Pastor's Corner
January 1, 2017 - Mary, Mother of God
The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, just as it had been told to them.
Luke 2:20
St. Luke, is the author not only of the Gospel that bears his name, but also of the Acts of the Apostles, which he clearly intends as a sequel to his Gospel. He is intensely interested in the spread of the Good News in the early days of the Church, and how God was at work through apostles like St. Paul, St. Phillip, St. Peter and others.
In the passage from today’s Gospel we hear something that we might easily overlook, following as it does the visit of the shepherds to the manger crib of Jesus. But it is a foreshadowing of what will come later in Luke’s writings. It is the quote above, and the “what had been told to them” came from the mouths of angels who appeared to them in the night while they cared for their flocks: today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Messiah and Lord.
The shepherds – poor, uneducated, often scorned by their contemporaries – become the first bearers of the Good News! It is not the complete message of course; only the first announcement that God is doing something new and extraordinary. But the shepherds are models for each of us. We have been told the entirety of the Good News! Not only that God has sent us a savior, but the remarkable way and the extent to which God has gone to save us! Because this Savior announced by the angels is no less than God Himself – the Eternal Son of the Father - taking our flesh. And in his humanity he is obedient to his Father, even though the reaction of the rest of humanity, fallen sons and daughters of Adam, reject and crucify Him. God offers Himself into our hands and saves us by offering Himself as an unblemished lamb upon the cross. And rising again to new life, which He shares with us now, if we accept Him as Lord.
This is the Good News we have been told. And for this we can glorify and praise God by sharing the message with the world.