Brothers and Sisters, we’re very close to Christmas or, better, Christmas is very close to us.
“Bring us back, O God”, bring us back to what really matters, bring us back to the awareness you are real and love us. “Let your face shine forth”, the face of the child of Bethlehem. And “we shall be saved”, we shall be safe, we shall have a light to save us.
Today’s three readings are like three fingers pointing us to Bethlehem; three sketches, three artistic impressions, of who it is who comes to us at Christmas. This is the focus to have. “Let your face shine forth!” The face of whom? Who is the One who comes?
The prophet Micah, eight centuries before Christ, draws a first sketch: he is a new David, the Messiah. He’ll come from Bethlehem, David’s home village. He’ll have a mother. His origin, though, goes back further still; there’s a hint of eternity here. He’ll be a gathering point for the scattered. He’ll be a brother to us, a shepherd, a ruler. He’ll be great to the ends of the earth. He’ll be our peace.
Then we heard the Letter to the Hebrews, writing after the coming of Christ and looking back. It’s another sketch. He’s the author of a new relationship with God, brought about not by sacrificing animals but by the offering of himself on the Cross, consecrating us to God through his own body.
And then in the Gospel, jumping back a little, as Mary, freshly pregnant by the Holy Spirit, visits her elderly cousin. And as she comes through the door of her cottage and greets Elizabeth, Elizabeth’s own baby does a little ballet in her womb, and Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit. She looks at Mary and paints her in words: “Blessed are you among women”, that is, you, my young little cousin, you’re the most favoured woman ever, “and blessed is the fruit of your womb”, you carry inside you the most precious person ever. You’re the “mother of my Lord” – the mother of the Messiah, with that word ‘Lord’ also suggesting he’s something greater still.
“Let your face shine forth”: three very different readings, three voices from different times and places, first sketches, somewhat kaleidoscopic. Through the lattice of these inspired words, we can glimpse afresh who he is. We are reminded once again of what our faith has already told us. We’re invited to go deeper, come closer. The grace of Christmas is Christ being born again in us – with ourselves a Bethlehem to register him, a stable to shelter him and a manger to hold him. There is a face shining on us now, a centre and a focus for our lives, a still point. I remember a woman saying after having her first child, “I don’t know what I was doing with myself until I had him.” That’s what we should all say, the whole world should say, when we realise Who’s born in Bethlehem. May Mary, mother of our Lord, mother of God incarnate, make this our Christmas. Everyone of us can conceive Christ by faith, carry him in our hearts with love, bring him into the world by what we do.
So, brothers and sisters, here in this Cathedral church, this Bethlehem, we will have carols at 11.30 on Tuesday night leading with the Christmas Mass at midnight, with further Masses at 8 and 11 on Christmas Day.
And this year there’s more. On Christmas Eve in Rome, at 7pm continental time, the Holy Father will open the Holy Door of St Peter’s Basilica and begin the Jubilee year of 2025. A Jubilee year falls every 25 years. It’s a a special time, a time of mercy and forgiveness and fresh inspiration, a sacramental, that is, an occasion of grace. On Christmas Eve, the Pope opens it for the whole Church throughout the world. Next Sunday, feast of the Holy Family, each bishop will open it for their dioceses in their Cathedrals, by putting in place a special Cross for the year. That will happen here next Sunday, the feast of the Holy Family, with the 11am Mass.
This Jubilee year is an encouragement to hope – to hope in God however confused and dark our current history feels, to hope for those who have no hope, and in that hope to move forward – not to curl up and die, not to turn in on ourselves, but to keep doing good with others and for the world around us. To be pilgrims of hope, setting our sights on the Kingdom of God.
“Too much information”, we might feel. But simply: Christmas is close and with this year’s Christmastide goes the opening of a Jubilee Year. And the grace of it all is simply this: a face shining forth on our lives.
St Mary’s Cathedral, Aberdeen, 22 December 2024
