CHRISTMAS: MIDNIGHT MASS.

God undertook the Incarnation of Jesus as God-Man to save us from the bondage of sin. The Hindu Scriptures describe ten incarnations of God “to restore righteousness in the world whenever there is a large-scale erosion of moral values.” But the Christian Scriptures teach only one Incarnation, and its purpose is given in John 3: 16: “God so loved the world that He sent His only Son so that everyone who believes in Him may not die, but have eternal life.”  We celebrate the Incarnation of God as a baby today as good news because we have a Divine Savior. As our Savior, Jesus liberated us from slavery to sin by his suffering, death and Resurrection, and he atoned for our sins. So every Christmas reminds us that we need a Savior every day, to free us from our evil addictions and unjust, impure and uncharitable tendencies. This Christmas also challenges us to accept Jesus in the manger as our saving God and personal Savior and to surrender our lives to him, allowing him to rule our hearts and lives every day in the New Year.

God sent Jesus as a little Child so that He could be accessible to everyone. Pretend something like this happened for a moment: The angel Gabriel got back to heaven and rushed up to God and said, "I've got good news, and I've got bad news."
And God said, "Well, give me the good news first."

"The good news is," said the angel, "mission accomplished. I've visited those people you told me to visit. I told them what you told me to tell them. And it's all accomplished."

God said, "So what's the bad news?"
"The bad news," the angel said, "is that those people down there on earth are terrified of you. Every time I visited someone I had to start it off with 'fear not,' because they got so frightened that you were coming close."

God said to the angel, "That's the reason I have to carry out the plan I've made."

"You see," God said to the angel, "I need to go to earth because my people are so frightened. They are so full of fear that I've got to bring the message that they no longer need to be afraid."

The angel said, "And how are you going to do that, since they're so fearful?"
God said, "There's one place on earth that people are not afraid: that one remaining place is a little baby. My people on earth are not afraid of a baby. When a baby is born they rejoice and give thanks without fear because that's the only place left in their lives where they're not afraid. So I will go to earth. I will become a little baby, and they will receive me with no fear at all, because that's the one place my people have no fear."

God acted in the only way God could act without overwhelming us and taking away our freedom. God became a tiny babe. In Christmas God acted in the only way God could have acted.

 “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into our neighborhood.” This is the remarkable truth we celebrate this night and during the Christmas season.

God could have come to us in any way at all, and he chose to do so quietly. As John the Baptist would later tell: among you stands one who was to come whom you do not recognize.  God chose to give us a "sign" by becoming an "infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger." Small, weak, and helpless - that is how our Lord comes to us. And who can resist the charm of a helpless little baby gurgling and smiling and waving its tiny little hands?

Wade Burton tells about a man who was riding a bus from Chicago to Miami. He had a stop-over in Atlanta. While he was sitting at a lunch counter, a woman came out of the ladies' rest room carrying a tiny baby. She asked the man, "Will you hold my baby for me, I left my purse in the rest room." He did. But as the woman neared the front door of the bus station, she darted out into the crowded street and was immediately lost in the crowd.

The man couldn't believe his eyes. He rushed to the door to call the woman, but could not see her. What should he do? Put the baby down and run?

When calmness settled in he went to the Traveler's Aid booth and they soon found the real mother. The woman who had left him holding the baby was not the baby's mother. She had taken the child, perhaps to satisfy a motherly urge to hold a child. The man breathed a sigh of relief when the real mother was found. After all, what was he to do with a baby?

In a way each of us is in the same situation as this gentleman. We are left with the question, "What will we do with the baby?" Have we really come to terms with the fact that this baby is not simply extraordinarily gifted, but that he is himself a gift from the heart of God? What are we going to do with the Child? God the Father has placed Him today into our hands. What are we choosing to do? Leave him down on the floor and run? Or take him home, nurture him and live with him everyday?

Today is born a savior…Christ the Lord.