Mass at Midnight--Important Guest

Homily for the Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord
Given at St. Patrick’s in Wareham
Midnight Mass—by Rev. Mr. Ronnie P. Floyd

One day, at then end of his historic 1979 tour of the US, Pope John Paul II, was being driven back to the Airport in a limousine. Knocking on the window between him and the driver, he explained to the chauffeur that he had never been in a limo, and asked the man if he could drive for a while.

After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence the man agreed, pulling the limo over and swapping places with the Pope. Little did he know the the pope, being a young man then, had a lead foot.

The Holy Father "floored it," going from 0 to 60 mph in just a few seconds, to see what the limo could do.

Going well over 80, an acceptable speed in Europe, the Pope noticed flashing blue lights in his rear view mirror, and so he pulled over.

The state trooper who approached the drivers door was shocked to see the white clad driver. Asking him to wait just a moment he went back to his cruiser to radio in for instructions.

He told the Sargent--"I've got a problem, I pulled someone important over"
"Who is it?" The sergeant asked, "the governor again?"
"No more important," the trooper replied.

"The President?" the sergeant inquired?
"No even more important!"

"Well who the heck is is it?" The sergeant demanded!
"I don't know," replied the trooper, "but the pope is his Chauffeur"

In most cases important people—have and show off the trappings of importance. I mean even the poverty of a Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa, or a certain Cardinal of Boston becomes in a sense a type of status symbol complete with entourage and paparazzi.

And this isn’t necessarily a bad thing—its just a fact of human society.
But this fact makes it difficult to truly understand the gift of Christmas.

Tonight we celebrate the coming of the limitless God in the form of a tiny baby.

Why does he come to us in the darkness of the night? In a hidden corner of the world? In the form of a little baby, born to parents of no worldly importance?

This entrance make it sometimes seem as if our God is a weak or silly God, doesn’t it?

I mean we say he is all-powerful and all-knowing, but if this is true, why not come in glory and might?

I think this is one of the questions that bothers the modern believer most about God—and it is closely related to another question of a similar vein. Where is God when he allows so much evil to occur in the World? If we believe that our God is all powerful His coming in poverty and weakness seems and absurdity. And if He is truly good and loving, then why does he allow people to suffer?

This question is a old one and throughout the centuries it has been answered in three ways:

The Greek Philosophers—who rejected pagan myths about the gods
- answered that the one God,
- was so much greater and beyond us
- that he couldn’t possibly care about man.

Two thousand years later, however—Jesus introduced us to the unknown God of the Philosophers a God who truly cared for men and suffered with them

The second answer, was the skeptical one,

Fifteen hundred years after the birth of Christ, people started to look for evidence of God and finding nothing hard and fast, they slowly began to deconstruct God pushing him further and further into the background until eventually they made the logical step toward atheism.

The third answer is the Christian answer—It was an answer that had been made during the first centuries of the Churches existence to defend our belief in the incarnation and crucifixion.

We, like the pagans, expect our God to come in glory on a chariot of fire, like the roman god Helios or in a limo, driven by the Pope.

We expect him to come with supernatural pyrotechnics, like some sort of rock star, with the heavenly hosts flanking him like the secret service,

and yet our God comes in a barn, a rock cave, used for housing animals he is wrapped in rags for his birthday suit and his crib is a manger—basicly a slop bucket from which animals are fed. How do we understand this?

The Christian answer to this question is a question base in Love.

You’ve seen the bumper stickers—John 3:16- God so loved the world that in the fullness of time he sent his only begotten son that we may not perish but have eternal life!

God comes in silence, quietly into the darkness the world without any fanfare because he loves us.

As I said on Sunday—God keeps His promises even when we fail to love Him and keep our promises.

He loves us so much that he comes in silence so as to respect our freedom, and to challenge us to become truly Holy

Sure it would be easier and less painful if he rolled into town like the US Marines into Iraq—with shock and awe and fixed all of our problems and ended all suffering. Like a TV Santa Clause

But as they say—if you give a man a fish he will eat today if you teach him how to fish he will eat for a lifetime.

God wants to challenge us, to stretch us, to take our selfish hearts and make them hearts that love even when it hurts to love.

He doesn’t do it for us, but also he doesn’t leave us to do this alone, rather he does it with us.

Emmanuel, a God who love us so much that he condescends to become one of us, experiencing all the pain and suffering that is part of human life.

By doing this he is showing us how to fish, that is, how to truly love and to be at peace in a world that is anything but peaceful.

Tomorrow the world might fall apart: famine, war, terrorism, plague, all of these are real possibilities.

But why should we be afraid of them, when our God promises that he will be here with us through them all.

As I have told some of you in private. This peace, was how I knew, that this was the vocation God was calling me to.

Our God is just as comfortable in a palace as in a stable. He would just as soon break bread with us as go to the cross with us.

This is true love—and the source of a peace that shatters the power of war.

This is the true gift of Christmas. He is with us now, come let us adore Him.