the mercy of God in Christmas - Christmas 2015

Before we start our reflection let us first do some rearranging in our belens kay kon kaisa kadamo lang sang gina-presuppose naton nga yara sa belen pero actually wala gid man kontani dira.   The gospels of Matthew and Luke are the sources of what our belen should look like. 

So, first, they never mentioned that there were donkeys, cows and horses in the place where Jesus was born.  Yes, Jesus was born in a place meant to shelter animals, but Matthew and Luke never mentioned an animal present during his birth.  Two years ago the seminarians and myself made a belen and we had not only cows and donkeys and horses but also giraffes, elephants, deer, antelopes, lions and tigers.  A seminarian who was more insightful than the rest of us asked, “was Jesus born in a zoo?”  Another seminarian replied, “no we are not making a belen, we are making Noah’s ark.”

Second, there was never a mention that an angel was in the vicinity of the place where Jesus was born.  As you have heard from the gospel the shepherds to whom the angels appeared and sung Glory to God in the highest were not in Bethlehem.  They were in the region but they were not in Bethlehem yet.  That is why after the angels returned to heaven the shepherds said to one another, “come let us go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place.”  And so they went.  In fact Mary and Joseph did not know that angels appeared at the birth of their son until they were told by the shepherds themselves.

Third, Jesus was wrapped in swaddling clothes.  Do we know what a swaddling cloth is?  It is a cloth used to wrap the baby all over, except the head, to restrict its movement so that it could sleep better.    Kon sayuron ginputos si Jesus.  Ginputos except the head.  Our baby Jesus today with only a diaper, with arms outstretched ready to embrace us and smiling is for photo-op only, para sa selfie.  And beside kon nagdiaper lang sia didto sa belen I think Jesus will die not on the cross but on a crib because of pneumonia, tinugnawan.

And fourth, and this is the more important and serious one, fourth, in Luke’s version it was the shepherds who came to the place where Jesus was born, but in Matthew’s version it was the Magi.  I don’t think they met each other.  But that detail is important, this detail should not be missed. 

Since we are reading Luke’s version let us ask why Luke deemed it necessary to highlight the announcement of the birth of the Messiah by the angels to the shepherds.  Not to kings, not to the nobility, not to the middle class but to shepherds.  Why the shepherds?

And another question should be asked, why is it that the church this day, the most solemn of days, wants us to hear the good news of the birth of the messiah by the angel not with kings, not with the nobility, not with the middle class but with the shepherds – we are hearing the good news with the shepherds. Why the shepherds?

Society during the time of Jesus had stereotyped shepherds as liars, degenerates, and thieves. For example, the testimony of shepherds was not admissible in court, not for anything, but because he is a shepherd.

The religious would also look down on shepherds since doing their work as shepherds they cannot observe the Sabbath which makes them therefore ritually unclean. The Pharisees classed shepherds with tax collectors and prostitutes, persons who were "sinners" by virtue of their work.    

So you are a shepherd, and you are down there in the field, you are avoided and shunned by decent and religious people, and you want to approach God, but people say God shuns you, God does not like you, and so you are disappointed even with God.  You don’t want to get into religion anymore because your mistakes and disappointments in life have made you ignoble and shameful before God.  And so you give up on God.  For so long, you have given up on God.

But God does not give up on you.  Today God sends his angels to the shepherds, to people who have given up on him. How would you respond to God sending his angels to you when you had given up on Him? Like the shepherds, you would be struck with fear, you would be terrified, as Luke recorded.   The mercy of God can be terrifying to a people so used to having no God; the mercy of God can be terrifying to people who are used to think that God had already condemned them;  the mercy of God can struck fear a people who have put God away, as he serves only as a painful reminder of what they can never get from society or what they can never get from the church,.

The mercy of God can be terrifying when you have lived your whole life ostracized, bullied, ignored, detested and shunned. 

Mercy can be terrifying when society and church have labelled you an outsider because you are unmarried in church, because you are separated from your wedded wife or husband, it can be terryfying because you are a single mother, you are a homosexual. Yes, the mercy of God can struck fear, it can be startling news.  Nevertheless it is good news.

Mercy can be terrifying when since teenage years your family has shunned, your parents took offense on you, your brothers and sisters ignore you, because you are an addict, the black sheep, the burden in the family, the shame, the one who did not finish college.  Yes, the mercy of God can struck fear, it can be startling news.  Nevertheless, it is good news.

Mercy can be terrifying to one burdened by regret, to one who has always thought his deeds unforgivable, his crime too great to pardoned, his infidelity too vivid to be forgotten. Mercy can be terrifying to one who thought he is going to live forever in the shadow of his past.  Yes, the mercy of God can struck fear, it can be startling news.  Nevertheless, it is good news.

The angel announcing the birth of the savior can be terrifying to one who have distanced themselves from God and the church.  The mercy of God can startling news.  But it is good news.

It is said that during Christmas time there is a high incidence of suicide.  But isn’t it supposedly that the light of Christmas should dispel the darkness of our night?  It should be.  But for many people the light we celebrate today strongly contrasts to the darkness within, and it serves only to make blaringly visible the pain, the loneliness, and the past hurts.

The church wants us to hear the good news with the shepherds so that we too can become merciful like the Father, so that we too can become bringers of the good news of God’s mercy to people we have considered outsiders for so long.  The church wants us to hear the good news with the shepherds so that we too can become angels sent to announce the good news to those who never expect any good news from us or from God.

This is the story of Christmas in the gospel of Luke.  This is the story of the shepherds.

So how would your belens look like when you go home after mass tonight?  I don’t know.  Probably it would look the same, a hodgepodge of so events, of so many presuppositions, of so many details many of which we invented ourselves. Don’t worry, it’s ok.  But let us not forget the real intent, the nutshell, the bottom-line of today’s celebration and of every story that our belens would evoke in us – that Jesus is born to people who need him most, Jesus is born  for people who need God’s mercy, forgiveness, and understanding, and it was precisely to them that the angels first announced this good news.

This Christmas may we become merciful as the Father is merciful.