Breath of the Spirit

RVC’s Weekly Spiritual Essay

 

December 25, 2004: CHRISTMAS: EUCHARIST AT MIDNIGHT

 

 

Readings:

Isaiah 9:1-5

Titus 2:11-14

Luke 2:1-14

 

 

We often miss the most obvious point our sacred authors are trying to make. Reading only small hunks of their writings, we overlook their overall theology. No one liturgical reading can provide us with the broad brush strokes which the writers employ to create their works.

 

This certainly is the case with Luke. In both his gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, he presents his theology against the background of journey. Frequently in Luke’s double-volume work, someone is either on the road or planning to go on the road. He’s the Charles Kuralt of biblical theologies.

 

His pattern starts with Jesus’ birth. Contradicting Matthew, who presumes Joseph and Mary already live in Bethlehem, Luke must get the sacred couple to David’s City for Jesus’’ birth. So he conveniently posits a Roman census (which no historian has yet surfaced) to force the pair to leave Nazareth and travel to Bethlehem. But they’re not the only travelers in today’s pericope. Even the shepherds are told by the angel to travel to David’s City to see the “savior born to you.”

 

Luke knows his Scripture. Already in the Genesis 12 call of Abraham and Sarah – the first Jews – Yahweh insists that people of faith move. God never tells anyone, “Stay here! Don’t budge!” Luke presumes that when Mary told the angel, “Let it be done to me according to your will!” she immediately began to pack.

 

Biblical conversion always presumes a change. It might not be an actual move from one piece of real estate to another, but at least a mental change of direction. Jesus certainly demands such a change. In his basic “stump speech,” he insists that anyone who wants to follow him “repent.” The Greek word, “metanoia,” which lies behind this command, refers to a change in one’s value system. Jesus expects us to move from one way of looking at things to another; eventually to reach a frame of mind which touches God’s frame of mind. We’re expected to move from our value system to God’s value system.

 

Isaiah expects no less of his audience. Though Christians have traditionally held that the “child born to us, (the) son given to us” is Jesus, Scripture scholars are convinced that the boy is actually King Ahaz’ son, Hezekiah. The prophet is simply informing his 8^th century BCE community that the “abundant joy and great rejoicing” they’re expecting will come about by God working through the ordinary events of their lives. There’s no necessity for “external forces” to step in and replace the natural forces which already determine their destiny. If people let Hezekiah’s natural, God-given goodness play itself out, they’ll eventually see the “great light” of peace for which they long. The Israelites don’t need a heavenly change of leadership; they only need to change to move a little, to discover a new angle from which to view the natural succession of leaders which Yahweh has already brought about. They have to journey to a new frame of mind.

 

The unknown author of the letter to Titus makes the same pitch. Writing to people who already believe Jesus is their savior, he insists that they also move. Just believing that Jesus embodies the “blessed hope” Christian anticipate, doesn’t necessarily make that hope a reality. Before we can experience what this hope offers we must change our value system. As the author puts it, “…Reject godless ways and worldly desires … Live temperately, justly and devoutly in this age…!”

 

It’s impossible to take a “still photograph” of a true believer. He or she is constantly in motion. If not moving their bodies, they’re certainly moving their minds; always changing their perspective of reality, always seeing things they’ve never before noticed. If they continue on the journey, they’ll eventually begin to see things, people and events as God sees them.