“Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people”
So the Angel says unto the shepherds. Two things stand out for us on Christmas morn, the words, “fear not” and “good tidings of great joy”. We are much in need of both, to be not fearful and to hear good news. This is Christmas.
In the lovely quiet of Christmas morning, we hear the classic and familiar Christmas story about Christ’s holy birth in Bethlehem. The details are intriguing. In the turn and churn of worldly powers, of Joseph taking Mary being great with child to Bethlehem in obedience to the civil powers of that day to be numbered, enrolled, taxed, something else of greater meaning is accomplished. “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”. The story touches us with the realities of the poor and the displaced in our own times, of those who are caught in the machinations of our global world. And yet, that sad commonplace of human hardship and suffering is eclipsed by a sense of wonder. Something else is being set in motion and among the little ones of our world and day, the shepherds.
They are not the great ones in executive power and will. Indeed, the shepherds contrast completely with the elites of every age. They care for the sheep, “keeping watch over their flock by night”, we are told. It is an image of care and one with a deep resonance of meaning about the real nature of political leadership. Thrasymachus, in Plato’s Republic, argues that justice is only “the interest of the stronger”, that might equals right because they can get away with it, that shepherds are really only business men driven solely by profit, only in it for themselves. But Socrates points out that no leader can simply be in it for himself, that political order radically depends upon the common good, that justice is for all and not simply for the few. This ancient insight and idea continues to challenge us in our own world and day. The care of the sheep is the shepherd’s primary and defining task or vocation to which everything else is but secondary.
And so it is fitting, if I may use a term beloved by medieval theologians, that the news of Christ’s holy birth, the birth of Mary’s son, should be made known to the little ones of the world and not to the magnificoes, the great ones. The shepherds are a standing criticism of political misrule and injustice by leaders in every age. They are especially receptive, we might say, to the higher form of justice that Christ’s birth portends and establishes. Such is the wonder of the Gloria which the angels sing and teach to the shepherds and through them to us. Peace on earth and good will toward men is the opposite of a world of abusive power and the domination of the few over the many.
Angels and shepherds. “The angel of the Lord came upon them and the glory of the Lord shone round about them”. There is something seen and, then, there is something heard. Their initial response to the vision of heavenly glory is fear. “They were sore afraid”, the King James translation quaintly puts it. They were, literally, “afraid with great fear”. We, too, have been living through some fearful times. Many are in great fear, even paralyzed with fear, a fear that is greater than what is feared, perhaps, but great fear nonetheless. The Angel’s first word to them is “fear not.” Wonderful. We, too, have been saying time and time again, ‘be not fearful’. To be sure, but what this story offers is more than just the mantra to be not fearful; it offers a reason for not being afraid. The reason lies in what God wants us to see and behold. The reason lies in what the Angelic messenger of God tells the shepherds to quell their fear and to transport their fear into wonder, into holy fear and awe at the wonder of God.
We go from “fear not” to “good tidings of great joy”. Such is the Gospel, the evangelical message, the good news. And it is of “great joy”. Great joy that counters great fear, quite literally. What is the good news of great joy? It is, first of all, for all people, omni populo. It is not a good for some at the expense of others. It is for all, not just for the privileged few. Secondly, it is about the meaning of the birth of Mary’s son. “For unto you”, and again extending to all people, and so to us, “is born this day in the city of David”, meaning Bethlehem, as Luke has already indicated, “a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.” Soter, Salvator, Saviour. This challenges all our assumptions about our own self-sufficiency. It confronts us with the reality of our incompleteness, our need for something beyond ourselves, and our self-delusions. For if we are in great fear does not that already suggest that things are not as we would like them to be? Perhaps we can admit that we stand in need, that we are not whole, not complete. Hence the concept of salvation which includes the idea of our being whole.
The Christmas story, simply put, names Christ as Saviour. The radical meaning of this holy birth is that Christ is God with us, Emmanuel, the eternal Word and Son of the Father as we celebrated last night. The quiet wonder of Christmas morn is that Christ is “God’s great little one” who embraces the little ones to open out to all what God seeks for our humanity. We have no life and no understanding apart from what comes from God.
That we might know this God gives a sign, the sign which signifies the signifier, God himself with us. Here the sign is “a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger”. The Angel’s words are heavenly wisdom that match the empirical or earthly wisdom Luke has already provided us; a knowledge from above complementing what is known from below. And if that is not wonder enough, the shepherds and we with them are embraced in the heavenly vision and song of praise to God, the Gloria. God uses the simple things of the world to open us out the things of eternity. Such is the meaning of the sacraments, effective signs which effect what they signify. Here Christ is with us and we with him in the swaddling bands of the sacrament of his body and blood. For such is the meaning of Christ as Saviour. It counters our fears and brings good tidings of great joy to all. Such is Christmas.
“Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people”
Fr. David Curry
Christmas Morn, 2020