Christmas Day with Christmas Dawn readings

Good Shepherd

2004 Pass Rd, Biloxi, MS 39531

Draft Micah 5:2–5a; Titus 3:4–7; Luke 2:1–20; Psalm 80:1–7; antiph: v. 7   –     12/25/25

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Look at human history and you will know the darkness of man’s heart. Look at Canaan  of old and you will see wickedness, until a new Light shone. Look at the ancients of Europe and you will see rampant evil, until the Light spread there. Look at dark Africa and you will see savagery reigned, until the Light came. Look at Asia and you will see the horrors lie bare, until the Light dawned. Look at recent America and find only murderers, until the Light drove away the spirits. St. Gregory of Nyssa would remind us all, “Who does not know that the deceit of demons filled every corner of the world and held sway over human life by the madness of idolatry? Who does not realize that every people on earth was accustomed to worship demons under the form of idols, by sacrificing living victims and making foul offerings . . . ? But as the apostle says, from the moment that God’s saving grace appeared among humanity and dwelled in human nature, all this vanished into nothing.” (ACDyA, 34)

The powers of darkness stood ignorant at the Savior’s conception, then they shook in fear at the proclamation of His birth, then they raged as Jesus grew, and at last they died when the Christ swallowed death on the cross. Yet how can this be? Should it not rather be for those who rebelled, who worshipped demons instead of the only true God, as St. Asaph said, You have fed them with the bread of tears and given them tears to drink in full measure. You make us an object of contention for our neighbors, and our enemies laugh among themselves.

Even the angels looked upon us askance, as St. Gregory the Great wrote, “Before the Redeemer was born in the flesh, there was discord between us and the angels, from whose brightness and holy perfection we were separated, in punishment first of original sin and then because of our daily offences. Because through sin we had become strangers to God, the angels as God’s subjects cut us off from their fellowship.” (Homilies on the Gospels 8.2) When even the angels rejected us how could God stoop so low as to save us from the chains and darkness of our sin, how could He liberate us from the rule of demons?

St. Ambrose says, “He was a baby and a child, so that you might be a perfect human. He was wrapped in swaddling clothes, so that you may be freed from the snares of death. He was in a manger, so that you may be in the altar. He was on earth that you may be in the stars. He had no other place in the inn, so that you may have many mansions in the heavens. He, being rich, became poor for your sakes, that through his poverty you might be rich. Therefore his poverty is our inheritance, and the Lord’s weakness is our virtue. He chose to lack for himself, that he may abound for all. The sobs of that appalling infancy cleanse me, those tears wash away my sins.” (ACDyA, 35–36)

Why came the saving Light thus, so small and weak, so needful of an earthly mother’s care and an earthly father’s protection when He is the creator of the universe, the Lord of the heavens and the earth, to whom all the cattle of the fields and the birds of the sky belong, who is the one wronged by us and owes mankind nothing? Is it because of the prayers of St. Asaph when he sang: Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock! You who are enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth. Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh, stir up your might and come to save us! Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved! O Lord God of hosts, how long will you be angry with your people’s prayers? …Restore us, O God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved? No, for St. Asaph is not the origin of that call, but the echo of an earlier promise, the earlier promise of which St. Paul hinted. When the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

But whence came this appearing? Whence this mercy? Long ago, when man first listened to the lord of the flies, the father of lies, he who would be the first murderer, when Adam doubted God’s Word and scandalized the angels, God Who in Adam’s sin of pride and betrayal had lost a son and a daughter, God Who alone was wronged turns to the murderer of mankind, The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” (Gen 3:14–15)

By rights, Adam should have died the eternal death as the first command of God said, of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. (Gen 2:17), thus St. Paul also says, For the wages of sin is death (Rm 6:23a) yet Christ Himself adds again hope and explains how He could be born such a lowly child? For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned (Jn 3:16–18a). We who in Adam are due the eternal death in hell, God desired to forgive and save, yet the wages of Adam’s sin, of your sin, of my sin remain to be paid, and no spirit can pay the debt of a man of flesh.

Therefore St. Athanasius wrote, “How could he have given himself if he had not worn flesh? He offered his flesh and gave himself for us, in order that undergoing death in it, ‘He might bring to nothing the one who held the power of death, that is, the devil.’” Thus we give thanks. “For the coming of the Savior in the flesh has been the ransom and salvation of all creation.” (ACDyA, 34) For what Jesus has taken up into Himself that He has redeemed by His death upon the tree of the cross: By His conception and birth He has taken our flesh to redeem our flesh, He has taken our sins to redeem us from them and reap the wages due us. For that cause He goes to the tree of the cross, that we who died in sin at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would be brought to life again by Christ’s death upon the second tree which life, righteousness, and salvation He gives us through the waters of Holy Baptism. The power of the demons lies broken.

Then St. Gregory the Great can say further, “But since we have now acknowledged our King, the angels receive us as fellow citizens. Because the King of heaven has taken unto himself the flesh of our earth, the angels from their heavenly heights no longer look down upon our infirmity. Now they are at peace with us, putting away the remembrance of the ancient discord. Now they honor us as friends, whom before they considered to be weak and despised.” (Homilies on the Gospels 8.2) Now they sing to the shepherds at Christ’s Advent from His mother’s womb: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will among men! The Shepherd of Israel has come among men, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth. And he shall be their peace.

Therefore St. Paul again says, But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rm 6:22–23) The fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil led to our death, but the fruit of the cross, which Christ gives us at His altar, leads to our life, leads to the brightening of our soul and our eye. No longer does the shadow of death or the power of the devil remain over us, St. Gregory of Nyssa has spoken well, they have vanished in the light of God’s Son, born the Man to die. Amen.

Now the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen