The Nativity of the Lord (Christmas) 2017

Published: December 25, 2017

Bishop Anthony B. Taylor preached the following homily during the Midnight Mass at the Cathedral of St. Andrew in Little Rock on Monday, Dec. 25, 2017.

Bishop Taylor

 Most families have traditions about how to celebrate birthdays. In my family you got to select the menu for your birthday dinner. After eating everyone sang the birthday song, Mom brought a cake with lit candles into the darkened room, you made a wish, blew out the candles and served yourself as much cake as you wanted. Mom served everyone else more reasonable portions. Then you got your gifts. Sound familiar?

Well today is Jesus’ 2017th birthday! Except that unlike every other birthday, today it is the birthday boy who gives us the gifts. Indeed he himself is the gift — God’s greatest gift ever! Today the light itself is born into the world, not little wax candles to lighten up a darkened room, blown out amid wishes for something we desire, but light itself which darkness cannot overpower … the long awaited Messiah to fulfill our deepest desire: lasting happiness the world cannot give, happiness that lasts forever.

On this greatest of all birthdays the honoree is the one who gives the gifts, but naturally we do want to reciprocate, give him gifts in return. So why do we give gifts to each other today? Shouldn’t we be giving them to Jesus instead? After all, it’s his birthday.

One answer is that by becoming man and being born into this world, God became one of us, our brother. And since all of us are made in the image and likeness of God, any kindness we give — or refuse to give — to anyone else we also give — or refuse to give — to God, including to Jesus who is God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity.

So we give gifts to Jesus on his birthday by giving gifts to God, which we do by giving gifts to each other. But there’s more: the greatness of a gift comes from how much it cost you personally — not the monetary cost, not how many dollars you spent, but rather how much of yourself that gift represents, your self-sacrificing love — that’s the true cost and true value of a gift.

And the gift God gave us on Christmas was the greatest gift ever because it cost him personally more than any other gift imaginable: his very self. His Son who today starts the process of sacrificing his entire self in order to set us free and make us his own. The greater the sacrifice, the greater the love and Christmas is the first step in the path that leads to Good Friday, the greatest sacrifice ever.

The gifts you give to Jesus by giving to others today, how much did they cost you personally? And I’m not talking about monetarily. Gifts to family and friends are expressions of your love for them, but may or may not be as much of a personal sacrifice as the dollar amount suggests — not only do they usually reciprocate, you also don’t have to leave your comfort zone … indeed it would be far more uncomfortable not to give them gifts.

On the other hand, the gifts we give to the poor who can’t reciprocate, the gifts that require us to rub shoulders with the needy, these cost us a whole lot more personally because to give to them we have to leave our comfort zone and so are greater gifts to Jesus on his birthday, regardless of the price tag. Jesus says: "Whatever you do to the least of my brothers and sisters you do to me." Not instead of family and friends, which are the smaller gifts, even if they cost more money, but rather in addition to them.

In my family, on Christmas, my mother made a birthday cake for Jesus. All of us kids made a wish and together blew out the candle and then gathered around the tree to open our gifts. We didn’t think about giving gifts to the poor — I wish we had, because that’s the kind of birthday gift Jesus would have liked most of all!