?

Go away unimpressed?

In after years were they different?

Were they men of joy?

Or did it all seem like just a dream?

Because Christ is born does not mean that men and women are necessarily changed. We who know what Christmas means can experience it - and yet sometimes see life as no different. Christmas can become like it was for the shepherds - a distant dream from our youth.

But it should not be so. This should be the feast of great joy. For as the angels said, "Today is born our Saviour, Christ the Lord." Our Savior - who came to save us from ourselves because we cannot help ourselves.

So Christmas challenges you and I to renew the joy of being a Christian. And we need to renew that joy because sometimes, like the shepherds, the joy of our youth seems like a distant dream.

So much for the shepherds. What about Mary and Joseph?

Joy for them no doubt just to have accomplished a safe birth of their child. And joy also to look upon the face of that holy child who was so expected, and yet so unexpected.

Scripture tells us that Mary had "swaddling bands" (Whatever they are!). But as much as we sing about that stable and the swaddling bands and the silent night, it was hardly romantic. Artists and Hallmark cards have made a killing painting the stable as a beautiful scene. Holy it was; comfortable no.

And for Joseph, the double humiliation of not actually being the real rather, and not being able to provide the care necessary for his wife and child. Any joy for Joseph was surely tempered by the conditions of Jesus' birth - which was an image of the rejection and humiliation he would suffer at his death.

His birth was an image of what was to come. "Tidings of comfort and joy"! Did Jesus feel joy? No doubt he cried, maybe screamed - for this is a true baby, fully human, complaining about his arrival in the world. No loving embrace even for his mother, I'm sure. Nor divine blessings for the shepherds. Only the natural response of a brand new baby boy.

And this is the Savior. This is the Christ.

God limiting himself in the most obvious way: surrenders to the true helplessness of a stage we have all lived through and forgotten.

And God did this because he loves us.

What could be weaker than the new-born baby in the manger? What could be stronger than the love that put him there?

Yes - tidings of comfort and joy indeed!!!