Christmas would not be complete without our singing, at some stage, “Once in royal David’s city...” In the Gospel lection for Christmas, from St Luke, we are told that the Emperor Augustus decreed that there should be a registration of all who lived in the Roman Empire. The Gospel says, “Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child.”
Last Sunday we considered why the birth of Jesus should have been in Bethlehem, a city of David. Let us take a few moments to consider David, the revered ancestor of Jesus. Rosemary Hannah, who is Church History co-ordinator for the Theological Institute of the Scottish Episcopal Church, has some clear thoughts which can guide us in this. She says, “David, the second King of Israel, (was) the man whose name became synonymous with all forms of kingship and rule in Israel and Judah.”
“He is an extraordinary choice for the position of legendary revered ruler. It is sometimes suggested that he is indeed simply a figure of legend. Generally speaking, however, legendary kings are a good deal more noble and less flawed than David. The astonishing thing about the David narratives is their pictures of a fatally flawed but very vivid man.”
What are some of these pictures in the David narratives? One that easily comes to mind is that of David and Jonathan. David’s beautiful lament for Jonathan, so beloved by those who want Biblical gay role models, should not blind us to the fact that Jonathan was killed as David made his move on the throne. Jonathan was uncomfortably close to being the sacrifice made by his friend and lover in order to gain power.
Indeed, too many of those whom David loved ended up dead, particularly his sons. One of the most splendid narratives from the ancient world, known as the ‘succession narrative’, charts the closing years of David’s life. His seduction of Bathsheba, and the way in which David planned to destroy her husband, is not a pretty picture. It led, over a number of years, to the skilful elimination of all plausible heirs to David except Solomon, the son he had with her.
The narrative includes perhaps the most moving of all Biblical laments, found in 2 Samuel 18:33. It is that of David over Absalom: ‘O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would that I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!’ Looking at the story, only a fool could have believed that the action against Absalom was likely to end any other way – and David was no fool. This extraordinarily believable picture of a passionate man who nonetheless has a very clear and calculating mind is so totally removed from the sanitized lives of saints as to be very believable.
Rosemary Hannah makes the following assessment: “... the fact remains that this great king is consciously and deliberately presented as a flawed figure. Perhaps it is his very passions which make him such an attractive figure. Perhaps in the often grubby reality of life we are closer to God than we are in those noble moments when we are blinded by our illusions. For sometimes we come to believe that our aspirations actually reflect the daily reality of our lives; that we are the kindly, thoughtful people we seek to be. If we are more honest, there is often a tangled mess of demands made on us, selfishness and loving response, a darkness of misunderstandings, naked greed and those loving actions which (like David’s desire to keep his power and save Absalom’s life) were never going to work out. There is a terrible reality about David’s mixed desires and ambitions which make him seem astonishingly contemporary.”
We come to this Mass in the often grubby reality of our lives. We approach the altar this Christmas to celebrate the birth of Jesus. In that tangled mess of demands made on our lives, we know that coming to Mass at Christmas is important. We are taught by the church that in the Mass we meet with the Lord Jesus in four ways: through the people of God gathered, through the reading of the Holy Scriptures, through the Body and Blood of Jesus in the Sacrament, and through the priest presiding over the Sacrament. These four things help us to believe that we are in the presence of the God who created the heavens and the earth, and us too.
Today we celebrate the birth of him who made all the difference. The birth of Jesus changed human history for all time. This nativity we remember each year, with the attendant angels, the shepherds, and the Magi, those three wise men from afar, takes us into a humble stable. The oxen and asses were there too. Let us pray, that as we take our place at the manger in which Jesus was laid, we may experience the love and presence of God in our lives. May that difference brought about through the birth of Jesus be ours too.
Why should it be important for us to come to Mass at Christmas? Dom Alcuin Reid, a monk in a monastery in Toulon, France, has the following to say, “Our approach to our liturgical worship should be worthy of what it in fact is, as well as of the feast itself. We should give it our all - as no doubt later we shall give ourselves completely to other festivities. To be simply bodily present at Mass is one thing. To pray the liturgy is quite another. And it is when I pray the liturgy that my mind and heart is most open to the privileged encounter with Almighty God that the Sacred Liturgy in fact is. It is then that the Christ Child can most easily reach out and touch me.”
This Christmas you might wish to ask the Christ Child, whose sacrificed and resurrected Body and Blood you will receive in Holy Communion, to give you the strength you need to follow him more closely, or to discern his will in a particular aspect of your life. You may wish to thank him for his blessings and graces in your life and in that of those close to you.
Often the liturgy can appear very cerebral. It can seem too wordy, like a series of texts that we have to remember or comprehend. There are words in the liturgy and their meaning is important, certainly, and we can gain much from familiarity with them. But it is important for us to realise that the liturgy is not a text or a discourse. It is not a seminar. It is first and foremost an act, a ritual act, an act of worship, in which the riches of our Catholic tradition - words, sounds, gestures, objects, persons, etc - are deployed in ways that have developed over the centuries in making present Christ’s saving action in our midst, today. And it is to this saving action that we need to be connected in mind and heart. We need to be caught up with, almost lost in, this action.
As we gather with God’s people, hear the Scriptures read, receive the Body and Blood of Jesus at the hands of his priest may we know that our lives are touched by that event of so long ago. May we go from this place renewed, refreshed and changed so that we too declare what we have seen and heard: “Joy to the world the Lord has come!”
May God bless you and yours in the Christ child born this day
