4th Sunday of Advent - Year B - The Christmas Gospel & “Angels We Have Heard On High”
The central verse of the Christmas Gospel exultantly proclaims that God likes to camp with us. This is not a new message. During the wilderness wandering, as the Israelites crossed from bondage in Egypt to the promised land, they experienced God’s presence in the tent of meeting. Israel’s God did not remain stationary in a temple, but rather traveled with the people throughout their desert sojourn. This experience of God-with-us takes on an extraordinary new dimension when the Holy One tents with us in human flesh, in the person of Jesus.
Just as leaving a sturdy home to camp in a canvas tent makes one vulnerable to the elements and to danger, so does Jesus’ donning of human flesh. John’s prologue already points toward his rejection and execution. There would be those who would not recognize the Creator’s love masked in human flesh. They miss the truth that the divine impulse is to become one with the most fragile of humanity.
The amazing thing is that, although the Logos (Word) has gone camping with humankind, he has not left the home he has with Theos (God). Even as he dwells with humanity, he is yet “…at the Father’s side”. Here is an extraordinary image: the Son is at the “breast” of the Father—it is an image of the intimacy of a nursing mother with her child—that same intimacy that God wants to have with us, the same intimacy that is shared between Jesus and all his disciples, symbolized in the figure of the Beloved Disciple, who at the Last Supper reclines at Jesus’ side.
In our celebration of Christmas, followers of Jesus are invited out of our comfortable abodes to pitch our tent with the most vulnerable and needy in our communities. We not only rejoice in God tenting with us in human form but as followers of Christ we too are invited out of our comfortable abodes to help those who need it most, while resting always in our one permanent home: the bosom of the God, Holy One!
In honour of Christmas, we would like to share our latest video entitled "Angels We Have Heard On High", a beautiful new arrangement by Steven Strite on a traditional French Christmas carol. The carol speaks to the birth of Jesus Christ, as narrated in the Gospel of Luke, specifically the scene outside Bethlehem in which shepherds encounter a multitude of angels singing and praising the newborn King.
Video can be watched by clicking here or on the picture below:
