READINGS

Luke 2:16-21

HOMILY

We have the shepherds, who have just been told by the angels of all the glory that is to be found in the fulfilling of a sign in the house of David in Bethlehem.

Remember: the glory of the sign. What was the sign?

The sign was the one that Isaiah had initially tried to give to King Ahaz: ask a sign of the mother of your God.

In most of our translations, it says 'ask a sign of the Lord your God', but the text found in Qumran says 'ask a sign of the mother of your God'.

This suggests that the original Hebrew referred still back to the time when the royal queen was considered to be linked to the mother Goddess, before all that was expelled from the temple in Josiah's time.

And it was promised to be coming back, the fulfillment of all that: all the things that being expelled was going to come back, but in an entirely surprisingly new way.

This is part of what the angels had told the shepherds.

Remember, those untrustworthy ones, those people who lived in shame rather than in glory, those powerless ones.

They were to go to the place where this was to happen, which would turn out not to be the place that King David thought it would happen - the temple, the Holy Place (that solomon would set up) -, but in his own house: the house of David in Bethlehem.

Moreover, that the sign would be fulfilled in a manger, which is a pun on the word 'Jerusalem'(a very lowly form of Jerusalem).

All this is part of what is in the background.

So the shepherds went with haste and they found Mary and Joseph and the child lying in the manger.

What looks like simply a photo shoot of something that was there is, in fact, already in their minds: the fulfillment, in a completely bizarre way, of the most grandiose prophecies of old.

They have come to see the real Mother of God, because the firstborn has in fact been born in the manger rather than the Holy Place in Jerusalem.

This is the reality of all the drama, the liturgical drama of temples and all that the reality that was born is this maiden, this virgin, who has given both to the firstborn son and laid him in a manger.

The Mother of God has made it possible for the Lord to come into the world.

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

In other words, the shepherds were telling the bystanders very much what i'm telling you: that's hence the amazement.

They were saying:

listen, you think that this is just someone giving birth in a stable ha ha ha... 

little do you know what's really going on here is that the Mother of God has given birth to the firstborn the Lord

This is the promised sign, this is the beginning of the fulfillment of Creation.

That's what we've seen with all the angels giving glory, because the angels giving glory is the sign that Creation is being fulfilled.

Something vastly richer than what seems to be going on is available here.

And amongst all the people who were amazed, well, there was Mary herself, the Mother of God.

She'd been tipped off that she was about to be the portal, the Holy Place.

That she was to be the Ark of the Covenant bearing the covenant inside.

Gabriel had told her; Elizabeth had confirmed it; John the Baptist had done his little belly dance to make the point.

Here Mary treasures all these words and ponders them in her heart.

So here we have the Mother of God who is also the first incarnation of wisdom.

What is interesting is that this is now interactional: the incarnation, the coming into the world of the Lord is interactional.

There is interaction going to go on now for the whole of her life between her and her son and then with all the brothers, whom her son will bring into her life, all the brothers and sisters.

She is about to become the mother of us all, the mother of all of us, who have been born into the new world of becoming sons and daughters of the most high.

That's the purpose of our Galatians reading:

when the appointed time came, God sent his son born of a woman; born a subject of the law to redeem the subject of the law

So that was the first understanding: to redeem the subjects of the law.

So they no longer needed to sacrifice sheep instead of their firstborn, because he was going to make the redemption for them, to enable us to be adopted as sons.

That was why we are sent the Holy Spirit after his death.

The Holy Spirit meaning that we are now on the inside.

We are part of that incarnational stretching out that came into being, because of the virgin.

The spirit that cries abba father; it is this that makes you a son or daughter of God.

You're not a slave anymore. You're no longer part of bowed down Creation, which that doesn't know where it's going: you're blind to its purposes.

The Holy Virgin giving birth to her son and thus enabling us in principle already to start being considered sons and daughters of the most High and therefore heirs on the inside of the fullness of Creation.

This is part of what the shepherds would have been sharing with the bystanders and with the Virgin who's thinking about this herself.

The shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen as it had been told.

In other words, they are able to rejoice with the same joy that the angels were rejoicing.

They've already begun to see the beginning of the fulfillment of Creation.

From the place of shame and contempt, which they are occupied.

And the Old Testament reading, which we're given today, brings out something similar and special about this.

It's the ironic blessing:

may the Lord bless you and keep you;
may the Lord let his face shine on you and be gracious to you; 
may the Lord uncover his face to you and bring you peace.

What was it that the shepherds came to?

The shepherds came and saw - for the first time - the completely authentic Aaronic blessing, because they saw the face.

What was the babe wrapped in soddling clothes presumably not the babe's face.

They came and they gazed upon the face of the Lord - the Lord's face -smiling upon them, which was the blessing of the most High.

The ironic Aaronic blessing had been a prophetic blessing.

And here, at last, in this place of bizarre fulfillment, the real thing had come upon them.

We are invited into being the ones who will receive that blessing upon whom the face of the Lord shown to us through the Holy Spirit will shine upon us and make us shine as well.

This is part of the mystery of the interaction of the incarnation, which the wisdom that is creating and opening up the world to Creation is kept alive and we are invited in to a new safe projecting opening up family, in which we will be insiders in the opening up of Creation.