Bishop Glen John Provost
Bishop of Lake Charles
Christmas 2013
December 25, 2013
Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception
“Now there were shepherds in that region living in the fields and keeping the night watch over their flock.” Luke 2:8
When I read that verse from the Gospel, I am struck at the ordinary circumstances. The shepherds on that first Christmas night were doing what they had been doing for years—“keeping the night watch over their flock” (Luke 2:8). They were doing, no doubt, what their fathers and grandfathers had done for generations before them. But a night like any other was soon to be turned into a night like no other. The shepherds, I would like to think, had the eyes of faith.
People who have eyes of faith are ready to see the unexpected. St. Luke begins his account of the birth of Christ by describing the great men and events of his world. Caesar Augustus decrees a census, while Quirinius is governor of Syria. And this sets in motion the movement toward Bethlehem of two humble figures, Joseph and Mary, who gives birth to her son in a manger “because there was no room for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7).
What the shepherds had in common with Joseph and Mary was their faith. Their Jewish faith was not some superficial veneer. Their faith motivated their lives, gave meaning to everything they did, and, most importantly, gave them hope.
The hope of the Jewish people was rooted in their expectation for a Messiah. They knew the prophecies. They had heard, read and they probably knew by heart that wondrous passage from Isaiah: “For a child is born to us, a son is given us; upon his shoulder dominion rests. They name him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:5). Joseph and Mary, along with the shepherds, were waiting. They knew not when or how, but they trusted in God’s promises. He would not disappoint them.
The surprise was not that God would act. Of this they were confident. What was unexpected was how. God would come not in the palace of a king or in some terrestrial event of mammoth proportions. He would act in the life of a humble virgin of Nazareth, in a small town, and reveal Himself in a feeding trough for animals, no less. And the first to worship Him would be poor shepherds who were minding their own business, doing what they had done for generations.
How much do we miss the point of Christmas? First, we must approach Christmas with the eyes of faith. This is where we sometimes make our first mistake, because we think that faith is some mysterious lightning bolt from heaven that strikes us and we are transformed. But “faith the size of a mustard seed” could transplant a tree (Luke 17:6), Jesus tells us. It reminds me of a friend who once told me, “Oh, how I wish I had faith.” “But you already do,” I said. You cannot utter that prayer and not have some openness to faith to which God will respond. God is conceived in the womb of a virgin mother and sends angels to shepherds. He is God of the unexpected and He comes to those who are simple enough to receive Him with “faith the size of a mustard seed.” He is God of the marvelous.
Second, I think, we miss the point of Christmas if we do not see its simplicity. Shepherds at their work and a family traveling to be enrolled in a census—these are simple things. The mother preparing Christmas dinner, the family visiting a homebound relative, a youth group singing Christmas carols to the elderly, welcoming the stranger—these are Christmas moments. Christmas is not about how many presents are under the tree or how many video games we can play or how many football games we can watch. Christmas is not about the mad rush to attend every possible office party or to pack the day with frantic visits. No, Christmas is about the couple who cannot find a room at the inn or the poor shepherds hearing “good news of great joy”—like the family who had fallen on hard times and a stranger paid their child’s tuition, or like the stranger I once saw secretly pay the bill of an older lady eating alone in a restaurant. These are the acts of kindness that flow from the moment of Christmas, and they are as simple as a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes.
May we not complicate our lives and miss the simplicity of God. May we see Christmas with the eyes of faith, gazing upon a God who in a simple way has done marvelous deeds.