BON VOYAGE!

 A SERMON FOR THE 4TH SUNDAY IN ADVENT

On this last Sunday in Advent, as we count down the days to the anniversary of the birth of our Blessed Lord, our thoughts go back to his mother and foster father as they prepare for his coming.  Parents will be very familiar with the mixture of excitement, anticipation and anxiety as they get closer to their new child’s birth.  They make sure that everything is ready, that a little bed has been prepared in the nursery, that they have a supply of diapers and formula, and everything else a baby needs for its first few days back home.  The very last thing they’re thinking about doing in the days leading up to the “due date” is going on vacation, taking a trip.

And so, when that decree went out from Caesar Augustus that fateful winter month over two thousand years ago, that every man must go to his own town to be registered and pay his taxes, it could not have come as a pleasant surprise to poor St. Joseph and his espoused wife Mary, who, Scripture tells us, was “great with child.”  They had no choice but to pack their bags and leave the comparative comfort of their home, setting off on the long trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem, hoping the birth of their baby would somehow work out okay. 

Because of Mary’s imminent delivery, they probably wouldn’t have made very good time.  Given the other adverse conditions, it’s estimated that they wouldn’t have traveled much more than ten miles a day.  So to cover the ninety miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem, we figure it would have been about a nine-day journey.  With Christmas Day still five days away, they would still be less than half-way there today.

No cars in those days of course, no trains, no airlines.  St. Joseph had to make do with just a donkey on which to put his wife, while he walked alongside through the rainy winter weather of winter, freezing cold at night, across steep hills and on unpaved trails.  More dangerous yet were the forests along the Jordan River Valley through which they would have to pass.  Lions and bears were common here, and travelers were often attacked by wild boars and other animals.  Archaelogists have discovered documents from that time, warning travelers of the dangers of this area.  And then, of course, there were the bandits and robbers who lay in wait for unarmed solitary travelers as they passed through.  You can imagine the fears of our Lady and St. Joseph as they trudged on, step by step, with the world’s most precious cargo. This was not an easy journey, certainly not a “bon voyage”.

I hate to think what we would have made of such a trip.  We, who are uncomfortable even just going past the front door in the winter, who start feeling awkward when the next rest stop is more than ten minutes away, who rely on the constant stream of gas stations, fast food restaurants and public restrooms whenever we venture further than the local grocery store.  We have no conception of what travel used to be like in those days, and why people just didn’t make trips unless they absolutely had to.  The thought of having to walk ninety miles with our pregnant wife on the back of a donkey, just so we could pay our taxes, would give us a nervous breakdown.

So spare a thought today for our Blessed Lady and St. Joseph, as they make that trip to Bethlehem.  Don’t even think of complaining that Urbana is such a long drive from the comforts of home.  Instead, when you pray your third Joyful Mystery of the Rosary today, instead of your usual warm, fuzzy thoughts about that nice little stable in Bethlehem with is wooly lambs and babies wrapped in swaddling clothes, think of what it took to get there.  Offer up to God your own minor inconveniences of traveling to Mass, of having to wear a mask when you pick up your breakfast at McDonald’s, all life’s little bothers, and turn them into some small reparation for our sins.  After all, it was ultimately not the decree of Caesar Augustus that forced the Holy Family into making that trip from their home in Nazareth.  It was our sins that brought the Christ Child to that little town of Bethlehem, and for those sins we deserve a great deal worse than the mere annoyances and inconveniences that happen inevitably in our own lives.  

Let’s remember too, that it is by those very lives we live, that we reflect the Holy Family’s journey.  For these lives are indeed quite a trip!  We do at times suffer a great deal on our journey along its often treacherous path.  Little by little we progress through the pouring rain of daily drudgery, the robbers who would steal us of our sanctifying grace, the wild animals who attack our nation, our homes, our very families and way of life.  We literally face death every day, the deaths of those we love and ultimately our own.  And yet we labor on, trudging every day towards our final goal.  It is this goal of eternal life that makes sense of it all, that gives us the strength to go forward, to put one foot in front of the other, time after time, until we eventually get there.  That goal is our very own Bethlehem, where we finally enter into the peace and eternal joy of that midnight stable, to contemplate forever the beauty of the newborn Child, adoring, for all eternity, him who was born of God and his blessed Mother on that Christmas Day so many years ago, and again in our hearts this week.