Jesus' birth not heralded everywhere
Circumstances weren’t the best at the time of his birth, though I suppose you could claim the lack of a major war to be favorable. He may not have paid attention to most of the world’s troubles anyway since they were pretty much the common lot of the population among whom he lived.
As far as we know there was little celebration of his birth.
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Reflection - Birthday
By Steve Hall
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/122521-day.cfm
Isaiah 52:7-10
John 1:1-18
A child was born a few years ago. From what I’ve heard, a gentle silence enveloped all things, and night in its swift course was half gone when he was born. His family was probably in the bottom portion of the middle class, presuming their society even had a middle class.
Circumstances weren’t the best at the time of his birth, though I suppose you could claim the lack of a major war to be favorable. He may not have paid attention to most of the world’s troubles anyway since they were pretty much the common lot of the population among whom he lived. As far as we know there was little celebration of his birth. After all, such things were and are an ordinary part of life. (Though I have heard that Frank and Ralph had a pretty noisy party that night.)
A record of the child’s early years is lacking. We know neither his birth year nor his birth day. There’s no record of school attendance, or neighborhood sports participation, or awards earned. We could guess at a few things, and at least two or three of those guesses might come with a modest degree of certitude. Setting those prescient ideas aside, we have no information at all on his years of maturation. What we do know comes from men writing about the last few years of his life.
Today, Isaiah writes for us in his usual poetic style.
“How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of him who brings glad tidings,
announcing peace, bearing good news,
announcing salvation, and saying to Zion,
“Your God is King!”
Announcements, however, are never enough no matter how encouraging or inspiring they might be. They are not enough to sustain a covenant of promises. They are not enough to move most men to change their lives. They are not enough to securely anchor our hope in a future of peace and Justice.
I like Christmas as much as the next guy. I like the festivities, the decorations, the special foods, the stillness of a snowy night, packages under a well lit tree. I even like wrapping packages. And what other season has its own songs — songs filled with joy and hope, peace and promise?
But Christmas is an announcement, as it were. It is a feel good time; but, to a large extent, the ‘feel good’ comes from traditions of our own making. If I look to know the promise of the season, what do I find?
More about that next time.