And the angel of the Lord came upon them
From the thunderous and majestic words of the great mystery of Christmas night of “the Word made flesh [who] dwelt among us”, we come to the quiet wonder of Christmas morning. A quiet time of contemplation, a time to think with the angels.
The logic of Christmas in the classical Common Prayer tradition, liturgically and theologically speaking, is quite instructive. We proceed from the eternal birth, Christ’s eternal Sonship, on Christmas Eve with its focus on the Incarnation as grounded in the life of God, God as Trinity, to the Christmas of the Angels, as it is sometimes called, who reveal to the shepherds the birth of a Saviour; “a multitude of the heavenly host praising God” in the ringing words of what will become the Gloria. “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” This in turn leads to the Christmas of the Shepherds on The Octave Day of Christmas who say “Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us,” words which follow directly upon this morning’s gospel. This logic is the reverse of an older and a modern more linear pattern of celebration but as such grounds everything in the life of God. That is the intriguing and important feature and one which redeems all the wonderful complexity of the images of Christmas, both religious and secular in all of their various forms.
Here we have some of the more familiar features of the Christmas story as told by Luke in a remarkable economy of expression. “A decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed” sets Joseph in motion “with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child” to Bethlehem. There “she brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.” Such are the basic elements of the story. Matthew will also provide an account read on The Sunday after Christmas but no mention of a manger or ‘no vacancy’ signs at the inn. Only with the story of the coming of the kings after the birth do we even get the mention of Bethlehem. Joseph, though, is told that the Son “conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost” and that his name shall be called Jesus, “for he shall save his people from their sins,” and all this in fulfillment of a prophecy from Isaiah that “a Virgin shall conceive … a Son” who shall be called “Emmanuel” meaning “God with us.” Another layer of essential meaning to the basic story, we might say, without which it is not much of a story. Such things complement the real story of Christmas in John about “the Word made flesh.”
Yet how, we might ask, do we come to know this basic story let alone its deeper meaning? Both Luke and Matthew invoke “the angel of the Lord”, the messenger, in Luke to tell about “the shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night” not to fear for here is “good tidings of great joy”; in Matthew to advise Joseph to “fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife; for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.” Angelic salutations, “Fear not … For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.”
But what are we in our pseudo-sophistications to make of such things as an angel and of a Virgin mother? And has Luke placed the birth correctly as a result of the census of Quirinius? There are no end of things which contribute to a certain kind of scepticism and cynical doubt. And yet, I would argue that the rich complexity of the stories of the nativity belong to its essential mystery, the essential mystery of God in himself and God with us. In every part of the story, if we will think with the angels, we learn something greater that challenges all our sophistic claims to know. We are being opened out to truths which cannot simply be measured empirically or scientifically. More profoundly, as the novelist and modern reformed theologian Marilynne Robinson suggests, modern science itself in discovering its own ontological assumptions brings out many of the same kinds of mysteries that the biblical story presents.
In modern physics, for example, particle entanglement, the way particles seem to affect and interact with one another across immense distances and time challenges all of our thinking about locality and the logical sequencing of events. My point is not to fall into the false opposition between science and religion but to note the wonderful mystery of what Robinson calls the simple “givenness of things” which cannot be reduced to the instrumental calculations of our linear reasoning, to our mechanical or technocratic reason. Instead we are gathered by the poetic power of these words into the mystery of God upon whom all our thinking and our being depend. In other words, all the details of the story in all of their richness open us out to the deep truth of God and of God with us. Such is a kind of angelic sight, seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary things of the world and our lives.
As such Christmas might just awaken us to an appreciation of the simple “givenness of things.” The simple “givenness of things” is about the truth of God in whom all things have their being and their meaning. The divine gift is the world given for thought and love.
Christianity, Hans Urs Von Balthasar notes, is about “the fullness of images” in contrast to classical Buddhism which is about “the emptiness of images.” Nowhere is there a greater fullness of images than at Christmas and in the various ways, artistically and poetically, the story is presented. The challenge, of course, and one which Buddhism also teaches has to do with the problem of our attachment to things. There is always the danger of becoming too attached to one aspect or another of the Christmas story and miss its essential point. Yet in the Christian understanding each aspect of the story only has its truth in and through the essential mystery which is why I think having John’sgreat Prologue and the thundering words of Hebrews read first at Christmas makes so much sense intellectually and spiritually. It grounds everything in God and gathers all our more linear thinking into the eternity of God’s own being and thinking. That is a feature of redemption, a redemption of all the images both of Scripture itself and also of what belongs to holy imagination, even such as Lenny Gallant’s intriguing carol, The Innkeeper.
The tondo presented on the back of the insert Christmas at Christ Church is a marvellous illustration of just that fullness of images which belongs to the thinking upon the mystery. Fra Angelico and Filippo Lippi have gathered a host of images about the nativity into a round picture, a tondo. Called “The Adoration of the Magi,” it presents the idea of the whole world of men and animals coming to the humble scene of Christ’s holy birth. Why? Because Christmas is about “the grace of God that bringeth salvation which “hath appeared to all men,” as The Epistle to Titus explains. It is about the fundamental and underlying truth of God being with us, a kind of divine simplicity communicated through the rich diversities of our human lives. It challenges us like the Shepherds to see things in a new way; in short, to see with angel’s sight.
And the angel of the Lord came upon them
Fr. David Curry
Christmas Morn, 2018