Imagine that we are outside – not in the balmy 75 degrees or whatever we had today, but in the cold night air, not here on the Grand Prairie, in the 21st century, but in the hills of the Italian countryside in the 13th century. We are walking, following a religious man, a preacher who wants us to see something special, and we are hiking behind him on a mountain trail, heading up into the hills. Our way is lit with torches and candles, and we are bundled up to stay warm as we walk. Finally, we arrive at our destination: a niche in the side of the cliff that forms a cave of sorts. There we see that our preacher has prepared straw, where a few farm animals lie and graze. A crib made out of rough wood sits in the middle. As we approach the spot, this preacher begins to sing a song, reciting a story, one that is set in a manger like the one we see before us. It is the story of a child’s birth, and as he speaks, we can see that he is overcome with emotion, full of joy and peace, almost to the point of tears. So tenderly does he describe the child that we notice how he does not even dare to say his name, but calls him only “il Bambino di Betlemme” – “the Babe of Bethlehem.” As he preaches about the birth of this child, some of us even think perhaps that we can see him, a heavenly figure, weak and small and yet radiating a heavenly light.
That, more or less, is the account of how St. Francis of Assisi created the first Nativity scene in the mountain town of Greccio in Italy in December of 1223. He had journeyed to the Holy Land a few years before, and when he returned, he decided to recreate the spot in Bethlehem where Christ had been born. He prepared a manger, filled it with hay, and borrowed local animals from nearby farms. He had his spiritual brothers – the Friars Minor, whom we know better as Franciscans – to gather the people and lead them by song and candlelight to the scene. And for their part, the townspeople of Greccio went along and trekked up into the hills, not because they didn’t know what awaited them there, but because they wanted to experience what they already knew in a different way. In the outdoor Mass they had there, as they heard Francis the deacon chant with great reverence and love the Gospel account of the birth in Bethlehem, that story came alive for them, so much so that some even believed they saw the Child there in their midst.
Of course, the story that they heard is what we heard in our Gospel: the story of the birth of Jesus Christ, the One whom the angel called “Emmanuel, God-with-us.” We know that story well – and yet every year, we gather together to hear it anew, to let it come alive again, to reflect upon it and seek to understand its significance more deeply. What Francis wanted to show in the hills above Greccio, what our readings seek to describe, what we have come to celebrate in church this evening/morning is that that humble birth – poor really, by any measure – was nothing less than the coming of the living God into our world. In Jesus, God has taken to himself our reality and, in doing so, forever changed it. God has, in effect, wedded himself to us – with all of our warts, in all of our sinfulness, he has made his love visible in the Person of his Son in order to redeem our humanity and let it share in his divinity. He has done this, glory be to Him, through this little Child. This Babe of Bethlehem is Emmanuel, God-with-us, and he has come to reveal the depth of God’s love for us by going to the Cross for us, to put to death our sin and dysfunction once and for all, and forever reclaim us – as Isaiah says, changing us from “Forsaken” to “My Delight,” from “Desolate” to “Espoused”.
That is what the birth in Bethlehem meant. And what it still means – because at its heart, the birth of the Christ Child is more than a spectacle or a theological reality, it’s an invitation to ponder the love of God and to ask ourselves whether we have encountered it, and been changed by it, and shaped our lives around it. St. Francis told some of his friars that he worried the people of Greccio had forgotten the meaning of their Christian faith: some had become materialistic and focused on worldly pleasures; others had become cold and bitter because of the hardships they faced; others didn’t practice their faith and had stopped coming to weekly Mass to encounter the living God in the Eucharist; and others were good people who had just become stale in their prayer and loose in their morals and who needed a reminder of God’s love for them. And that’s what God wants for us too – to adore his Son’s birth not just with a brief prayer or remembrance, not just by sitting in a pew for an hour on Christmas Eve, but being opened anew to his love. He wants us to look inside ourselves, to look at our lives, and realize where we need to be *changed* by the love of God in Christ. His birth changed the world, but will we ourselves be changed by it?
Archbishop Fulton Sheen once said, “There are two births of Christ, one unto the world in Bethlehem; the other is in the soul when it is spiritually reborn.” God has done the first, all by himself, in the birth at Bethlehem. But for the second, he won’t act without you. The God who created the heavens and the earth, who entered our human reality to shatter the darkness of sin and death – he won’t enter your heart, unless you invite him there – unless you let Christ be born *within* you as truly as he was born in the manger. The humble child born in the stable is an invitation to love, and to be loved, by the God made Man. It is this inward coming that Jesus most fully desires – indeed, it is the reason for his coming altogether. If all Christmas is for us is another event on the calendar, a holiday to be marked and then to move past, then we will entirely miss its point, which is this: the Lord Jesus awaits us, even now, at the door of our hearts, asking if there is room enough for him to be born anew.
That, more or less, is the account of how St. Francis of Assisi created the first Nativity scene in the mountain town of Greccio in Italy in December of 1223. He had journeyed to the Holy Land a few years before, and when he returned, he decided to recreate the spot in Bethlehem where Christ had been born. He prepared a manger, filled it with hay, and borrowed local animals from nearby farms. He had his spiritual brothers – the Friars Minor, whom we know better as Franciscans – to gather the people and lead them by song and candlelight to the scene. And for their part, the townspeople of Greccio went along and trekked up into the hills, not because they didn’t know what awaited them there, but because they wanted to experience what they already knew in a different way. In the outdoor Mass they had there, as they heard Francis the deacon chant with great reverence and love the Gospel account of the birth in Bethlehem, that story came alive for them, so much so that some even believed they saw the Child there in their midst.
Of course, the story that they heard is what we heard in our Gospel: the story of the birth of Jesus Christ, the One whom the angel called “Emmanuel, God-with-us.” We know that story well – and yet every year, we gather together to hear it anew, to let it come alive again, to reflect upon it and seek to understand its significance more deeply. What Francis wanted to show in the hills above Greccio, what our readings seek to describe, what we have come to celebrate in church this evening/morning is that that humble birth – poor really, by any measure – was nothing less than the coming of the living God into our world. In Jesus, God has taken to himself our reality and, in doing so, forever changed it. God has, in effect, wedded himself to us – with all of our warts, in all of our sinfulness, he has made his love visible in the Person of his Son in order to redeem our humanity and let it share in his divinity. He has done this, glory be to Him, through this little Child. This Babe of Bethlehem is Emmanuel, God-with-us, and he has come to reveal the depth of God’s love for us by going to the Cross for us, to put to death our sin and dysfunction once and for all, and forever reclaim us – as Isaiah says, changing us from “Forsaken” to “My Delight,” from “Desolate” to “Espoused”.
That is what the birth in Bethlehem meant. And what it still means – because at its heart, the birth of the Christ Child is more than a spectacle or a theological reality, it’s an invitation to ponder the love of God and to ask ourselves whether we have encountered it, and been changed by it, and shaped our lives around it. St. Francis told some of his friars that he worried the people of Greccio had forgotten the meaning of their Christian faith: some had become materialistic and focused on worldly pleasures; others had become cold and bitter because of the hardships they faced; others didn’t practice their faith and had stopped coming to weekly Mass to encounter the living God in the Eucharist; and others were good people who had just become stale in their prayer and loose in their morals and who needed a reminder of God’s love for them. And that’s what God wants for us too – to adore his Son’s birth not just with a brief prayer or remembrance, not just by sitting in a pew for an hour on Christmas Eve, but being opened anew to his love. He wants us to look inside ourselves, to look at our lives, and realize where we need to be *changed* by the love of God in Christ. His birth changed the world, but will we ourselves be changed by it?
Archbishop Fulton Sheen once said, “There are two births of Christ, one unto the world in Bethlehem; the other is in the soul when it is spiritually reborn.” God has done the first, all by himself, in the birth at Bethlehem. But for the second, he won’t act without you. The God who created the heavens and the earth, who entered our human reality to shatter the darkness of sin and death – he won’t enter your heart, unless you invite him there – unless you let Christ be born *within* you as truly as he was born in the manger. The humble child born in the stable is an invitation to love, and to be loved, by the God made Man. It is this inward coming that Jesus most fully desires – indeed, it is the reason for his coming altogether. If all Christmas is for us is another event on the calendar, a holiday to be marked and then to move past, then we will entirely miss its point, which is this: the Lord Jesus awaits us, even now, at the door of our hearts, asking if there is room enough for him to be born anew.
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| Gerard Seghers, Saint Clare and Saint Francis of Assisi in adoration before the Child Jesus (c. 1640) |
My friends, some time tonight or tomorrow, take a moment away from your family and friends, and make a little interior journey of your own. Close your eyes, and imagine yourself not in Greccio, but at the real manger scene in Bethlehem two thousand years ago. See there, in a humble stable, the Holy Family, and in the crib, the Christ Child himself. You have come to see him, but he was born for you – to die for you, willingly and joyfully, in order to raise your humanity so that you can share in his divinity. He has done for this you; what will you do for him?
Draw close now and kneel down. He looks at you, the Lord of heaven and earth, made a humble Child. Feel his peace. Encounter his joy – a joy that only he can give, and that he desires to give you all year round. It is a joy like a flame, one which cannot be snuffed out, but which shines brightly in the dark, with warm and light. The Babe of Bethlehem is born for you. All he desires from you is Everything, and he will give you Everything in return.
Note: A prior version of this homily was preached a few years ago. The original can be found here.
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