Christ Church

“Then Herod … sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem”

There is no greater challenge to the cultural celebration of Christmas than the Feast of the Holy Innocents. We like to think that Christmas is for children and for the child in all of us. We might want to think again. God “madest infants to glorify [him] by their deaths.” Now, there is a show-stopper! A real shocker. Try marketing that!

And yet, this is inescapably part of the Christmas story, albeit a part of the story we easily overlook. It recalls us to the inescapable political occasion for the nativity of Christ in Bethlehem – a census for taxation purposes – and then ups the ante in terms of the real-politique of power and domination. Herod embarks upon a policy of infanticide, killing all the little children in Bethlehem. Why? Out of fear for a rival king, the child King of Bethlehem, as he has heard from the Magi. He embarks upon a human scorched earth policy to destroy a potential rival to his power.

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“That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you”

There can be no greater affirmation of the central mystery of the Christian Faith than this Epistle reading from The First Letter of St. John. It echoes, of course, the great Christmas Gospel proclaimed at the Mass of Christmas Night. “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God … And the Word was made flesh.”

And that is precisely the point which John is driving home in his Epistle. He is arguing for the absolute and tangible reality of the Incarnation. This man Jesus Christ is “Very God of Very God.”

“That which was from the beginning – heard, seen, looked upon, and handled by our hands is the Word of life.” He bears witness to the divinum mysterium of Christmas. The Word and Son of the Father who is Light and Life is Incarnate; the God made Man is Jesus Christ.

And he is telling us that this is no passing knowledge – a matter for a moment, a mere factoid of idle information – but rather a truth that reveals “eternal life,” the truth upon which our lives ultimately depend for their truth and meaning.

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“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and
stonest them which are sent unto thee.”

Jerusalem!? I thought Christmas was in Bethlehem! It is, but to understand the mystery of Christmas, we cannot lose sight of Jerusalem.

Bethlehem and Jerusalem are the two centers around which Christian contemplation revolves like an ellipse. We cannot appreciate and celebrate the meaning of Christ’s holy birth in little Bethlehem without regard for the events of betrayal and death in Jerusalem. “Jesus Christ was born for this,” as the carol, In dulci Jubilo, reminds us. “This,” of course, is death and sacrifice, and only so can we celebrate the birth of a Saviour who comes that he may go “through the valley of the shadow of death” for us; only so “hath he ope’d the heavenly door and man is blessed for evermore;” only so we “need not fear the grave.”

Christmas is not a happy-clappy story, all fuzzy and warm with sentiment and good cheer. No. The joys of Christmas are deeper and greater than the sentimental trappings of this overly commercialised and rather caramelized season. Christ’s holy birth addresses the deep disorders of the human heart and the human community. Bethlehem is oriented towards Jerusalem from the get-go.

Remember Advent Sunday? We began the holy season of Advent with the triumphal entry of Christ into Jerusalem and his cleansing of the Temple. In other words, we make our journey to Bethlehem with the realization of the deeper meaning of God’s coming to us in the humanity of Jesus Christ. “He borrowed a body that he might borrow a death,” as St. Athanasius puts it. Death and sacrifice are inescapably part of the Christmas picture.

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“When all things were in quiet silence
and the night was in the midst of her swift course,
then, thy almighty Word leapt down from heaven, from thy royal throne.”

These wonderful and wise words from the Book of The Wisdom of Solomon capture prophetically the wonder and the mystery of Christmas night and bring us into the holy quiet of Christmas morn. They refer, in their context, to political judgment; the Word of God is the heavenly warrior who comes to bring justice and peace. But theologically, the leaping down of the Word of God who takes flesh and is born of Mary is our peace and justice. “The Lord our Righteousness,” as Jeremiah says. He is our redeemer. He is Jesus our Saviour. Christmas morn holds us in the quiet wonder of God’s being with us in the intimacy of Christ’s holy birth.

Bethlehem is the humble scene of the redemption of our humanity. It is judgement, inescapably. It is the divine judgement upon our wounded and broken humanity, torn apart by sin and pride, bloodied and terrible in the cravings for power and domination. The occasion of Christ’s holy birth, as St. Luke makes clear, is entirely political – a census dictated by the Roman powers, a census taken for the purposes of taxation and control, as all censuses are. Yet God uses the powers of the world to effect his greater will and purpose for our humanity. All the wheels of the great power of Rome are turned by God to bring Joseph and Mary, heavy with child, to the lowly stable in little Bethlehem. A myriad of prophetic statements begin to find their newer and deeper truth in what unfolds in the birth of the Child Christ.

It confounds the politics of the world. A child born to be king, not in any worldly sense of power and majesty, but in the far greater sense of overruling ourselves in our selfishnesses and self-preoccupations, in the far greater sense of overturning a world turned in upon itself, and in the far, far greater sense of turning the world back to its truth in God. God wills to engage our humanity to bring redemption, a redemption that is cosmic in scope.

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“And the Word was made flesh”

Christmas Eve! And yet, not a mention of the name of Jesus or Christ either in the great epistle reading from The Letter to the Hebrews or in the great gospel reading from the Prologue to The Gospel according to St. John! Plenty of mention in the carols, of course, but doesn’t seem a bit strange that on Christmas Eve, there is no mention in the Scripture readings of the name of Jesus Christ? No mention of Santa Claus, either, I suppose! And yet, this text is the great and definitive Christian Christmas message. “And the Word was made flesh.”

Christmas means the Mass of Christ; in short, the celebration of Christ. We celebrate the birth of Jesus in the simple and lowly scene of little Bethlehem. What does that mean? Why all the fuss and bother about another birth of another child from another time and in another world; long ago and far away, as it were? “What mean ye by this service?” Moses, in The Book of Exodus, asks in relation to the Passover. A question that defines the worship of Israel, it carries over for us, I think, into this and every service. What do we mean by the celebration of Christ and his nativity?

We could respond historically to say that His Birth quite literally changed the world, which is quite true. It placed the world upon an entirely new foundation, shaping cultures and generations yet to come, including even our own, despite its rage and spite against all things religious, despite its demand that religion, if it is to be allowed at all, serve our own immediate and practical concerns and interests. Whether His Birth will change you, make you look at yourself and one another in a new way, is another question.  The answer is really up to you in the sense of either pondering this mystery in your heart or running away from it in disgust, dismay, and denial. But the mystery remains. But what is that mystery?

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