Manger, Glory, Incarnation: a homily at the Dawn Eucharist of Christmas Day

Manger, Glory, Incarnation: the Grand Miracle

At the Dawn Eucharist of Christmas Day, 2021

Luke 2:8-20 

In the quietness of this Christmas morning, our Gospel reading, from Saint Luke’s account of the Nativity of Our Lord, presents us with stark contrasts.

On the one hand there is glory, splendour, majesty.  Angels, the glory of the Lord shining, the heavenly host singing ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven’.  

We hear too of the royal titles of the Christ Child, born in the city of David, Israel’s greatest king; described as ‘anointed’ - for that is what ‘Messiah’ means - like the mighty kings of old; hailed as ‘Saviour’, a title claimed by the Roman emperors, reflecting their authority and the order they upheld.

On the other hand, however, there is poverty, vulnerability, humility.  The news of the birth of the Christ Child is announced to shepherds: hard-working labourers, earthy, carrying the distinct odour of their labour, far removed from the comforts and privileges of the religious and social elites of the day.  

Then there are the circumstances of the birth of the Christ Child, as described by the angel: “you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger”.  As Jesus himself would say later, “those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces”: this, a manger used to feed animals, is no palace, here there are no soft robes.

These contrasts - glory, splendour, majesty and poverty, vulnerability, humility - come together in the Nativity of Our Lord.  They do not cancel each other out, they do not contradict each other, they do not erase each other.  They are brought together, held together in the Christ Child, in the person of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

In the poverty, vulnerability, humility of human nature we, with the Blessed Virgin Mary, with Saint Joseph, with the shepherds, behold the glory, splendour, majesty of God. Here we behold the mystery of Christmas: in the Christ Child we see humanity and divinity united, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.

True humanity, true divinity, united in the Christ Child. As one ancient Christian confession of faith declares: “we believe and confess: that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man; God, of the Substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds: and Man, of the Substance of his Mother, born in the world”.

In the quietness and stillness of Christmas morning, we encounter what C.S. Lewis described as ‘the grand miracle’ at the very heart of the Christian Faith: the glory, splendour, and majesty of the Eternal becomes present in poverty, vulnerability, and humility - in a Manger, on the Cross, in the Tomb.

Gazing with the shepherds this morning on the Christ Child in the Manger we behold the grace, mercy, and love of God, assuming the poverty, vulnerability, and humility of our humanity that we might share in the glory, splendour, and majesty of the very life of God.  

With the shepherds, then, let us at this Eucharist, throughout this Christmas season, and in our daily lives ‘glorify and praise God for all we have seen and heard’ in the grand miracle of the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

(The illustration is a 17th century Ukrainian painting, from an iconostasis.)