Be joyful in Jesus' birth into our human family, so we can join His family as children of God. Homily for the Christmas Vigil

On behalf of our Pastor, Father Steve Giannini, and myself, Deacon Ron Pirau, I’d like to welcome everyone who have come to celebrate Christmas with us, especially family and friends who are visiting.  This is a time of year when many of us have family and friends who come to join us for this joyful celebration.  If you are a parish member, please make sure to extend a welcome to those who have come to celebrate with us.  

Who here is excited about having family and friends to be with you at Christmas? We should also be very excited because we’ve been anticipating something special.    I’m sure many children are looking forward to gifts they will receive from Santa, family and friends to celebrate Christmas.   But the gift we should be most excited about is the birth Jesus as a humble little baby.  God, who created the universe, chose to enter our world as helpless little child, dependent on Mary and Joseph to care for him.  How incredible is it that God came into the world as each one of us has. To recapture that feeling of excited anticipation of Jesus’ birth, think about the birth of you own child, grandchild, brother, or sister, or that of a family or friend.  I’m sure you anxiously waited for the new little baby to arrive and were overjoyed when they finally were born. That’s the same joy we can experience in the birth of Jesus.

Jesus belonged to a family like each of us.  We heard about his human family in the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew.  You may have zoned out hearing this long list of strange sounding names. A few may have been familiar, such as Abraham and David, but most were quite different, such as Aminadab and Zerubbabel.   Who are all these names, and why did Matthew include them? 

He did so because Jesus’ lineage was very important to the people of Israel.  

Family heritage is very important to many of us as well.   How many of you have researched you own family lineage?  When we learn about our family, we may discover some interesting people in our lineage.  My wife has roots that go back to the civil war with relations to General George Pickett from the Union side and General Robert E. Lee on the Confederate side.   We may also learn about some people who have a bit of a checkered past, and many others who are just very ordinary.

Mathew recounts the genealogy of Jesus to fulfill prophecy and show us that Jesus family is much like ours. Some in Jesus’ family line have questionable backgrounds that may not have been considered appropriate for the Jewish Messiah.   The five women listed in the family line were all Gentile, except Mary, were powerless and marginalized. There were several kings mentioned, but most were known of not being faithful to God.  The most significant was that of King David, which is important in the prophecy of the Davidic Kingdom enduring forever.   When Joseph says yes to God in taking Mary into his home, he formally adopts Jesus by naming him and fulfills the prophecy of the Messiah coming from David’s line. Jesus’ human family includes those who are famous, infamous, and many ordinary people, much like each of us.

While Jesus has a human family, he is divine as well because he is also the Son of God.    We hear that Joseph is distressed about Mary being with child, before they formally

came together as a married couple, so God sends an angel in a dream to reveal the conception was by the divine power of the Holy Spirit. Joseph also learns the child is to be named Jesus and he will save the his people from their sins.   This was important to the Jewish people fulfilling the prophecy from Malachi,

 

Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
        and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means “Go is with us”.

 

Jesus’ birth is something we can be extremely joyful about because his coming restored humanity’s relationship with God, because he came to save us from our sins. As a vulnerable little baby, we can humbly approach him in wonder and awe that he became one of us, so we could be saved by him.  In hearing about Jesus family line, we realize that we don’t need to be perfect, to become members of his family. He invites us to be part of his family by being faithful, believing He is God’s Son who came to save all of us from our sins. In Jesus public’ ministry he purposely invited people who were much less than perfect to be part of his family: the Samaritan women at the well, Zacchaeus the tax collector whom he dined at his house, and Mary Magdalene whom he cast out seven demons. Jesus came to these people to restore their relationship with God.  He comes as a little baby into our world to do the same for us. Sin breaks our relationship with God, but Jesus can restore that relationship through the gift of Baptism to become God’s adopted children. When we sin again, and in our imperfect humanity we will, God can restore that relationship through the Sacrament of Reconciliation. And to sustain our relationship with God, the gift of the Eucharist, God with us, in the presence of his Body and Blood, He gives us the grace to do so.   Let us be joyful, that God came to be us as a little baby, and continues to be with us in the Eucharist, until he returns in glory.