Summary: As we remember again at Christmas the Incarnation of the infant in the manger, we remember not only the unwed teenager and her older boyfriend in that manger, but also the angelic voices that proclaimed that saving birth. Christmas is a time when we stand challenged to preach liberation and justice, over against a reductionist “makers/takers” narrative. It is for us in these days to proclaim a Gospel that has a preferential option for those who have been bereft of dignity and justice, a Gospel that dares to scatter the proud in their conceit. The Savior is nigh; O come let us adore Him.
By: Paul S. Marchand
What should we think, well into the second decade of the 21st century were we to encounter a teenage girl, obviously pregnant, situationally homeless, traveling with an older boyfriend who is not the father of her unborn child?
In a society all too quick to condemn and slow to consider, a society quick to judge and slow to understand, a society adept at jumping to conclusions and singularly inept at thinking things out, a society in which everything is permitted and nothing is forgiven, it would be easy on hearing such a word-picture to be led toward an angry, self-immiserating discourse on the social ills of contemporary American society.
It would be tempting.
Yet, such a word picture also recapitulates the infancy narrative set forth in Luke’s Gospel, describing the birth of our Savior in that famous manger in Bethlehem more than 2000 years ago.
The paradox of the Lucan infancy narrative is that instead of inviting our condemnation of the social transgressions of the pregnant teenager and her older boyfriend, it invites us to declare of this young girl: “Blessed art thou and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus.”
Across the millennia, Luke’s Gospel has spoken both to the paradox of the power inherent in powerlessness and of the human compunction ---the sense of “awwwww” we ineluctably feel in the presence of the smallest and weakest among us. In every generation, we have been drawn to the manger by the bidding of angelic voices.
O come let us adore Him.
For when the sound and the fury are over, the core of the Christmas story is not so much about gift-giving or solemn liturgies or Christmas trees or proclamations or mawkish and sentimental Christmas cards or even Bill O’Reilly’s delusional claims of some sort of war on Christmas. The Christmas story is about proclaiming liberation, about a preferential option for those who have been bereft of justice and dignity. It is about proclaiming a radical view of human dignity, inclusion, and social justice over against a dispensation that still, after 2000 years, insists upon organizing the world very much without reference to the teachings Infant in Bethlehem sought to impart to the world.
Christmas is about giving the lie and rebuking the reductionist “makers/takers” narrative that reflexively, even belligerently, takes the side of Dives over Lazarus. Christmas rebukes a sinful tendency to celebrate without shame the selfishness of the One Percent over the Ninety-Nine Percent. For into the world comes the Incarnate Word of a liberating God Who, in the words of the Magnificat, “has scattered the proud in their conceit.”
O come let us adore Him.
At Christmas, we stand challenged to proclaim our liberation and our proclamation of a passionate gospel of justice. At Christmas we stand challenged to bear witness to a passionate God, Whose passionate love for us is passionately expressed in the Incarnation of the Infant in the manger. Instead of “putting the ‘Christ’ back in Christmas,” perhaps we should put the Mass back in Christmas, in sharing human companionship, human compunction, and human charity, and by breaking bread together both in our holiday meal and in the context of the Holy Eucharist. These are the gifts that come when we recount the infancy narratives and when we break the bread and share the cup together.
Samuel Johnson once noted that nothing concentrates a man’s mind is so marvelously as the knowledge that he is to be hanged in a fortnight. By the same token, few things concentrate a family’s mind more marvelously than the birth of an infant. It focuses the familial mind on what must be done to safeguard that infant and to create a better future. The infancy narrative at the foundation of our Christmas understanding demands of us the most careful, prayerful consideration of what we must do to build a better future, Urbi et Orbi -- for Cathedral City and the world. Our Christmas gift, this year and every year that follows, is a renewed commitment to the kind of social justice and Savior in the manger came into this world to proclaim.
O come let us adore Him.
“The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn.” Isa. 61:1-2.
For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given, Who shall be called the Prince of Peace.
The Savior is nigh. O come let us adore Him.
Merry Christmas.
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PAUL S. MARCHAND is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City. The views contained herein are his own; he’s not speaking ex cathedra on behalf of any entity, denomination, diocese or parish. The views herein are not legal advice, and should not be taken as such.
