The text I'm using this morning is not from the New Testament. It is from the great Saint Augustine of Hippo. Now he died in 04/2030. Just before the while he was dying, the Gauls were battering at the gates of this of Hippo. Now I think this is from one of his sermons and it's so appropriate to up to us because we are trying.
We haven't fully succeeded, but we are earnestly and sincerely trying to follow Jesus Christ, the son of god. Notice the son of god. That's the whole point. And here is a man speaking from Hippo, the bishop of Hippo, Saint Augustine famous for his confessions, and a lot of other books too. He's the greatest theologian in the church.
He's speaking to us from Hippo about the year April. Now listen. Awake mankind. For your sake, god has become man. Awake, you who sleep.
Rise from the dead. I tell you again, for your sake, god has become man. Aren't they those words are absolutely striking. It we I can't say what if you don't remember anything else I say, remember those words of this bishop of Hippo, the great Saint Augustine. Rise.
Wake up. Wake from the dead That god has become man for your sake and the your is you. You, individual. That is the whole message of Christmas, and it's a message we ought to live with for the entire year, believe me. Now last year or the year before, I forget which, there was a half a page advertisement, I think in the New York Times.
It showed Santa Claus on the one hand and Jesus Christ on the other. And then this was an advertisement. And then in big letters underneath it said, whose birthday are we celebrating? And then in still larger types type it said, it is not a matter who who came down the chimney. What is the essential matter is who came down from heaven.
We invite you to celebrate the birthday of the son of god. That was an advertisement in the paper a couple years ago. Now if there's one thing I noticed about this past, preparations for Christmas, notice I didn't say I've been talking about what went on in the stores beginning before Thanksgiving. And I'm not against that. All I'm saying is, Santa Claus, for some unknown reason, is is becoming better known and more acceptably is becoming much more a a figure in Christmas.
For a while, you know, he was on the descent. Now he's becoming quite famous. They're picking up on Santa Claus and forgetting Jesus Christ. There's then part of the problem. It's not that Christmas has become commercial.
It's become it because it's be free. The the the point is, it's forgetting Jesus Christ. Now we can't afford to do that because our our presence here this morning, our presence here on Sundays, our presence in the in the liturgy of the church during the year, we are believing Catholics. And our belief rests upon the fact, f a c t, not a myth, not a not some kind of fiction written off the cuff by a by somebody or other at some time or other. That history, that Jesus Christ was born in or around Bethlehem.
Now the question is, is he god or isn't he? And you cannot sit in those pews in passivity and say, well, that's a big question. That's scholars do with it. It makes me feel good to come to church. That's not what why you come to church, to feel good.
You come to church because you're worshiping God almighty in the real presence of his son, Jesus Christ, who was born of a virgin girl. You say this look, to a good honest person who has no concept of Christianity, Christianity, they'll say that sounds like nuts to me. Are you crazy? That god remember most primitives have a pretty good idea of god. That god became a human being, a baby even, and was born in in some rather poor aspect of life?
You say, sure do. Do you really in your in the bottom of your heart believe that you are living in the presence of the of Jesus Christ in the tabernacle of this altar. And if you say I do believe, how does my life then correspond to that? Am I living as if I were truly living for eternity or am I living just as every other worldling lives? And there are plenty of them in this world and good people.
But there's a huge difference between being a good person and being a good follower of Jesus Christ. Now I am very much concerned this morning with presenting to you what Saint Luke says about the birth of God. Remember, any proposition that I can make about Jesus Christ, son of Mary, I can make to God as the subject of that proposition because the son of Mary is truly God. Two natures, one person, Jesus Christ. Now during during Advent and even before that, by Dixon starts little bits of of his gospel, we've been reading Saint Luke.
Now what I want to do is to try to put together what we have been reading in in a in an overall overlooked view that we can grasp it. Now what I want you to fully see is this, we are dealing not with the natural. We're not dealing here with something you can take into a scientific lab and dissect it and analyze it. We are dealing with gods becoming man. And if that isn't enough to to throw anybody on their back, I don't know what is that this unimaginable god has become a human being for a love of me.
That's the whole message, and that's either true or false. And if it's false, then why are we playing games? But if it's true, why aren't we more enthusiastic? Why isn't our heart into it more and our intelligence and our mind? We're not a bunch of zombies running around simply saying, I believe.
I believe. I believe. What is this conviction that we have that I have a savior? And how what does Saint Luke say about it? Now the first thing I wanna say about that is this, that there is no part of the gospel more assaulted today than these first chapters of Saint Luke.
The nativity I mean, the the these the the two chapters having to do with the birth of Jesus Christ. Now very few people read the New Testament. I know that. Many read parts of it now and then, but how many have read that prologue which Saint Luke attached to his gospel? He just when he he he when he the gospel of Saint Luke does not begin with an account of our lord's birth.
It begins with a prologue. Now let me read you the prologue that Saint Luke wrote. Now remember this gospel was written around eighty AD eighty eighty AD, just about fifty years after our lord's crucifixion. Now here is what here is the way Saint Luke introduces his gospel. I'm I'm reading verbatim.
It's the prologue. Since many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the events which have happened among us, just as those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning and ministers of the word have handed down to us. Notice he's not giving something all new. I too have decided after investigating everything anew to write it down in an orderly sequence for you, excellent Theophilus, so that you may realize the certainty of the teachings you have received. That's the opening.
That's what Saint Luke puts up first in his gospel. Now in the light of that, can you imagine? I remember there were plenty of people living in nine in in eighty AD who knew people and knew them well all about the story of Christ and John the Baptist. Now can you imagine a man writing such a straightforward statement and then right away going into fiction, going into myth, it's incredible. Just on just common sense says you that'd be crazy to do that.
This man begins his report of the life of Jesus Christ with what I've just read to you. He he doesn't pretend that he's giving something new. He's just simply saying, I have gone back and re and reviewed the whole business anew over again so that you and I'm going to try to put it in some orderly sequence so that you may be sure of what you have believed. And that's how he begins that gospel. As I say, it's it's you just can't imagine any a person writing that and then beginning with a lot of fiction, which the people who would be reading it would know would they would know it was fiction because they knew at least secondhand what had happened.
Secondhand. Second generation. There may have been some there who who who remembered it, who knew Jesus Christ. Now these first two chapters on the infancy with it, it's called the infancy narrative. It's very simple.
Luke joined but it's so impressive you see. That's that's what I'm trying I'm not going to be concerned with the details but I want you to get the thrust of it. After this prologue, does Luke begin with Jesus Christ? No. He begins with he doesn't begin with John in a sense, John the Baptist.
He begins at Jerusalem in the temple where an elderly priest named Zechariah is fulfilling his duties and an angel appears to Zechariah. And here's an old man whose wife Elizabeth was known to be sterile from her youth. And now they're both advanced in age. And the angel tells John I mean, tells Zechariah, you're going to have your Elizabeth is going to have a son. Notice the male, not just a baby, it's going to be a son and you're going to call him John.
Well, Zechariah questions that. How can that happen? I'm old, my wife is sterile, and he loses his speech. He can't talk anymore. So he goes home, and Elizabeth becomes pregnant.
Now the story shifts up to Nazareth up into the North, up into the lake country. Nazareth is is west of the Sea Of Galilee, not far inland. And there we have the Gabriel announcing to this virgin girl that she is going to be the mother of a son and that it will be the action of god upon her, not of man. And she says Mary says, how can this happen to me? I'm not acquainted with men.
I don't know any men. And the angel says, well, don't worry, Mary. The the spirit of god will rest upon you and so forth. Now what does Mary do? And oh, this.
And then the angel tells Mary, your kinswoman Elizabeth, way down there, well, should say up to the capital very near Jerusalem. Elizabeth in her old age and that woman who was known to be barren is having a baby. What does Mary do? She leaves Bethlehem and and go I mean, Nazareth and goes up to the capital as we say, but it's going south and she goes down to visit her kinswoman. And as soon as she enters the room, the baby in Elizabeth's womb leapt with joy.
Leapt with joy. So here then you have Mary meeting Elizabeth. Mary stays there for a while and then she returns to Nazareth up north and Elizabeth then produces a baby. And it's a baby boy. And when they want to circumcise the child and name it, they want to name the people, the friends want to call it Zachary.
Oh, no. Elizabeth says no. So they come to Zachariah and said, What shall we call the baby? And Zachariah writes, His name is John. And at that he receives back his speech.
And John the Baptist is born in a the time has come for her delivery. But at the same time, they they are moving up to the capital in order to fulfill the law of of the census taking. And then here we're told they come to Jerusalem, can't find a place to stay. They go into a cave of some sort, and she has her baby. The son of god has become man.
The son of god has become man. Us baby nursing at the breast of a virgin girl. And then nearby, not far from that from Bethlehem, you have an angel gave appearing to the shepherds telling them what has happened in Bethlehem. And then when the angel finishes the message, a whole gang of angels come around and they're singing glorious music. And the shepherds of course are absolutely astounded.
Say what what shall we do? And then the angels disappear and say let's go over there. Let's go over there and see if this all if this is all a lot of nonsense. Let's see if there is a baby over there as these what seems to have been an apparition. So they go over to see.
They just don't take it on faith. And what do we are told in today's reading? That here they find in the in a manger a baby with a mother and the father present. Now the the thing that always amazes me is this, how the how Saint Luke says they saw and they understood. Doesn't that amaze you?
They saw and then they understood. What did they understand? Did they have some kind of special enlightenment or something? I don't know but we're told they understood because they saw the baby in the manger and that's where we are this morning. We are before that manger.
We are bending our knees, our hearts, our minds. I believe. I believe that it rests on faith that that baby is the son of god. Now just another little point. The why you say if this if this is so clear, should you stand up there and tell us, why can a man like Rudolph Boltman, for example, at the turn of the century and who had tremendous influence upon scriptural scholars up to the present time, he died after nineteen fifty eight, why can they reject this?
The the basic reason now I'm I'm I stand behind this. The basic reason that that they that these first two chapters are being rejected as history is because Boltman and company, but especially Boltman, said it couldn't have happened because it isn't natural, because it it belongs to what they call the supernatural. To me, on a priori grounds, that's ridiculous. Because if the son of man became if the son of God became man, who in God's name is going to say that that was a natural thing? Who in his who would have any sense at all will say that's what we have a right to expect?
That's it right in accord with nature. That's right in accord with our analyses of what we call the universe. What nonsense. It's crazy. The whole business here rests upon the supernatural.
The whole idea of our baptism rests upon the supernatural. The whole idea of our being Catholics saying that this life is merely a preface to the next and we're living not for this but for the next, that is not natural. That is supernatural. Supernatural, above the natural. It embraces the natural.
So for the love of me, I cannot see any validity in the argument which says this couldn't have happened because, well, you know it's beyond human experience. It's beyond what we call human history or the evidences of it. That to me is no argument at all. And furthermore, what do you do about this simple fact, FACT, that for two thousand years men of every race and color in this universe of ours which we now call the globe, in all kinds of languages, men of the best education of their days, today and all the way back to our lord's time that this has been accepted as the supernatural truth of a divine unspeakable god.