If you have elderly parents, or are elderly yourself, you’re
probably familiar with the alarms worn around the neck or on a bracelet.
Someone living alone can summon help at the push of a button.
(I hasten to add that I have no personal experience with this,
since my mother certainly does not accept the label ‘elderly’!)
I was taking Communion to one of our seniors the other day,
and while I was there a technician came in to fix one of those alarms. As he
worked in the other room, the parishioner leaned forward, pointed to the device
around her neck, and said “I wouldn’t push this thing to save my life – they
come and take you to the hospital!
As I left her apartment, still smiling at her conspiratorial
comment, my thoughts turned to Christmas. It struck me that many of us are like
that feisty lady. We wear Christianity around our neck, even pay to maintain
our subscription, but we wouldn’t rely on it to save our life.
The Scriptures for this holy night challenge us to
think again. What’s the point of a lifeline if we don’t use it?
And there’s not much doubt that the Christian story is about
a first responder who comes to our side whenever we ask, not to drag us off to
somewhere we don’t want to go, but to pick us up off the floor, dress our
wounds, and heal our wounded hearts.
The prophecy of Isaiah in our first reading, the words of
St. Paul in our second, and the Angel’s message in tonight’s Gospel
all confirm that Christmas is not only good news, but the best news.
Isaiah was writing some 2700 years ago, but he was speaking
no less to us. If you know nothing of deep darkness, you have my hearty
congratulations; but most of us have spent time in that place of gloom whether
through failure, rejection, depression, or just the inevitable disappointments
of life that can weigh us down.
Look what he promised – light that overpowers the darkest
night, exultant joy, justice, righteousness, and most of all, peace. Not as a
reward for good behaviour, but as sheer gift, the gift of a child born for us.
St. Paul sums up this marvel in a few words: “the grace of
God has appeared, bringing salvation to all.” And he hints at the next chapter
in the story, referring to Jesus Christ as he who gave himself for us that he
might redeem us and purify us. You’ll have to come back at Easter to celebrate
that joy in its fullness.
And finally, the Angel’s proclamation. It is “good news of
great joy for all the people” because it fulfills the hope of the ages, again
bringing that gift most of us crave most of all: peace. A peace, as St. Paul
says elsewhere, that the world cannot give.
How is it possible to reduce the birth of Christ to the
background to our celebration of Christmas? Are we looking at the alarm button
of faith, of prayer, of hope, as an ornament rather than an invitation to
summon precisely the help we need and, if truth be told, want in the depth of
our hearts?
If we have turned aside from tonight’s true message,
it’s perhaps because we have not heard it proclaimed fully through the Word of
God. It reminds me of a story from something that happened when I was a young
teenager. One or two of my siblings and I were in my parents’ room watching
their TV while my father was organizing his bedroom drawers.
He’d dumped out the contents of one large drawer onto the
bed. The only thing that looked interesting was a bundle of envelopes tied up
with a red ribbon.
“Can I look at this?” I asked my father. “Sure,” he said in
a distracted way, concentrating on something else.
So one of us kids undid the ribbon and pulled out the
contents of the first envelope. We read aloud, “My dearest Jane…” at which
point my father turned around, grabbed the bundle and hastily put them away. It
was his love letters while courting my mother!
Our Heavenly Father does not object to us reading his love
letters. In fact, the Bible is one long love letter from God to his children. And
so we’re going to end our time of reflection tonight by listening to the Father speak to us in the words of Scripture, opening our hearts to the
love made visible at Bethlehem.
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