Christmas Homily on the Sign Given to the Shepherds

The Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord

At the Vigil Mass

N.B.: The following homily will be slightly edited for the Mass During the Night and for the Mass During the Day.

This evening, dear brothers and sisters, we have gathered “to sing the goodness of the Lord” at his altar because “tomorrow the wickedness of the earth will be destroyed” for “the Savior of the world will reign over us” (Psalm 89:2).[1] We have gathered to celebrate Christmas, to offer Christ’s Mass, because “the bells of Paradise now ring / With bells of Christendom, / And Gloria, Gloria we will sing / That God on earth is come.”[2]

It might seem strange that Mother Church assigns the Gospel passage we have just heard for this Vigil Mass of the Solemnity of the Lord. Those paying attention will recognize it as the same Gospel we heard last week on the Fourth Sunday of Advent. Saint Luke’s account - with the angels, the shepherds, and the manger, and with which we are most familiar at Christmas - is assigned to the Mass During the Night of the Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord.

The purpose of providing us with the story of the angel’s visitation to Saint Joseph this evening is to help prepare us for the Birthday of the only Savior of mankind. If we are to properly celebrate this great feast, we must remember what it means to await the arrival of him who is named “Emmanuel, which means ‘God is with us’” (Matthew 1:23; Isaiah 7:14).

We recall this evening that the angels said to those shepherds in their fields, “And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger” (Luke 2:12). In ancient Judea, this would not have been an uncommon scene, as most homes had a manger within them in which the animals would feed and in which children were laid for warmth. What is it, then, about such a scene that the angels said would be a sign for the shepherds?

Carrow Psalter, folio H

King Solomon, the son of King David, of whom the promised Messiah was be descended, said this: “In swaddling clothes and with constant care I was nurtured. For no king has any different origin or birth” (Wisdom 7:4-5). In like manner, the one adopted into the line of kings “is not wrapped in luxurious furs, silk, or fine fabrics, but he is wrapped in swaddling cloths, as [shepherds] would wrap their own babies, and is lying in a manger – a place they would also have used as a handy cradle for a newborn.”[3]

All of this is to say that the sign spoken of by the angels was something rather simple and ordinary, but at the same time also quite profound. It is as if the angels had said to the shepherds:

…the promised Messiah, the Lamb of God, the Shepherd of Israel, the Son of David, the Savior who is Christ the Lord, is born not as the grandiose heir of a royal princedom but as one of you – an ordinary shepherd of Bethlehem, and you’ll know this because He is just over yonder in the next village in a cave house just like yours, wrapped in swaddling clothes just like your babies, and lying in a manger – where you would place your newborn infants.[4]

We, these many centuries later, like to imagine Jesus’ Birth as something quite out of the ordinary. In reality, however, it was as common as they come. This – if I may say so - is precisely what makes his Birth significant.

If we are to sing the goodness of the Lord and to join in the angels’ hymn of “glory to God in the highest,” the ordinariness of the Birth of the Savior is what we must keep in mind (Luke 2:14). Indeed,

God’s sign is simplicity. God’s sign is the baby. God’s sign is that he makes himself small for us. This is how he reigns. He does not come with power and outward splendor. He comes as a baby – defenseless and in need of our help. He does not want to overwhelm us with his strength. He takes away our fear of his greatness. He asks for our love: so he makes himself a child. He wants nothing other from us than our love, through which we spontaneously learn to enter into his feelings, his thoughts and his will – we learn to live with him and to practice with him that humility of renunciation that belongs to the very essence of love. God made himself small so that we could understand him, welcome him, and love him.[5]

To say now that “God is with us” is no mere platitude; it is a statement of reality (Matthew 1:23). He is with us in our joys and delights, in our illnesses and sorrows, in our grief and mourning. He is with us in all things, whether we are heartsore and weary or cheerful and refreshed. This is the sign the angels announced to the shepherds.

The true wonder of Christmas does not consist in snow, fireplaces, presents, festive music, or hot chocolate. The true wonder of Christmas is that the only Son of God was born into the ordinariness of Bethlehem

to be the traveling companion of each one of us on our life's journey. In this world, from the very moment when he decided to pitch his ‘tent,’ no one is a stranger [cf. John 1:14]. It is true, we are all here in passing, but it is precisely Jesus who makes us feel at home on this earth, sanctified by his presence.[6]

The question before us this night is whether we will allow him to be our travelling companion as he desires to be. Will we bend low to embrace the Holy Infant? Will we allow him who is both “Christ and Lord” to take us by the hand and lead us to the Father’s side (Luke 2:10; John 1:18)?

Let us not be afraid to do so, so that the ordinariness of our lives might be graced by our divine traveling companion. Let us love the Babe of Bethlehem in every aspect of our lives to sing eternally with those angels, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests” (Luke 2:14). Amen.       

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[1] Gospel Acclamation for the Vigil Mass of the Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord.

[2] J.R.R. Tolkien, Noel.

[3] Dwight Longenecker, The Secret of the Bethlehem Shepherds (Manchester, New Hampshire: Sophia Institute Press, 2022), 100.

[4] Ibid., 101.

[5] Pope Benedict XVI, Homily, 24 December 2006.

[6] Ibid., Angelus Address, 24 December 2006.