I never had the privilege of visiting New York City before 9/11, which I rather regret. I wish I’d known that great city before. So, when I eventually moved to Manhattan in 2004, I came to know New York only as it was colored with hypervigilance and anxiety. It seemed like everywhere I turned—on the subway, on the bus, on the streets—I was confronted with signs blaring a consistent message of caution: if you see something, say something.
It’s hard for many of us to imagine a world where we aren’t constantly looking for something that might cause us harm. These days, it might as well be in our online banking accounts or in the physical places we had long thought to be the safest. We seem to be living in a time when we’re always looking for bad news and then saying something about it. Which is why I shouldn’t have been surprised when something struck me this past week as I was engaging in my usual morning ritual of browsing through the news headlines.
I typically look at two major newspapers, and after consulting the first one, I came to the sobering conclusion that having scrolled through well over ten headlines, I hadn’t seen even one piece of good news. Not one! Honestly, I would have taken a silly, ridiculous headline as a gesture of levity, or even a made-up story. A joke—somebody tell a joke, please! But I couldn’t even find that. So, I went to my second newspaper source, where I managed to find one hopeful story, having passed it by on first glance. Only after a second scouring of the headlines for good news did I realize that this seemingly ordinary story stood out for bearing some news that could lighten the heart. It wasn’t a headline about politics or the economy or one more war. It was about a non-profit offering cooking lessons for youth dealing with food insecurity.[1]
And yet, why should I have been surprised to have such difficulty finding good news? I’m assuming that this Christmas Eve night, you come here weighed down with the same headlines that are burdening me. I’m assuming that you’ve had little more success than I in finding some good news out there. You, too, have been conditioned to say something when you see something. And we all know that the things we see and about which we must say something are usually not good. They’re terrifying. These days, most of what we tell out is rooted in fear.
If there had been news headlines in Bethlehem all those years ago, they might not have seemed much different from our own, or at least, they would have echoed a similar litany of bad news. There were crucifixions, there were the usual poor living under the chokehold of the Roman empire, there were the vast systemic injustices, and there were families on the run at the command of the political powers, just like Mary, Joseph, and their expected child.
Scrolling through those headlines would have been as futile an exercise as our modern one. Where’s the good news? There was just so much fear. If you see something, say something, because there were many things to be afraid of. But off the screen of the news headlines, something was happening that would quietly change everything. Upon second glance at the headlines, if you knew where to look, it was the most unbelievable good news.
This thing was happening off the radar because the good news was intentionally not being announced to royalty but to humble shepherds outside the major cities and in the quiet of a lonely night. The good news was heard by these ordinary folk living close to the land and attuned to nature and the skies. It was to these poor folk that a sign was given.
They knew the headlines, too, like their contemporaries. They knew it was all bad news probably because they were living in the thick of that bad news, which is why they needed a sign. It’s also why they could appreciate that sign. Upon hearing that their Savior had been born, they, like everyone else, would have been looking for him in a palace or at the head of armies. But the angels’ sign told them what to look for and where to find it in the most unlikely of places.
And they went with haste, looking for their good news. They eventually found the mother, father, and baby after looking all over, after a thorough search. They had searched thoroughly because that good news wasn’t so easy to find. That good news was wrapped in bands of cloth—a poor man’s clothes—in an animal’s feeding trough, and it was in a small city with a big claim to fame. And no one was looking there, except for them.
But they tenaciously turned everything upside down, and they found him. They found their good news, a crying baby, the Word made flesh who couldn’t yet speak a word. And it dawned on them that they had seen something and so they must say something. This Savior who had inverted the world’s power dynamic had now inverted their language of fear. They no longer needed to speak about the bad news of the world. They could speak about the good news. If you see something, say something.
And they did say something. They told it to so many people, who wondered and were amazed. They announced to the world this incredible news, always lying quietly and unexpectedly below the depressing headlines. We, too, are the recipient of their good news, and we, like them, know the sign for which we should be diligently seeking. After scrolling through headline after headline of despair, we know from those lowly shepherds that the good news is always born for us, perhaps most vividly in the places that seem the most unpromising. That good news was born, oh, so many years ago. It’s still born today. And it will be born forever.
We know what the sign tells us. Go and look in the most surprising locations, and there you will see where heaven and earth are joined. Go to the helpless and the lonely. Go to the people hiding in the fallout shelters of war. Go to the poor wrapped not in royal clothes but in ragged bands of cloth. Go to those wandering the streets and searching for room in an inn. Go inside your own souls, which might seem confused, hurting, or lost, and there you will find the Christ Child, speaking his word of truth into your own life. You can find it if you know the sign and if you’re willing to search for it. And when you see something, say something.
The mystery of Christmas, which is papered over with tinsel and meaningless platitudes this time of year, is that this good news isn’t easy to find. And we can’t find it without some help. But we have been given a sign. Look away from the headlines and into the rough but vibrant world around you, and you will find the good news. It’s there. And when you see something, say something.
Or better yet, sing about it. Break into song like the angels. Sing about the peace that’s so difficult to find but that is possible and does exist in hidden corners on this earth. Sing about a peace that can exist, even in Israel and Palestine, where Peace himself was born as a little child. Sing about a God who has such good will towards us that he will constantly be born anew in us to show us his love. Sing about a God who tells his good news first to shepherds and not to kings. Sing about a merciful God who chooses to work off the headlines and in the corners of the earth, in stables, and who can work in war zones and, yes, even on Capitol Hill. Sing about a God who himself sings his way into our lives, rather than scolding us.
Let us sing this night about that marvelous thing seen by shepherds in Bethlehem so long ago. Let us sing with thanksgiving that they decided to say something after that had seen something and that their language of fear was transformed into joy. Let’s sing about a God who invites us not to look for bad news in the headlines but asks us to see his good news, all around us and in the most unlikely of places. Glorify a God who changes our own fear into rejoicing.
Go and run with haste to find that God and his good news. And this will be a sign for you: you will find that good news off the beaten path, out of the headlines, and nearer to you than you can imagine. You will find this Child in the stranger and forsaken, in the lonely and unloved, in the imprisoned and in the depressed. And you will also find him in your own conflicted hearts, always, ready to be born anew. And when you see this good news, remember that you have one more thing to do. Say something. Or better yet, sing that something with all your heart. And whatever you do, never stop singing.
Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Eve of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ
December 24, 2023
[1] “Teenagers say they don’t have anything to do. Philly Bridge & Jawn taught them how to cook for one another,” Philadelphia Inquirer, December 21, 2023: https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia/pbj-bridge-jawn-kensington-teens-cooking-20231221.html?query=jawn