The Boy Born to Be The Bread of Heaven
O gracious Light,
pure brightness of the everliving Father in heaven,
O Jesus Christ, holy and blessed!
Now as we come to the setting of the sun,
and our eyes behold the vesper light,
we sing thy praises, O God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Thou art worthy at all times to be praised by happy voices,
O Son of God, O Giver of life,
and to be glorified through all the worlds.
This ancient 3rd or 4th century hymn is from a collection of early Christian hymns to be sung in the morning, the evening, and at meals. It is sung at candle lighting rituals, and often at Evening Prayer in our Book of Common Prayer (1979). It seems to sum up why we gather on Christmas Eve: to sing praises to Jesus Christ, the Christ Child, the Light of the World. To praise him with happy voices! To glorify his name through all the worlds!
Luke’s telling of the birth came during a time of great disruption. The Emperor Augustus ordered that everyone return to their hometown to be registered. It was a census. It resulted in a great migration. Joseph and Mary had to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem. That’s about 70 miles by foot or by donkey, at twenty miles per day, a rocky and dusty four-day journey, and she being great with child. Try to imagine if everyone in the U.S. had to return home, and you might get some idea what a disruption this really was. A tactic of control on behalf of the Empire.
Bethlehem, literally means “House of Bread.” It was the breadbasket of Israel. And home to a shepherd boy become king, David. David of the House of Bread, a distant ancestor of Joseph of Nazareth. After four hard days of travel, there are no rooms available. Which was surely true in every town so the Empire knows who and where people are to be taxed to maintain the Roman Legions keeping the region under the thumb of the Emperor. The result is many homeless people.
Mary gives birth to a baby boy. The child is wrapped in swaddling cloths and laid in a manger – a wood or stone feeding trough for animals. They find themselves with the animals as there is no room in the inn – which is a misleading translation of the Greek word, kataluma. This is no Motel Six. There’s no chocolate on the pillow. It’s a kataluma, possibly a caravansary - often a large two-story building surrounding a courtyard with a well. The upper story of the building has lodging for travelers, the lower story is where animals were kept. Or, it may be a private home, perhaps friends or relatives of Joseph, where again people lodged on the second floor where there may be one or two guest chambers, which alas are filled. Either way, Mary and Joseph end up with the animals and a manger for a bed. The wood of the manger is the hard wood of the Cross. Foreshadowing at its best!
If it was indeed a caravansary, no doubt there would be eating and drinking going on up above them, so being with the animals may have been a plus – it was likely more quiet, away from whatever drinking, gambling, and the inevitable fighting among various competing caravans looking to cash-in on whatever they were bringing to market. And the animals might make it a bit warmer in the mid-winter, even if it was somewhat malodorous.
It is interesting, though, isn’t it. There is the contrast between the opulence and unchecked greed of the Empire on one hand, and a rather humble birth place for a child born to be the Son of God, or God incarnate. He who would one day pronounce that he was to become bread, born in the House of Bread. He who would instruct his closest friends and followers that to eat the bread he blesses is to eat his flesh. This child who one day we come to consume in a Sacred Meal spends his first night, or nights, in a feeding trough. The Body of Christ, the Bread of Heaven.
But talk about disruption! The public announcement of the birth of this child takes place outside of the House of Bread – in a field, where some shepherds tend to their flocks. Shepherds were near the very bottom of the social rankings. Often slaves, they were considered unreliable. They were prohibited from testifying in a court of law! Yet, God sends messengers, a great host of messengers, to make them the first people on Earth to know who this child is to become: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. Can we hear them, like Mary before them, shouting out, “How can this be?
They race into town, find Mary and Joseph in the kataluma, and the baby lying in a manger. This unreliable group of shepherds then proceed to tell Mary and Joseph the news the angels had told them. Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth Good Will to those whom God favors – which seems not to be the Emperor, not to be the Empire, but people like these lowly shepherds. It’s all too much. And yet, it is everything. The child shines with the brightness of his everliving Father in heaven!
Years ago, at a midnight mass in a little church in Nicaragua, some peasants in a Christian commune called Solentiname, led by a priest, Ernesto Cardinal, who invited them to comment on this story Luke tells us this evening about the birth of Christ. Rebeca said, “From the moment of his birth, God chose conditions like the poorest person’s, didn’t he? I don’t think God wants a great banquet or a lot of money or for business to make profits off the celebration of his birth.” Felix chimed in, “The Scriptures are perfectly clear. The fact is that Christ was born a poor little child, like the humblest person. The Scriptures keep telling us this, and I don’t understand why we don’t see it?” A young man there said, “With today’s Gospel, it seems to me that no poor person should feel looked down upon. Christ is with us poor people.” The birth of this child was destined to become a larger disruption than the Emperor’s census!
Father Cardinal once said, “The peasants began to
understand the core of the Gospel message: the announcement of the kingdom of
God, that is, the establishment on this earth of a just society without
exploiters or exploited..” Just as Israel under Augustus and Rome was not a
just society. Nicaragua was under the fiefdom of the Somoza family, which the
United States sustained in repressive power for over 50 years. The Somoza regime
eventually sent the military to Solentiname to rape, pillage, and destroy the
people, the commune, and use the church for military barracks to keep the
Gospel from being spread. Thanks to an Empire bureaucrat named Herod, the same thing
happens to Bethlehem, which forced Joseph to take Mary and Jesus to immigrate to
safety in Egypt.
The child born that night in the kataluma is believed
by many throughout the years to be a Light to the World, who shines light on
unjust societies while giving birth to a new world of justice and peace for all
people; a world that respects the dignity of every human being. And so, we
light the final candle on the Advent Wreath, and sing one of the most ancient
hymns of the church to praise his Light, to praise his name, and to remember
the kind of world he wants us to hope and imagine is possible. It all begins in
a lowly manger – a feeding trough, among animals on a cold winter’s night that
was so deep. O come, let us adore him; O come, let us adore him; O come let us
adore him, Christ the Lord.
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