THE TEXT BELOW IS THE TRANSCRIPTION OF THE VIDEO COMMENTARY BY FR. FERNANDO ARMELLINI

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A blessed Christmas to all!

When did the Son of God come to become one of us? The evangelist Luke gives us valuable historical information. However, his interest is not to provide superficial details but to give us a message through references to characters and historical events in which the Son of God came into our world. Luke begins his gospel with a historical indication, saying that, in the time of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest in Jerusalem called Zacharias; he had a wife already old, Elizabeth, who was childless and then continues with the story of the birth announcement of the Baptist. Therefore, it was the time of Herod the Great. The last years of the life of this murderous tyrant were the years in which Joseph and Mary had fallen in love; then, they were married.

After this beginning of his gospel, in chapter 2, the evangelist Luke invites us to raise our look from Palestine, in the small town of Nazareth, and invites us to look up to the great cities of the empire where the decisions that affect the world are made: Rome, Antioquia of Syria. Let’s listen to what he tells us:

“In those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled. This was the first enrollment when Quirinius was governor of Syria.”

“In those days….” we are in the year 746 of the foundation of Rome. For us, that year is 7 B.C. Rome is experiencing the golden age of its history. Octavian has been emperor for 20 years; he has placed his government office in the palatine, where he lives with Livia, his third wife, the mother of Tiberius, who will then become emperor, and the whole public life of Jesus will happen under him. From the palatine, Octavian dominates the world, but Luke does not call him Octavian, but Caesar Augustus; Luke designates him with the title granted by the senate: ‘Augustus’ – ‘Sebastes’ = the sublime, the divine, and now, as Augustus, the emperor can behave like God.

He can dominate the world. People celebrate Octavian as a model of meekness and justice; even though he has performed brutal cruelties, he pacified the empire and ended the riots and the revolutions that had Rome bloodied for a century. Returning from Spain, he closed the doors of the temple of Janus, which remained open when there was war; then he built the “Ara Pacis,” the temple and the altar to the Goddess of peace, and inaugurated it in 9 B.C., two years before Jesus’s birth.

We have now placed the birth of Jesus in the historical context. It was a period of prosperity, peace, and social and cultural development that began with Augustus and extended throughout the Mediterranean basin. Many think of this golden age. Virgil sang it in the fourth eclogue: a glorious era, a peaceful world. Let’s remember what Propertius, a contemporary poet, says: “Rome is in its splendor – foreigner, open your eyes.” he was the first character that Luke presented: Augustus – Octavian; the second character was Quirinius, the governor of the province of Syria, to which Palestine also depended.

Historian Josephus Flavius presents this Quirinius as a person highly different in every aspect, the right person who also belongs to this structure of divinized power that could do what he wanted; he could dispose of people according to his will. The census of which Luke talks to us presents many difficulties from the historical point of view. Still, the evangelist introduced it because it contains a very important theological message, and we will try to understand what this message is.

The practice of censuses has been known in the ancient Middle East since the fourth millennium B.C. Some documents witness the censuses in Mesopotamia in Egypt in the fourth millennium before Christ; however, in every age, there was always opposition to the censuses because the citizens did not expect anything good from them because the main reasons they were made were wars and taxes. This is the reason for making the census.

Luke introduces it to us because it is the sign that shows that the emperor can dominate the people and use people to carry out his dreams of power and glory. It is precisely the image of the old world where the great is the one who can dominate and use others. This is why the religion of Israel has consistently rejected as blaspheming this vision of society in which the sovereign people could take a census of people to enslave them as they wished. The word of the Torah says that the people do not belong to the sovereign. The people are of God, and when David, at the pinnacle of his power, decides to make a census because he wants to know how many people are under him. His general, Joab, tried to dissuade him because the king’s decision seemed terrible to them. This census will have dramatic consequences.

In the Torah, the Bible talks about the censuses that God told Moses to do. When the people left Egypt, Moses counted them by God’s order. Then, during the exodus, during the journey in the desert, God tells him again, and then on the Moab grassland, when they are about to enter the promised land, there is a new census. And the rabbis wondered why God continued to count people … he already knew how many there were. Rashi, one of the great medieval rabbis, said that God counted his people because he wanted to verify if someone was lost.

This is not the meaning of the censuses made by the emperors. The rulers of this world want to dominate over people who do not belong to them. The nation, the people, belong to God. Here is an interesting linguistic detail: The census made by the order of God is presented differently from other censuses. In Hebrew, there are several verbs to say to count: ‘safar,’ ‘manna,’ but when we talk about the census, it is not said ‘to count’; it is said: ‘nasaeterosh, ‘ which means ‘raising the head,’ not counting. God says to Moses, ‘Make the head of the people raised.’ it means: ‘You have a face, the face that God contemplates… show it… you must not keep it down, hooked up; lift your face because you are the image of God.’

What a big difference between the census made by God and the census made by men! This is the theological reason why Luke introduces the topic of the census. The power to count people is the maximum expression of dominion. People are submitted and entirely at the disposal of the sovereigns. The absolute powers assume this divine power and these powers are all inhuman. The son of God was about to come into the world to end the slavery of man to these dominant powers.

We have heard two names of characters who belong to the kingdom of this world, that of the dominators who make a census, and now those who are numbered enter the scene, poor people who count for nothing, people who are just a number. It will be from them that the new world will begin. Let’s hear who they are:

“So all went to be enrolled, each to his town. And Joseph, too, went up from Galilee from the town of Nazareth to Judea, to the city of David that is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. While they were there, the time came for her to have her child, and she gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.”

After presenting the world’s rulers, those who ruled the empire, and those everyone admires, Luke gives those who count for nothing to the poor on earth. Joseph belongs to David’s family, but it’s a fallen dynasty that no longer counts for anything. He sets on the waywith a woman, Mary, a fourteen-year-old girl. Let us notice how the evangelist numbers the scale of values according to the criteria of this world: Augustus, Quirinius, then among the poor the man, naturally, then the woman, going down to the last step that a child will occupy. What is Luke telling us? He tells us to pay attention because now the kingdom is coming in which this scale is upside down; in the first place, there will be the one who now is the last, not in the sense that this child will go to the palatine hill to take Cesar Augustus from his throne and occupy his place, dominate and rule over people. No.

Now the scale of values shows that the great one is not the one who does the census but the one who is just a number, the one who will occupy the last position forever, will stay there always because the greatness of the new world that he has come to introduce is of the one who serves, not of those who make others serve them; those who, in the last place, isalways attentive to see how they can make someone happy.

This is the new world and the new greatness; it is a kingdom to which all those who agree to stay in the last place because these will be the greatest in the eyes of God, naturally. This new world will begin in Bethlehem, from where the David dynasty began, and then it almost disappeared, even in the eyes of the world. The prophet Micah had said: “You, Bethlehem, are a small town; you cannot compare yourself with the great cities of Judah, but from you will come out the head of Israel.” he will extend his domain all over the world, but it will not be the domain of those who make the censuses, but the kingdom of those who are outstanding in love.

After explaining in detail why Mary and Joseph are now in Bethlehem, Luke narrates the birth of Jesus very quickly, but with some precious theological indications that I will try to explain. While they are in Bethlehem, Mary’s child is born. The evangelist does not say that the birth happened suddenly when they arrived in that town. They were already in Bethlehem, and Mary gave birth to his firstborn son. Why is the firstborn mentioned?

The reason is that the firstborn of all animal species had to be sacrificed to the Lord. The book of Exodus, chapter 13, says that man’s firstborn should not be sacrificed, but he must be redeemed. The meaning was this: People needed to remember that everything is a gift from God and must be returned to him. So, the animals were sacrificed, and the person was redeemed. However, it was necessary to recognize that man belongs to God, to his designs, and Jesus is the firstborn; he is the one who ultimately belongs to God’s design and will fully realize it in his life.

Later, it is said that Mary wraps her son in swaddling clothes, which is important because it is mentioned twice; even when the announcement is made to the shepherds, one of the signs will be: “Wrapped in swaddling clothes.” What does it mean? The reference and allusion are to a famous text of the Book of Wisdom; in chapter 7, Solomon speaks of his birth. Solomon, the great king, the wisest ever lived, tells how he came to this world and says: ‘I, who have become so great, was born like all other people; I also am a mortal man; I remained in my mother’s womb for ten moons and then, like everyone, my first voice was crying; I was wrapped in swaddling clothes and surrounded by care. No king has had a different start in life.’ What does Solomon mean by mentioning swaddling clothes and with this allusion to what he says about himself?

Luke wants to tell us that Jesus is a man like us; he is not a Superman, but being born a man, he also became mortal like us. The women of Bethlehem helped Mary during the delivery by observing that the child, a man, was looking at the son of God, but these women didn’t know it … in everything, he was a man like us. The first thing that the Son of God did on entering this world was crying like all other humans. These women who witnessed the birth of Jesus did not realize that the history of the world had been divided into two parts: Before and after that birth.

We know that, in Israel, the dates are told from the beginning of the world; for example, the year 2000 was for them the year 5760; in their commercial transactions, they can write 5760, but they prefer to write 2000, of the year that child was born, which marked the reverse of history.

Another detail: “Laid him in the manger.” It alludes to a prophecy of Isaiah as he writes in the first chapter of his book. The prophet says: “An ox knows its owner, and an ass, its master’s manger; but Israel does not know, my people has not understood” (Is 1:3). Now we also understand how the ox the donkey ended up in the manger; is the reference to what the prophet had said: While the ox and the ass recognize their master, Israel, on the other hand, does not recognize its Lord. Something similar to what the evangelist John says in the foreword: “He came to his own, but they did not receive him.” To welcome this new kingdom that he has begun is to adhere to this world proposal, which is very hard. He is not recognized as the kingdom’s king that will last forever.

Then Luke says, “There was no room for them in the inn.” This is an incorrect translation from the Greek term ‘καταλύματι’ – katalymati, translated in the text as an inn, but the inn is ‘senodokeion,’ not katalyma. We must imagine ‘katalyma’ as a cave protected by a canopy standing right before the cave. Whoever goes to Nazareth can see one of these caves; the animals were placed there. In front of the cave, they put a shed that extended the space, and under this canopy, the family’s life took place. However, it was not a suitable and reserved environment for a woman in labor; it was not proper for a woman to give birth in the ‘katalyma’; she was taken inside, where the animals were; we understand Jesus’s place in the manger.

What do these details mean? We know that from the beginning, the story was told that when Jesus was born, he was rejected by the Bethlehem shelters, and then his parents had to shelter in a cave. This story appears already in the second century; Justin quotes it. In reality, this is not conceivable because, knowing the hospitality that people were famous for in the ancient Middle East, it is unthinkable that among the Semites, a woman who was about to give birth was not accepted.

This is not what Luke wants to tell us. Luke intends to present the son of God, who came to become one of us in the most painful and poorest condition of humanity. The son of God could have been born in a palace, but he chose the last place. It is the God who, even today, people struggle to accept because many keep thinking of a terrible, strong God who comes to sow panic, to be respected. This is not the true God; this is the idol we invented. The God in whom we believe is who presents himself to us in that child. A child who needs kisses and caress otherwise cries; he came to show us all his love. That child is our God who presents himself to us in human form just to be seen.

Let’s consider that this is not a moment of transition, a not-too-glorious moment, because then, finally, he can manifest all his power and glory. It is not an unhappy parenthesis. That child is already talking to us about God; let us be careful not to lose this first revelation of his face. Yet, the child does not reveal everything he has to tell us. He will tell us everything on Calvary; no greater love is possible than what he will reveal when he says: ‘I love you even if you kill me.’ But that child is already talking to us about love, only about love; even when he grows up, he will never deny what God told us when he was a child.

Let’s hear now who are the first to rejoice in this birth:

“Now there were shepherds in that region living in the fields and keeping the night watch over their flock. The angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were struck with great fear. The angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For today in the city of David, a savior has been born for you who is Messiah and Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.’ And suddenly, there was a multitude of the heavenly hosts with the angel, praising God and saying: ‘Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.’”

When we listen to this gospel passage, we immediately imagine the shepherds like those we see in the manger: Good, with lambs on their shoulders, they go to the cave; they also have a son by their hand accompanying them to see the newborn Jesus. These were not the shepherds of the time of Jesus, and these are not those mentioned in the gospel of Luke. Shepherding in Israel was appreciated and estimated when everyone was a shepherd, that is, when they were nomads and Bedouins in the desert, but when they were established in the promised land, they became farmers, and shepherding became a marginal and undesired activity; often the farmers and shepherds were rivals because the shepherds looked for pastures, and many times with the herds, they invaded the cultivated fields of the farmers.

Also, throughout the Ancient Middle East, there was disregard for shepherds. In Mesopotamia, they were called ‘those good for nothing who come from the steppe.’ The Sumerians said shepherds have the appearance of men, but their voice is that of the prairie dog. The book of Genesis tells us what the Egyptians thought in chapter 46: “All shepherds are abhorrent to the Egyptians” (Gen 46:34). But there was not only social despise, but also religious despise in Israel for shepherds; they were placed at the level of the tax collectors, therefore, the maximum disdain; they were deprived of civil rights; they could not give testimony because they were false people, they were kept as thieves, and therefore, no rabbi would buy milk from the shepherds.

They were violent people; they quickly solved their arguments with a knife, and they knew that everyone despised them. The Talmud says that if a sheep falls in the well, get it out, but if a tax collector or shepherd falls, leave them there. What does today’s Gospel passage tell us about shepherds? It says that they watched at night, taking care of their herd… (in parenthesis, if this passage is taken as information, then Jesus was not born in winter because the herd remained out from March until October, and then, when the cold weather began, they were inside the caves.) But this is a marginal detail; what is important, instead, is the fact, the reference to the night. It represents the night of humanity, of all our evil, violence, wars, and all our false conceptions of the face of God. We were wrapped entirely by the darkness of the night, and it is now, tonight when the expected light shines.

“At night guarding his herd.” The reference to the night is to what the Book of Wisdomtells us: “While the night was in the middle of its course and a deep silence wrapped everything, your omnipotent word came down from heaven.” This omnipotent word now illuminates the darkness of our world; it will be the word and the light of the new face of God and from the face of the authentic man, of the son of God. This is the night that will light up,and as the book of wisdom says, the night was in the middle of its course, therefore, the deepest darkness. From that reference, the tradition of the midnight Mass was born.

What happens tonight? An angel of the Lord appears to the shepherds, and the glory of the Lord wraps them in light. The glory of the Lord was imagined as the explosion of his power and anger against evil. “The glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were struck with great fear.” The original text says, ‘They were afraid of a great fear.’ Why are they scared? Because they knew that they were far from God. They knew that God rejected them because this was the catechesis they had heard.

The prophet Malachi had said that when he comes, the Lord will be like the fire of the foundry, the bleach of the laundry. The shepherds knew that the first to be cast out by the coming of the Lord were them. They were unclean people, and they were aware of their condition; that is why they are “afraid with a great fear,“ But the angel of the Lord says to them: “Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For today in the city of David, a savior has been born for you who is Messiah and Lord.” It is a great joy. It is not the announcement of a God who will destroy them; ‘the great joy and the light that now wraps them is the revelation of the face of God, who is love and only love, especially for you, not because they are repentant but because God loves themas they are.

Christ is Lord: Christ means anointed of the Lord, that is, filled by the spirit, by the divine life that he has by nature in fullness; that divine life that has now come to bring to the world communicating it from the last ones, from those who do not deserve it because nobody merits it because his gift is completely free. It is the Lord; it is the God who is now revealed, not the God we had imagined, but the God who now dissolves all the darkness we had built on him and his identity.

The sign given to the shepherds: “They will find a child wrapped in swaddling clothes.”He is a child like all others, not a child with a halo that makes miracles but one like you, poor among the poor; this is the sign of the true God, the one that began to reveal himself to those in the last place. And then to this angel who shows the light of heaven, God reveals himself, “suddenly, there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel.” We had heard about the Octavian legions, who were violent and oppressive. Now, there is a new army; it is the heavenly army.

Those who welcome this light from heaven let themselves be wrapped up by God’s love that then manifests between them, and this is salvation; it happens in the hearts of the shepherds when they welcome this light. And the song now of this heavenly army, what are we, the community of disciples who have embraced the true face of God and praise singing “Glory to God on high!” we have seen that glory of the Lord that has been revealed in that child, and it is his unconditional love. “And on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”The literal translation would be ‘the men of benevolence’ – εὐδοκίασ – ‘eudokía’ in Greek.

Who are the men of benevolence? If we look for this ‘eudokía,’ it will appear again in the Gospel of Luke, in chapter 10, when Jesus asks, who are the men of the benevolence of God? They are the little ones; those who are here do not count. The song of this community that has welcomed the light has understood who the people of the benevolence of God are: They are the little, the small ones, they are the last. Here is the invitation to the joy given to us tonight, the joy of those who understood that God loves you as you are … not because you are good, you are beautiful, you are cute. He loves you as you are because you are his son, his daughter.

I wish you all a good night and a blessed Christmas.