Dec. 23, 2012: 4th Sunday of Advent C

In the year 1865, while Rev. Philip Brooks, an Episcopalian priest, was on a pilgrimage in Jerusalem, he decided to ride a horse to the little town of Bethlehem. The little town is 6 miles southwest of Jerusalem and it took him two hours to travel there. After attending the Christmas Vigil mass, he reflected about his experience and wrote:
"I remember standing in the old church in Bethlehem, close to the spot where Jesus was born, when the whole church was ringing hour after hour with splendid hymns of praise to God, how again and again it seemed as if I could hear voices I knew well, telling each other of the Wonderful Night of the Savior’s birth." Three years later, he composed lyric for a song based on his experience for a Sunday school class. His church musician put melody to it, and the following song came about:

O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.


Midnight Mass at Bethlehem

Bethlehem, as the First Reading tells us, was a small, insignificant town. God used this little town as an instrument to bring forth King David; for he was born and raised there and then crowned as king. It was also the town where Jesus would be born. Small towns pride itself on their hometown heroes and celebrities. Someone visiting Donaldsonville who was originally from Australia asked me, "Who is that famous chef who is from Donaldsonville?" Imagine, an Australian inquiring about a person from Donaldsonville.

Small towns like Donaldsonville and Bethlehem can be places where people "watch out" for each other; then again, small towns can also be places where people "watch" each other, especially the stranger. In this world, each day the stranger and marginalized are treated with suspicion, resentment and contempt. Lives are shattered and broken when minds and hearts refuse to admit that God desires to save people of all races and all nations and all creeds. Bethlehem was a small town that first closed its doors to the stranger Ruth. Centuries later, Bethlehem would close its doors to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. The Lord, though, even uses our sins and weakness to show his mercy and strength. Bethlehem, the least among the clan of Judah, would be called great regardless of its smallness.

There is a pattern throughout the scriptures where God likes to use little, small, or insignificant instruments to accomplish great things. In the Second Reading, we are told that the greatness of Christ was due to his singular desire to do God's will. God was not interested in bulls and rams that Jewish priests of the Old Testament offered in the temple. They offered things other than themselves, things that God had no interest in. God only takes interest in what is inside a person, in what is part of a person. Even when we make sacrifices and do penance during Advent and Lent, we don’t give up these things because God somehow wants the things we’re sacrificing. God doesn’t need meat, or candy, or coffee or tobacco. The only way penance is pleasing to God is when we sacrifice a desire, a desire that’s deeply rooted within us: so deep, that it’s part of us. God doesn’t want the thing that you sacrifice and give to Him. He wants the desire that you sacrifice and give to Him. All our desires must eventually be given to God, in this life or in the next.

Saints like Mother Teresa and Blessed Mother did precisely this in their lifetime. In how they lived their lives, we are reminded that our greatness comes not from personal skills, talents, and strengths, but from our union with God, that is, our responsiveness to God. Time Magazine once asked Mother Teresa: "Humble as you are, it must be an extraordinary thing to be a vehicle of God's grace in the world." Mother replied, "But it is His work. I think God wants to show His greatness by using nothingness. I'm like a little pencil in His hand. That's all. He does the thinking. He does the writing. The pencil has nothing to do it. The pencil has only to be allowed to be used." Blessed Mother reflects this with her Fiat, "Be it done to me according to your word." It is because of her total surrender of her will to God that Jesus was born in her. In the Gospel, her cousin Elizabeth exclaimed to her, "Blessed are you among women." We too will be blessed and happy when we give God all our skills, talents, strengths, weaknesses, and worries to Him; in this total surrender, Jesus will be born in us as well. How appropriate, then is the last verse of the song, "O Little Town of Bethlehem,"

 

O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray;

Cast out our sin, and enter in, be born in us today.

We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell;

O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel!