THE NIGHT THAT CHANGED THE WORLD: WHEN THE WORD BECAME FLESH
A Story of Christmas in Scripture, Poetry and Prose
Written, Compiled and Read by Joe Praml
Copyright: 2009 Contact: Linn Sand, Linn Sand Agency lsandagency@sbcglobal.net
The Magi follow the Christmas Star
Joe Praml read THE NIGHT THAT CHANGED THE WORLD at churches and public libraries in Los Angeles
“And the Word Became Flesh.” One night in a tiny town in Judea, the town of Bethlehem, those five words from the gospel of John became reality. No event has more driven history.
Both the Gospel of John and the book of Genesis open with those words “In the beginning”.
Genesis 1: “In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless wasteland and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind swept over the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light and there was light.”
Thus began the creation. With words. No struggles with mythic beasts or prodigal transformations of nature. God didn’t merely will his creation, He spoke it into being. It was the Word that created. Each new day of creation begins with God’s spoken words: “Let there be...”
John’s gospel, as does Genesis, starts at the very beginning of creation:
In the beginning was the Word, The Word was in God’s presence, And the Word was God. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us...
On that night in Bethlehem the Word became a newborn infant, born a human being from the mortal womb of a human mother.
Mary, God’s chosen carrier of Jesus is young, perhaps still in her teens. She is betrothed to an older man, Joseph, in the way marriages were made in that time. According to Luke, an angel appears to her and tells her “Rejoice O highly favored daughter. The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women.”
Mary is frightened and deeply troubled but the angel says “Do not fear, Mary. You have found favor with God. You shall conceive and bear a son and give him the name of Jesus”.
“But how can this be,” answers Mary, “since I don’t know man.”
The Angel says “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Nothing is impossible with God.”
Mary, obedient and grasping what the angel has said, says “I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be done to me as you say.” And the angel left her.
Soon after, Mary went off to tell her cousin Elizabeth. Elizabeth is bearing a son of her own, who, when born, will be named John and who will be known as the Baptizer. When Elizabeth hears Mary’s greeting, the baby, according to Luke, leaps in her womb as Mary, now bearing the seed of her own child, comes into sight.
And then Mary gives her great canticle, one of the memorable poems in Scripture:
My being proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit finds joy in God my savior, For he has looked upon his servant in her lowliness;
all ages to come shall call me blessed. His mercy is from age to age on those who fear him.
He has shown might with his arm; He has confused the mighty from their thrones and raised the lowly to high places. The hungry he has given every good thing, while the rich he has sent away empty.
When Mary is about to give birth to the child, she must obey an edict by the Emperor Augustus Caesar, that all Roman citizens and all Roman subjects are required to go to their place of origin and register for a census.
For this, Mary and Joseph must go to Bethlehem, a small town on the left bank of the Jordan, south of Jerusalem. It is the birthplace of King David. Both Mary and Joseph are of the House of David.
There is no lodging for Mary and Joseph anywhere in Bethlehem. There is no hospital, nor a midwife. Yet Mary is about to give birth. Luke tells us that there is only a place occupied by animals, perhaps a cave, where Mary must suffer the pains of delivery.
And suffer she must. If we are to believe in the incarnation, that the word became flesh, that God entered this world as a human then we must also assume that the birth was like any other, with sweat, with blood, with pain, culminating in that first triumphant cry of life. The Word was now an infant baby, helpless in its mother’s arms.
Then the baby is cleaned up, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger. Not a crèche, a crib of soft hay, which we see so often on Christmas cards and in churches at this time of year. These enhancements come from the imagination of St. Francis Assisi a thousand years later. In Luke it’s a manger, a four-sided rectangular box which is filled with food for the animals. One of the uses of swaddling cloth was to wrap around the dead, perhaps a foreboding of a time to come for the newborn infant.
The manger--here is this king's first throne, this cave his first kingdom. Simple shepherds from nearby hills, where young David once tended to his sheep, come to view and worship this infant and became his first subjects. All this while the new born king in the manger is sleeping away the shock of birth. This is the miracle. This is our faith.
Then, according to Luke, when the infant is eight days old, the family goes to the great temple in Jerusalem, for Mary and the Child’s purification rites. According to Jewish law the infant is circumcised and offered to God as a first fruit, and there, at the Temple, he is given the name of Jesus, the name told to Mary by the angel.
Matthew tells us that the family then went up to Egypt to flee the wrath of King Herod. He feared a new born king who would usurp his power and he ordered that all the newborn males of Bethlehem be killed.
Then, when Mary and Joseph heard of Herod’s death, they left Egypt and went to Nazareth, where Jesus grew into adulthood.
We assume that Jesus in Nazareth lived a simple life. He must have played like any other boy, enduring minor scrapes and cuts, comforted by his mother and given advice by his father. As he grew he must have been a robust youth and as a man he occupied his time with his work or profession. Tradition has it that Joseph was a carpenter and that Jesus followed in this craft.
Robert Murray M’Cheyne (1813-1843) says in his sermon “The Word Made Flesh”:
“We know that Jesus, as he dwelt among us had not only body but a soul, a lowly human soul, and with a body with our infirmities such as thirst, pain, of tears, weariness, suffering...the Word was made flesh that he may die...He was made flesh that he may have sympathy for men.”
This birth, this Incarnation is the antecedent of the holiday, the church feast, that we call Christmas, a contraction of two words, Christ and Mass. Christ’s Mass.
The Feast of Christmas had been a cause of contention in the early Church. Centuries passed before Christmas became a feast in the Church’s calendar. Up till then the feasts near this time were Advent on December 6, and Epiphany on January 6. These feasts had more to do with the arrival of the Magi and with the circumcision of Jesus than with his birth. So how did Christmas get to be like it became?
The idea of a birth recognition for Jesus was repellent to Origen, one of the early fathers of the church. He said only pagans and false gods needed recognition on their birthday.
But out of church councils in places such as Alexandria in Egypt came sermons not only proclaiming Christ's birth but that the birth occurred in December, near the Winter Solstice. From Antioch, a major church, founded by the Disciple Peter himself, came more pressure for a feast in glorification of Jesus’ birth.
Many early church councils argued back and forth whether or not to have any observance of his birth at all. At issue also was the date of his birth since there is nothing about this in Scripture. Gradually the date December 25 took hold. And gradually so did the feast of Christmas itself. By the 4th century December 25th was finally established as the day of his birth. It was made into a feast day, alongside Advent and Epiphany.
Even from these early times, this feast of Jesus’ birth was becoming linked with a spirit of generosity, of concern for others, of a predilection toward our better natures.
We hear of a bishop in the 4th century, the bishop of Myra in modern day Turkey, widely known for his generosity, his concern for the welfare of children and encouraging the giving of gifts. This bishop will later be known far and wide as St. Nicholas.
In so many different cultures, traditions took root and grew of the bringer and giver of gifts and good cheer. Traditions, of giving to the needy, of lessening the burdens of the oppressed became familiar themes on this day. Legends sprung up, legends with names like Sinter Klaas, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle, Pere Noel in France, Babbo Natale in Italy, the Christkind, Jezisek, Jezuska, St. Basil and Father Frost. Every culture where Christianity took hold produced figures of jollity and generosity associated with Christmas.
In Europe, kings and mighty rulers were expected to go out on Christmas, sometimes in sackcloth to bring gifts and comfort to the poor. The old carol Good King Wenceslas, when we listen to the words, is about such a king, barefoot in the snow, bringing flesh and wine, the food and drink of mighty lords and rulers to the peasants.
In England Charles I ordered his court, composed of dukes, earls and barons to go back to their estates at Christmas and do their duties as overlords to their subjects.
In 1653 Oliver Cromwell, leading the Puritan Revolution, outlawed Christmas itself as being unchristian. When Cromwell died 5 years later, Christmas, which never disappeared despite the Puritan laws, returned in full force as a time of good cheer.
At Christmas Mass in 800, Pope Leo III crowns Charlemagne, King of the Franks, as the emperor and founder of the Holy Roman Empire, successor to the Roman Empire and the ancient leaders of the Romans. Over two and a half hundred years later, on Christmas day, 1066, William of Normandy known as the Conqueror has himself crowned as king of England in Westminster Abbey. These events affect European history for the next thousand years.
Out of Germany came the decorated Christmas tree. This is not to be confused with the yule tree of pagan times. Decorated evergreen trees were a regular prop in the medieval mystery plays and represented the tree in the garden of Eden. This decorated evergreen didn’t symbolize the fall of Adam and Eve, but laden with decorations and fruits, it represented God’s many gifts to them. In the last 200 years the decorated evergreen tree has become a Christmas staple in homes, bringing brightness and cheer during this feast time.
From paintings, frescos, statues in churches, museums, collections all over the world, we see how Christmas has inspired artists. We hear the music of this feast day--some of the greatest music ever written. We regard others, our loved ones, our neighbors, even strangers who pass us by with generosity and respect. We send cards, many of these with miniature reproductions of this art, with verses and good cheer, to people we haven't thought of the entire year.
For some 50 years now, wherever I am, whenever I can, when weather or circumstance permits, a rite of Christmas for me is to stand outside, at about 3 or 4 am, on Christmas Eve, the darkest stillest time of that night. There is something in the air, mysterious, vast, but pleasing and congenial, substantive enough to reach out and touch.
It is good will in that night air, plain good cheer, and expectation. My own childhood comes back to me. Out there are other children. Many of them, maybe all of them, even all of us, are in a fitful sleep, expectant with what the morning will bring, wondering in some factitious way, if reindeer really know how to fly.
The Catholic Catechism tells us that we must become as children. Jesus in all of the Gospels reaches out especially to the children. Perhaps the true meaning of Christmas time is that we all, in spirit, return to that time in our lives of innocence when we still spoke to angels.
In 1843, in England, a novella was published. It was written by Charles Dickens and it was titled “A Christmas Carol.” This book has had a profound influence on how we celebrate Christmas today. In it are all the elements of good cheer and responsibility for one another. The phrase “Merry Christmas” comes from here. We all know the story. The climax is when mean old Scrooge re-discovers the child in himself, the child that was never completely destroyed. As Dickens says: “It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself.” This book surely is one of the proofs of the power of literature.
In this country, the creator of Santa Clause as we know him now, the jolly fat fellow with the hearty laugh, was Thomas Nast, the first great political cartoonist. He was a caustic illustrator, very partisan, and the legend has it that this is where the word nasty comes from. Mr. Nast also created the figure of Uncle Sam as we know him, long, spindly with high striped hat and long goatee, as well as the Republican Party elephant and the Democratic Party donkey.
In 1822 a poem was published, by an author who wished to remain anonymous. Twenty years later--by this time the poem a part of American culture--the author consented to have his name attached to his poem. The name of the author was Clement Clarke Moore. The name of the poem was “'Twas The Night Before Christmas.” Here is the first mention of reindeer and sleigh as part of St. Nick’s retinue.
In 1906 O. Henry publishes “The Gift of the Magi” in which the true expression of love between this impoverished young couple isn’t the watch fob or the combs, but the sacrifices and deprivations they made to please each other.
In 1954 Dylan Thomas “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” was read on BBC Wales a year after the poet’s early death. This has become a Holiday classic.
A cowboy singer named Gene Autry convinces us that there was yet another member of Santa’s reindeer constituency, someone called Rudolph, a reindeer with a glowing red nose.
Commercial? Even crassly so? You can say there’s been a corruption of this feast, merchants feverishly and cynically trying to sell their stocks, promoting the urge for us to buy buy buy. And that would be true, if indeed it were true. Is there another such holiday anywhere on our calendar than the one we celebrate now in the otherwise dark month of December?
There is an overwhelming sense of good will in there somewhere, a good feeling that can only be credited to the inherent goodness in human beings. It is the urge to express this integral part of our nature, to give, to be generous, especially when it involves children. And it occurs so strongly, now, at this time, at the moment of this great feast, in the spirit of that night so long ago.
Joe Praml ends his piece by reading other Christmas poems/readings: O Henry’s The Gift Of The Magi Dylan Thomas’ "A Child’s Christmas in Wales" Clement Moore’s "...'Twas The Night Before Christmas"
