Year B Christmas Eve 2023 800 years ago and tonight

Year B Christ Mass, 24 December 2023

St. James the Less Episcopal, Ashland, VA

“800 Years Ago, and Tonight”

Collect: O God, you have caused this holy night to shine with the brightness of the true Light: Grant that we, who have known the mystery of that Light on earth, may also enjoy him perfectly in heaven; where with you and the Holy Spirit he lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

Luke 2:1-20

In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see-- I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger." And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,

"Glory to God in the highest heaven,

and on earth peace among those whom he favors!"

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us." So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

Merry Christmas, friends. The Lord is born. The Lord is born, indeed.

In this season where the nights slowly begin to be shorter we come to celebrate the Light of God who came into the world. We come as those who wandered in the Darkness far too long. We so long for the light, we so need it.

Our headlines scream for a Prince of Peace. In what we call the Holy Land there is terror and war. O Come, O Come, Emmanuel and ransom captive Israel.

And in the midst of our need, in a town of little importance in a minor province on the edge of an Empire devoted only to itself, God chose to enter history in the fullness of time and make his Way of Love clear and without debate as God’s Will. He did it through his only Son, full of Grace and Truth.

Tonight we embrace this idea which seems so long ago. Just a wee bit over 2,000 years ago, the Lord was born. The Lord was born, indeed! 

We stretch back to 2,000 years ago to the first Christmas. And we are given some of what happened. Shepherds came that night, and sometime in the next three years Wise Men appeared from the East. Maybe the family went to Egypt to run from Herod. It is all possible, and some of it debatable. 1,200 years after that, though, we have a bit more of the details.

800 years ago tonight we have a better understanding of what took place. Francis, a deacon in the Church of God, wanted those in the village near where he was to have an unforgettable experience celebrating the coming of the Christ child. The place was the mountain village of Grecio, overlooking a beautiful valley, the hillside covered in abundant vineyards so famous in that part of Italy. 

He had been praying and fasting only 60 miles from his hometown, Assisi. He had returned from the Crusades where he had been imprisoned in Egypt, not for waging war, but for preaching to the Caliph and those in his court. He had been imprisoned not for heresy, but he was so devout and sincere, the Caliph was actually tempted to accept this message of the Resurrected Lord. He jailed Francis for being too holy, too devout, too persuasive that there could be a better way.

Francis got an eye infection in the prison and suffered from it and its effects for the rest of his life. When he returned home his followers had abandoned most of his way of simplicity and possessing nothing. He decided to keep doing what they had been attracted to in the first place. Most of them had assumed he had gone on the Crusade to be martyred anyway. When he came home, they didn’t know what to do with this walking saint. So most had no problem with him going away to pray and recover. 

While in isolation at the hermitage to devote his full self to prayer. Deeply moved to make real the reality of Christmas for the villagers in Grecio, he wanted to make this story that we all know maybe a bit too well into something tangible.

He wanted to shift the story from words repeated to something incarnational. St. Bonaventure’s account is said to be the best of that night exactly 8 centuries back.

It happened in the third year before his death, that in order to excite the inhabitants of Grecio to commemorate the nativity of the Infant Jesus with great devotion, [St. Francis] determined to keep it with all possible solemnity; and lest he should be accused of lightness or novelty, he asked and obtained the permission of the sovereign Pontiff. Then he prepared a manger, and brought hay, and an ox and an ass to the place appointed. The brethren were summoned, the people ran together, the forest resounded with their voices, and that venerable night was made glorious by many and brilliant lights and sonorous psalms of praise. The man of God [St. Francis] stood before the manger, full of devotion and piety, bathed in tears and radiant with joy; the Holy Gospel was chanted by Francis, the Levite of Christ. Then he preached to the people around the nativity of the poor King; and being unable to utter His name for the tenderness of His love, He called Him the Babe of Bethlehem. 

So there with the manger, a live donkey and ox, this simple preacher invoked the Babe of Bethlehem. Chanting God’s word, invoking the incarnate Lord. This poor King. With passion and tears, he invited those devoted who gathered that night to see the Babe with the eyes of faith. He was so moved he could not even say the name of Jesus. This name above all names. This name which is a sermon unto itself. Jesus in the Greek. Joshua in the Hebrew. Both come from the root words which are God (or Yahweh) Saves. Knowing this, Francis choked up. He could not even utter that holy name above all names, and only spoke to this “Babe of Bethlehem.” 

St. Bonaventure goes on…

A certain valiant and veracious soldier, Master John of Grecio, who, for the love of Christ, had left the warfare of this world, and become a dear friend of this holy man, affirmed that he beheld an Infant marvelously beautiful, sleeping in the manger, Whom the blessed Father Francis embraced with both his arms, as if he would awake Him from sleep. 

There was no middle school Mary or unbearded Joseph in his father’s bathrobe. Animals and a feeding trough, and a man so passionately devoted to Jesus that people called him a living saint. And there, a man who had left his weapons of war behind to follow the Prince of Peace and his devoted servant Francis. Master John is given a gift. He sees a vision, the Babe of Bethlehem there in that trough, blinking and breathing, gurgling and cooing. Bound in strips of cloth, asleep on the hay. He sees Francis embracing him and loving him.

And just like with the Grinch, a miracle happened up on the mountain that Christmas Eve. A tradition of incarnation began, and miracles from it emerged. Bonaventure goes on to what continued from that simple first Nativity scene.

This vision of the devout soldier is credible, not only by reason of the sanctity of him that saw it, but by reason of the miracles which afterwards confirmed its truth. For example of Francis, if it be considered by the world, is doubtless sufficient to excite all hearts which are negligent in the faith of Christ; and the hay of that manger, being preserved by the people, miraculously cured all diseases of cattle, and many other pestilences; God thus in all things glorifying his servant, and witnessing to the great efficacy of his holy prayers by manifest prodigies and miracles.

800 years of re-enactments, 800 years of people making the there-and-then the here-and-now. 800 years of us doing our best to avoid “lightness and novelty” as Francis feared. When we do it in a few weeks, our children will step into the roles so that they can remember for their whole lives that they are in the story, too. So much more than them being awfully cute, which admittedly they are.

In preparing for tonight I found this summation and I will close with it tonight. Father William Saunders wrote this…

“Although the story is long old, the message is clear for us. Our own Nativity scenes which rest under our Christmas trees are a visible reminder of that night when our Savior was born. May we never forget to see in our hearts the little Babe of Bethlehem, who came to save us from sin. We must never forget that the wood of the manger that held Him so securely would one day give way to the wood of the cross. May we too embrace Him with all of our love as did St. Francis.”

For that is what we do in our yearly remembrances. 

We make a space for Jesus. 

We use all that we have to see him real in our lives. 

Then we embrace him with all that we are and with all that we have. 

And that is how we make our Christmas real. Amen