In our Gospel today we hear the Similes of Salt and Light used to describe some of our mission here on earth. In olden times, salt was used as a preservative, though in those days the sources of salt were often impure, and so the salt could become insipid. If this happened, there was no way to restore its usefulness and it simply needed to be thrown out. The reason that salt is being used in this simile is to describe the preserving influence we are called to take part in as followers of Christ. You could interpret this as the preservation of His teachings, but also as the preservation of the well-being of our brothers and sisters whom we are called to care for. Yet, when we do not help our brothers and sisters in this way, our own usefulness or discipleship as followers of Christ is called into question.  Likewise, when we hear of the light, we are indeed called to be a light to the world, to be a source of illumination to others, like a lamp set upon a lampstand where it can be of use to all within the radius of the light that it casts forth. To allow others to see and hear God’s word and commands in our actions and in our conversations with them. In short, the call is to be an example to others, and a laborer for spreading God’s message to all.

In our first reading today, the prophet Isaiah pretty well paints the picture of what the Gospel calls us to do, and what that will look like in practical terms. The points are simple and common sensical, yet as we all know sense is often anything but common. If we see someone in need who is hungry, we are called to feed them, if they are without clothing, we are called to share some of our own – and most importantly, never simply turn our backs on them. Over the years I have spoken to many people in need, often those who were homeless, and the one thing that is consistently seen by them as far worse than being without even the necessities of life, is to be ignored. When they are passed by like they do not even exist, it is a poignant and incredibly painful statement as to their worth. This is incidentally not something confined to those who are homeless. If you walk into any assisted living facility in this town, or any other, you will see those who sit there day to day waiting for acknowledgement that they are still a person of worth, and who is seen by others as worth caring for. They await an acknowledgement by means of a simple visit, a touch of the hand, or perhaps a kind word. They wait for us to turn back around and to look them in the eye the way we did before they came to those places.

If we truly wish to see change affected in our world, to have our wounds healed, to have light break forth into times that often seem very dark these days, and to have the Lord really hear our cries, we need to start by loving those created in His image, and through them to love our Lord Himself. The most powerful testimony we can provide to our Lord that we hear and understand His message is to show Him through our actions. When we remove from our midst oppression, lies, and hatred toward others, the void left will naturally be filled with love.

I think the very first line of our first reading from Zephania really paints the picture for us – “Seek the Lord, all you humble of the earth”. In all of today’s readings, we focus on the humble of the earth, and their place in God’s plan, and His kingdom.

Zephania in our first reading refers to a remnant in the midst of the people who will be humble and lowly, and who will seek refuge in the Lord. These people will follow the Lord’s teachings without diverting to follow their own designs in arrogance; they will be satisfied in the Lord. This is the model which God has in mind for us, to have enough faith and trust in Him to free us from the need to develop our own “doctrines” and to so often fail at it, when all that we really need to do was to follow His word, which is perfect. We often see such acceptance as somehow beneath us, and as blind following, but it is the opposite. Humility does not mean to blindly follow (following without reason or intellect), it means to lovingly accept what we know to be good, and to not feel the need to “re-engineer” what has already been provided simply so that we can call it our own.

In our second reading, Saint Paul rightly points out that even though most of us would not fall into the category of wise, or powerful, or noble by human standards, it really doesn’t matter. The Lord did not come to choose those who are seen as exalted by human standards anyway; He calls those who are not so clouded by their own self-perception, that they fail to hear His voice. He calls instead those who by human standards are the weak, the despised, and the lowly. He knows that they will more readily hear His words because they already accept their own limitations and are not so full of themselves that His call is ignored. It is to those who willingly accept His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, that his favor is extended. Jesus will be, for those of us willing to accept Him humbly, all the wisdom, righteousness, and redemption that we so desperately need and cannot hope to provide to ourselves no matter how exalted we are by human standards. If we feel the need to boast, it should be of our Lord Jesus Christ alone.

In our Gospel today, we hear the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus addresses His message to those whom we do not normally see as noteworthy by societal standards. This is in many respects an extension of what we have heard in our previous readings, but with an important distinction. He tells us exactly what will be fulfilled for those of us who live out these humble descriptive titles. We hear how the most profound want that comes along with each will be satisfied and those who have endured will be seen as blessed in God’s sight. There is true reason for rejoicing among those whose humility and patience have allowed them to live out the virtues that Jesus describes, solid in their faith that He will not leave them unfulfilled. This is truly what He seeks from each of us, the trust, humility, and faith that come with loving Him in true intimacy because we seek always to emulate Him.        

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light” – this proclamation by the prophet Isaiah is some of the most beautiful and inspirational words imaginable. They do indeed give us great reason for rejoicing and joy. You see they were the foretelling of the weight and burden of the law being lifted from us and borne on the shoulders of our Lord Jesus Christ. The burden which had condemned us was taken from us by the only one strong enough to bear it. Yet, He came not only to relieve us of this, but also to call us to a new way of living and commissioned each of us with a new purpose. This is a wonderful revelation for all of Gods people.

There is however, a caution that given to us as well. In our second reading from Saint Paul’s letter to the people in Corinth, he cautions them against there being division among them with respect to whom they belong to and are oriented toward. The people had begun to attach themselves more to the messengers than to the message and whom it came from – our Lord Jesus Christ. They allowed human inclination toward a fixation on those with whom they were familiar to distract them from the real source of their salvation. This is a danger that still exists to this day. If we allow ourselves to become disenchanted with our faith because we have encountered a bad situation or experience with a person or group that is active within the Church community and lose sight of who we are really there for, the same problems can manifest. Likewise, if we place too much emphasis on a relationship with someone within the Church community and allow that to become more of our focus than the real reason for our being there, to worship our Lord Jesus, we are in equal peril. Our focus in our faith, must always be our Lord Jesus Christ, and He alone is to be our example, or standard, and our reason for participating in His Church.

In our Gospel reading today, our Lord encounters Peter and Andrew, and James and John and calls them to a life devoted to drawing others toward salvation through Him. He will make them his instruments of teaching, of healing, and of salvation for the people. The thing that we must always keep in mind, is that the call to serve our Lord is unchanged even today, as are the challenges and distractions. He calls each of us to go out and to spread His word, and to bring others to salvation. We need to heed this call as exultantly as Peter, Andrew, James, and John did when they were called to be “fishers of men”. We also need to make sure that we stay as grounded as they were in their understanding of their own unworthiness and limited abilities and instead rely completely on our Lord to give us the graces to accomplish His purposes. Our Lord did not choose Peter and the others because they were eloquent, or sophisticated, or their great understanding of scripture. He chose them because He saw their willingness to rely on Him and to place their faith, hope, and trust completely in Him without the need for analysis or explanation. He looks to us for the same faithful acceptance. In the end, while we should certainly try to know our Lord through His word, yet we must still keep in mind that all our searching, all our learning, all our gathering of facts about our Lord, are not a substitute for our humble acceptance and faith in our Lord – it is one thing to know about Him in our minds, it is another to know Him in our hearts. To truly draw near to the light is an act of faith.

“I will make you a light to the nations that my salvation may reach the ends of the earth”. These words given to us after being received by the prophet Isaiah are a commission to be a source of illumination to Gods people and to help them through guidance and by being a living example to them of Gods teaching. The call to be this kind of example and visible lesson to Gods people is one that is given to each of us as well. We are each called to be His servants, but also to be a light to those around us who may not know Him yet.

This is no small commission that we receive. It means being accountable to our Lord for our conduct and our belief, not only on the personal level of how we think, act, and live our lives, but also in how this is all perceived by others. Whether we realize it or not, those around us who know us to be believers look upon us in making their own choice about whether the teachings of our Lord are credible, and worth their pursuing as well. That is both a tremendous honor and responsibility. It means that we are never without the need to consider our words and actions because of the effect they will have on those around us in the most profound internal consideration – whether those who profess to be Gods people really believe in His teachings or not, and so whether it is worth their effort to pursue that same relationship with God. There is an adage that is as true today as it ever was – “talk is cheap”. The real proof of one’s sincerity in their belief is how that is lived out and put into action. We can profess to be followers of Christ, but if we don’t show it in how we live, no one will really believe us. What is worse, we will be one more example of a hypocrisy that so many believe is what organized religion in general is based on. We will be adding fuel to an incredibly destructive fire that already threatens to consume so much of society.

When we hear in our Gospel today of John the Baptist encountering Jesus and seeing the Spirit of God descending upon Him like a dove, we can only imagine the joy that he must of have felt seeing the manifestation of Gods promise with his own eyes and knowing that Jesus was truly the one they had been waiting for, for so long. There are many who still look around them with the same sense of anticipation, and the same longing. Very often they are not even sure what they are looking for, only that deep down they sense that something is still very much missing from their lives, and they seek to fill that void. They are looking for, and longing for, Jesus Christ without even realizing it. In a small way, we can each of us be a sign to them of what is possible through learning about, and belief in Jesus. Seeing the peaceful presence, the caring for others, and the loving interactions of those who profess belief goes an incredibly long way toward their finding what they seek. It opens doors of communication that would otherwise probably not be possible. Words simply do not carry the same weight that actions do, especially to those who are already wary of something they do not understand. It often takes seeing what we profess to believe in, in action, before our words can even be heard. There is a saying that is often ascribed to Saint Francis of Assisi, that sums up much of what our readings today teach, and what we can hope to emulate – “Preach the Gospel always, and if necessary, use words”.   

Calling today Epiphany Sunday has always seemed incredibly appropriate to me. In our Gospel today we hear of a realization by the wise men upon seeing the star that something unique is taking place, and that they are spiritually attuned enough to recognize its significance and act upon it, even going so far as to journey from their homeland to Bethlehem to behold what the star had foretold. We also hear of how they were initially manipulated by Herod to try to get them to use their search for his own worldly purposes, they were thankfully warned of this and guided to take action to avoid being complicit with his plans. There is quite a bit for us to learn from what took place.

First of all, when we hear this narrative, it should strike us as remarkable how they acted upon what they saw in such a direct fashion. It is widely acknowledged that these men likely from the Saba region in ancient Persia, which is in modern day Iran – from Bethlehem, a distance of over a thousand miles through harsh desert climates and along paths that were subject to thieves, hostile tribal factions, and poor trail conditions. Yet this did not deter them, such was their attunement to search for a king they did not yet know, but who they innately sensed was worth any risk they might encounter in their journey. They went so far as to bring him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. These were not ordinary gifts, but really a profession of who and what they sensed this child was. The gold represented royalty, frankincense divinity, and myrrh humanity. Even their words before Herod boldly proclaimed the importance of this child – “we have come in search of the newborn King of the Jews”.  All of this was revealed to them through their openness to the spirit at work, and their subsequent action they took was their own willingness to follow what the spirit had placed within their hearts. This same spirit is still very much alive and active today for those who are willing to listen for the message.

The trouble is, there is much that competes with the words of the Spirit, just as Herod and his court tried to manipulate these wise men to their own worldly purposes, so too today there is a cacophony of noise that the world points at each of us every single day to try to derail both our attunement, but also our willingness to act upon Gods message. The motives for this remain the same – greed, envy, insecurity, hatred are all unchanged both in their prevalence and intensity. I think that what has gotten worse is the means of conveying these negative agendas to us. Their assault at times seems inescapable. Even our Lord when he had grown, and begun His ministry felt the need to consistently withdraw for periods of time to find stillness and quiet so that He could digest and dismiss all of the onslaught of those same agendas in His days here on earth. If we think that we don’t need to do the same, if we think that we can somehow deal with these things that even our Lord needed to withdraw from at times, I honestly think we are kidding ourselves. As we close the Christmas Season today, I think that we need to look ahead to the coming year and plan some time for fostering our own spiritual attunement, so that we too may perceive and act when the Spirit calls us.

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God. We celebrate what our Blessed Lady gave to each one of us by the birth of her Son – the freedom and joy of life anew in a close relationship with God that was now possible through her Son’s sacrifice on the cross. It is obviously not an understatement to say that each of us is renewed through the Jesus Christ, but so too through the selfless acceptance of God’s plan by His Mother.

You see we were indeed born under the law, and completely subject to it, until our Lord ransomed each one of us from that burden. We have now instead been drawn close to our God as sons and daughters, we now have an intimacy with Him that allows us to call out to Him – Abba. This is a term that only a child would say to their parent, it is one of closeness and is similar to saying Dad or even Daddy.  This is what we have been given by our Lord. Nowhere else in the events of the bible has anything come close in terms of being drawn into this kind of relationship with our Creator.

Can you imagine for a moment being one of the shepherds in the field to whom this kind of news was revealed? These were simple, rough men of the outdoors who probably did not get to spend much time in the Synagogue reading from the Torah. Yet they beheld the majesty of the Angels that formed the Heavenly Host, and which told them of the things that had taken place. They did not debate amongst themselves about what they had seen – they knew a good thing when they saw it and accepted it without question. Perhaps this is one of the characteristics that God looks for when He chooses to reveal things to us. He does not look to the “learned” or what we consider “educated” – he looks to those who will willingly accept His message on faith, perhaps because they have so little else. They are pure in this sense and are the ones that He can count on to simply accept and rejoice, and that hopefully others will learn from.

Certainly, there must have been great rejoicing when these men of the fields and open country found Mary, and Joseph, and the baby Jesus, and looked upon Him for the first time knowing that all their hopes, and dreams and wants had now been fulfilled by this tiny infant lying in the manger. All the prayers and sacrifices offered by so many previous generations had now come to fulfillment and they were the first to see Him on whom the hope of Israel was founded. The child who had been foretold by so many of the prophets was now literally close enough to reach out and touch. The Messiah.

The Lord indeed had blessed them, kept His word to them, and would indeed keep them close to Him through His Son who was now born man. The Prince of Peace, held by this humble Virgin who was the Mother of their God.

What beautiful words are spoken to us through the Gospel, “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means “God is with us.””. Our mother Mary brought into the world on this night, so far away in Bethlehem, the child who’s coming had been foretold by the prophets for so long, and whose people had awaited him with great expectation for generations.

Our Lord came for each one of us, and in the humblest of forms, so that He could be seen by all of us as someone who would know and understand us, no matter how humble our own circumstance might be. I don’t mean this in terms of money or social status, but in our own interior brokenness that we all have as part of us. Every one of us, in this Church here this evening, either now, or at some point has experienced brokenness, or are still broken in some way. For those of you old enough to remember this reference, in some sense we are all citizens of the “Island of Misfit Toys”. Kids feel free to ask Mom and Dad, or perhaps even Grandma and Grandpa about that last reference. You see, like the characters in the story that reference comes from, we all seek healing or fixing in some way, but most of all we seek to be loved and accepted. 

The whole point of what we celebrate here tonight, is the birth of the Child who would bring hope into each of our lives by his coming to earth to share our form. He came to heal our brokenness and give us a reason to no longer see ourselves as forsaken, or our future as desolate.  You see, when we look upon the babe in the manger, we look upon the man who would heal, and would teach, and would sacrifice Himself for each of us one day on the cross. We look upon God who created all that exists, and who is without beginning, or end. When Mary and Joseph took the baby Jesus into their arms and looked upon Him for the first time, it was with the knowledge that they cradled God within their arms, and that nothing would ever be the same on this earth with His coming.

This brings me back around to what I said earlier about each of us seeking our brokenness to be healed and to be loved for who and what we each are. God created each of us in His image, and despite the weaknesses that come with the human form, we are each of us beautiful and loved in His eyes. He seeks to draw us close to Him and comfort us, just as Mary comforted her Son in her lap in that humble manger in Bethlehem. He heals us and brings wholeness to our lives, and he welcomes us home, if we will let Him. You see, the question has never been whether God loves us, it is whether we will let Him fully love us and be part of our lives. He has always sought this intimacy with us, the only thing holding back the healing of our brokenness and that love that we so crave, is sometimes our own unwillingness to open ourselves to Him. On this Christmas Eve, as we celebrate the birth of our Lord, I pray that we are each willing to allow the Christ child into our lives and embrace Him with the same love with which He seeks to embrace each of us.

I think we sometimes forget at this time of year one of the key characters in the narrative of the Nativity of our Lord, and that is Joseph. Compared with Jesus and Mary, we don’t tend to hear that much about him in the scriptures. Yet, without his acceptance of God’s plan, and his devotion to both Mary and Jesus, the plan itself could not have worked as it did.  

Joseph accepted a situation after the explanation from the angel in his dream that most would have found a way to walk away from. His betrothed, his soon-to-be wife was found with a child that he did not physically father. This is something that would have been hard to accept on so many different levels. As a man, he no doubt felt initial betrayal, jealousy, and hurt. The woman whom he loved appeared to have betrayed him in a most fundamental way. Yet, in the midst of all those human emotions and doubts, he stayed rooted in God’s word conveyed to him in the dream. Joseph was first and foremost a man of faith. He was a man committed to serving His Lord and placed that above all else, including his own personal feelings and emotions.  

Joseph no doubt knew of the prophecies concerning the coming of the Messiah; as a man committed to God, he had certainly listened to the readings in the Torah. Yet like most of us, I suspect that he probably had a hard time initially grasping that all that had been foretold was going to come to pass through the direct participation of both Mary and himself.  To say the least, this would have been a lot to take in for a humble carpenter from a small backwater town like Nazareth. Still, there was one overshadowing element that for Joseph made all the difference; God’s angel had appeared to him in a dream, and for Joseph that was enough. He was attuned to his God, and knew innately that this message could be trusted, so like Mary, he humbly accepted his place in God’s plan.  

Joseph’s role was so crucial for many reasons. First of all, the child Jesus needed a physical father to grow up with, and his wife Mary needed a husband to care for them. This was critical for them to be able to participate in all the things needed to bring Jesus up as a young Jewish male, such as participation in learning the Torah, attendance at the Temple, and being there for the feasts that were such an important element of Jewish life with God at the center. There was also, though, the role of protector; in those days, Mary, like any woman, needed to be protected, and no less would the child Jesus. It was as brutal a world back then as it is today, and there were many dangers that they needed to be shielded from. Joseph’s commitment to this role of protector was absolute. He knew well his responsibilities and fulfilled them in the same unwavering fashion that he served his God.  

There is much more for us to ponder each Christmas than the pleasantries of the season. There is a truth that needs to be kept always in the front of our minds. A truth that came from commitment, faith, and sacrifice. One that began with the acceptance of both Mary and Joseph as parents to the one who had been foretold so long ago, and who would, as a result of their acceptance of God’s plan, be born into this world and raised to manhood in order to save each one of us.  

In the Gospel today, the great question is asked – “Are you really the one that we are waiting for?” This is a powerful question that John asks of our Lord, and it is one that is sometimes still uttered to this day. When John asked this question, it was with the knowledge of not only what his cousin’s mission was, but also of the things that He had been doing amongst the people. Those He had healed, those He raised from the dead, and the other signs and miracles that had taken place. Yet with all this, what Jesus was doing was not what he expected, and so he felt compelled to ask. You see John, like many of the people of that time had a vision of the Messiah being someone who would be a warrior king, who would force the Romans out, and would restore the sovereignty of Israel in one decisive encounter. He was expecting someone that would use battle to swiftly bring about all the changes in Israel that they had dreamed of for so long.

Our Lord’s plan was quite a bit different than the expectations of those around Him. He did not come to wage a war and drive Rome out of Israel, He came to drive evil from the hearts of men. He came to reshape souls, and to reconcile them to God. He would do this not by combat, but by self-sacrifice. He was born into the world to fulfil the prophecy about the Messiah, that of the suffering servant. He was born into a world of men, with one ultimate purpose, to ransom himself for their sake and to die and to rise for them to release them from the bonds of condemnation. John could not possibly have fathomed all of this, he indeed knew of prophecy, but he did not know the whole plan.

When Jesus responds to John’s question, He is very plain – the blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them. This is a message of hope to us all. It is not the wrath fueled words of the warrior that John was expecting. Jesus came to effect true change. Wars begin and end, and are largely forgotten in a relatively short span, and the goals of those who wage them often evaporate in history. Not so with the seeds of change that our Lord planted, the fruits of these seeds continue through generations, right up to this day. Human hearts and minds are mended, there is healing of these that will last many lifetimes because the healing does not stop with the individual but is passed on through the way they lived their lives and were an example to others. The process continues, just as our Lord intended with the kind of profound change which was His plan. In a sense, the warrior that John awaited did indeed come, but the battle was against sin, corruption, evil in the hearts of men, and ultimate lasting death.

When we embrace the Gospel message, and live our lives by His commands, we are mended. All within us is strengthened, our hearts are not fearful, our feebleness of frame and soul are gone, and we carry on with God’s work. We work patiently, knowing that God’s plan is for all generations, and that it continues to bring souls to Him in our time, and will continue to do so in the future. We wait for the time when all with be revealed and our Lord will come as Judge and King, but with great hope because we know that He has already loved us, purchased our salvation, and given us the path to follow home. As we await the celebration of the birth of the Christ child at Christmas, let us each remember the true meaning of the season, and why that precious babe was born into this world on a cold night in a humble manger in Bethlehem all those years ago.

As we celebrate the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, we hear of a journey that takes place. It is a journey that begins with sin being introduced into the world and resulting in all the misery that we still sometimes experience to this day, but it concludes with a new hope that we have been granted by the Son of a humble virgin who was chosen to be the Mother of God.

In our first reading from the book of Genesis, we hear of the way that sin entered the world through our original parents, and the carefully crafted interference of Satan. It is interesting to note in the dialogue that takes place in our first reading, that there is a tremendous amount of hiding of the truth, and finger pointing, and deflection that is present throughout. Adam initially tries to hide his guilt by simply hiding himself in the garden, but when that doesn’t work, and he realizes he is caught, he resorts to deflecting the blame to his wife Eve. He even goes to far as to subtly blame God by implying that it was because of the woman that He put there, that all this transpired. Eve for her part, deflects the blame to the serpent whom she accuses of trickery. Nowhere in any of this do they take responsibility for what happened. There is no humility or acceptance of blame anywhere in the dialogue. This should be our first clue to the sin that has entered the world. With those first deflections, deceptions, and lack of humility come the inevitable results that we still experience to this day.

This all stands in stark contrast to the humble bravery of a young girl whom the Lord had chosen to be the Mother of his Son. When she is approached by the angel, and told of Gods plan, there could have been a myriad of reasons that she could have given for not wanting to be part of so potentially dangerous a plan. Mary knows full well what could await her if she were found with child without being married. Yet, there is no posturing, no questioning, no making of excuses. Mary simply replies humbly, “Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” You see Mary had been born without the original sin that infuses so many of our own dialogues with deflection and deception as a first response when someone asks something difficult of us. Her soul was immaculate, she knew only one desire, and that was to humbly serve God in whatever capacity He deemed fit, and her trust in His plan was complete and unfailing. The only question she asked throughout the entire dialogue with the angel was one of a simple and practical nature. Mary knew how children were conceived, and since she was not yet fully married, she simply wanted to know how this could come to pass since she knew full well that God would not ask her to sin as part of His plan. When the angel answers her question though and explains that this will happen through the Spirit of the Lord, there is nothing more than an affirmation that she gives. Such is her faith in God.

It is through Mary’s humble acceptance based on faith that we are given hope. She conceived Him who would be the Lamb of God and take away the sins of the world and restore our relationship with the Father through His sacrifice on the cross. It can only be fitting that the Son of God would be carried and born of such a sinless a vessel.  With Mary’s participation in God’s plan and with the birth of our Lord, we have the hope that comes with their faith, hope, and love of the Father. We are renewed and brought back closer to what God originally intended for us, and with the sure and certain hope that through His Son we can one day be fully reunited with Him again.