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Christmas comes this year as the financial conditions of the country and much of the world are leading most to recognize that their lifestyles must change, particularly the lifestyle that buys without the clear knowledge of having an ability to pay. I do not have to tell you that many people are suffering from loss of work, the inability to pay major debts, etc. Most people are cutting back. Many do not know how much longer they can hold on.
For the Christian there is a positive facet to even negative financial events. For the Christian, these events help us to focus in on the meaning of Christmas. Many may not be able to afford the high price gifts, the expensive parties, etc, that often clouded the celebrations in the past. Instead, the Christian is forced to consider the reality of Christmas.
Jesus Christ, the Eternal Word of God, became one of us, assumed a human nature, through Mary. He was not born in a palace or a mansion. His parents couldn’t even get themselves into an Inn. Jesus was born in a dirty stable and placed in the feeding bin for the animals, a manger. St. Francis of Assisi is credited with forming the first Nativity Scene. That makes sense. The saint who saw little value in material possessions was enthralled that God Himself didn’t just become one of us, but was born as one of the poorest of us. Francis believed that poverty brought richness. Through his very poverty St. Francis sensed the richness about him as he felt the presence of God in all creation, Brother Sun and Sister Moon, the birds, animals, stars, and particularly the people. The Eternal Word embraced this same richness, a richness not in stuff, but a richness that luxuriates in the reflection of the Creator in His Creation.
It is easier this year for us to ask ourselves, “What really matters?” It is easier for us to recognize the one joy that cannot be taken from us, the joy of the Lord. And it is fundamental for us as Christians to realize that all people have a right to this joy. We have a responsibility to sow love where there is hatred, pardon where there is injury, faith where there is doubt, hope where there is despair, light where there is darkness, and joy where there is sadness. That, I am sure you recognize is the Prayer of St. Francis, the poor man who understood Christmas.
There is a story about an old priest who would fill his church on Christmas. He always gave the same, very simple sermon. He would speak for thirty to forty-five minutes and the people would be on the edge of their seats. He only spoke one sentence, but he repeated it over and over in various tones, and in various volumes. The sentence was this: The Wood of the Manger is the Wood of the Cross. Christ came to sacrifice Himself for us to restore mankind’s ability to be spiritual. Living a life of sacrificial love, living as Christians, allows us to fulfill our obligation to bring the joy of the Lord to the world. The sacrificial love of Jesus Christ unites us to all that really matters, the Peace of God.
He came to give us peace. He came to lift our burdens of sin, self absorption and desperation. He told us to give Him our sins. He came to assure us that challenges to our health, to our lives and the lives of those whom we love, and even death are not devastating, just steps along the way to union with Him. Yes, at Christmas time we remember our loved ones who have passed away. We miss them deeply. But we also know that through the Gift of Christmas, through Jesus Christ, our loved ones remain alive in Christ.
We need to embrace the meaning of Christmas. We lose so much if we limit ourselves to being outsiders looking at the decorations, shedding a tear at the romantic carols, and enjoying giving and expressing love through material gifts. There are many beautiful aspects to Christmas, particularly the times of warmth spent with our families, but Christmas is so much more than even these wonderful moments together.
Christmas is about Jesus Christ. We possess Him. He has become one of us. And He possesses us. He has given us the ability to be united to Him. The contemporary Christian composer Chris Tomlin expressed this so beautifully in his recent song Jesus Messiah:
Jesus Messiah, Name above all names, Blessed Redeemer Emmanuel, the rescue for sinners, the ransom from heaven, Jesus Messiah, Lord of all. © ccli 2368115
Over and over Tomlin repeats the words: Love so amazing, love so amazing.
Jesus Christ is real, not just in the world, but in each of our lives. We need to give Him our sins, our troubles, our concerns, and trust in Him. We need to be Christians, people who live as He lived, living in sacrificial love.
Yes, we all want an end to the economic difficulties so many of us are experiencing, but our hope is not in the economy. Our hope is in Jesus Christ. Tomlin’s bridge in his song is the bridge of our lives from material to spiritual: All our hope is in You, Lord, all are hope is in You. All the glory to You God, the Light of the World.© ccli 2368115
So we celebrate Christmas this year perhaps in a purer way than in the past. We celebrate the One who gave Himself to us. We celebrate the One who calls us to seek Him out in the poor, suffering and outcast of the world. We celebrate the One who calls us to give ourselves to Him.
And shepherds on the hillside heard a sky full of angels crying out, “Glory to God in the highest and Peace to People of Good Will.” Peace to you. Peace to your families. Peace to our country. Jesus Christ is all that matters. Jesus Christ is the One who matters. With Jesus Christ, we will have peace.
CHRISTMAS -BORN IN A MANGER
According to Luke’s story, it is the Angel’s message to the shepherds that offers us the keys to open somehow the mystery of the Child’s birth in such strange circumstances, outside Bethlehem.
It all happened at night. But the glory of the Lord shone all around them in Bethlehem. This light did not shine upon the place where the child was born, but on the shepherds who were listening to the angel. The Child was hidden amidst darkness, in an unknown place. One had to search for Him and find Him in a manger.
These are the first words that we could hear: “Do not be afraid. Listen, I bring you news of great joy, a joy to be shared by the whole people.” Something very great has taken place. We all have reasons to be very happy. This Child is not the child of Mary and Joseph. This Child is born to all of us. He is not only the Child of just these happy parents.
He is born for all of us.
Christians must not keep this feast just for us alone. Jesus belongs to all who have faith in Him as well as to those who have forgotten Him. He is God of those who trust in Him as well as of those who doubt about everything. Nobody is left alone with his fears. Nobody is abandoned in his solitude. There is always someone who remembers us.
That’s what the messenger proclaimed: “A Saviour has been born to you; he is the Christ, the Lord.” He is not the son of Emperor Augustus, owner of the whole world, proclaimed as the saviour and bearer of peace, thanks to the power of his legions. The birth of such powerful men was never good news to the poor people who suffered all kinds of oppression.
This Christ was born in a country subject to the Empire. They are not Roman citizens. Nobody in Rome awaited his birth. Still, he wiould be the Saviour they all needed. He will not be subject to any Caesar. He will not work for any empire. He will seek only the Kingdom of God and his justice. He will seek to make humanity more just for everyone. It will be in Him that this world of injustice will find God’s salvation.
Where can we find this Child? How can we recognize Him? Listen to the messenger: “Here is a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.” This child has been born homeless. His parents couldn’t find a place to welcome him. His mother gave birth without anyone’s help. She alone tried to protect Him
with swaddling clothes and laid Him in a manger.
It was in this manger that God began his adventure among men. We will never find Him among the powerful, but among the poor and the needy. He is not found with the great and the famous, but among the small and the forgotten ones. Let us listen to the message:
Let us go to Bethlehem; let us return to the roots of our Faith. Let us search for our God where he became flesh and one of us.
GOD BECAME FLESH
The fourth Gospel starts with a very special introduction. It’s like a hymn which helped the early Christians greatly to deepen into the mystery that surrounded Jesus. If we read and listen to it carefully and with simple faith, we, too, can deepen our belief in Jesus. Let us pay attention to just a few central affirmations.
“The Word of God became flesh.” God is not dumb. God hasn’t remained silent; forever shut up in his own Mystery. God has chosen to communicate with us. He wants to talk to us, and tell us about His love and about His plans. Jesus is, in a word, God’s Project become flesh.
God has not communicated with us through dogmas and sublime doctrines that only learned people could understand, anyway. His Word has become part of Jesus’ own life, so that He could be understood by even the simplest folks, those people who normally are moved by goodness, kindness and the real truths of life.
This Word of God “lived among us.” Distances that separated us have disappeared. God has become flesh. He lives among us. To go out and meet Him, we don’t have to get out of this world, but simply get closer to Jesus. To come to know Him, we don’t have to study theology, but simply get along with Him, get to know Him.
“Nobody has ever seen God.” The prophets, priests, and teachers of the Law talked much about God, but nobody had seen his face. The same happens to us: in the Church, people talk a lot about God, but no one has seen Him. He has been seen only by Jesus, “the Son of God, who is nearest to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.”
We should never forget it. Jesus alone has told us everything about His Father. He alone can bring us closer to God’s Mystery. There are so many fake images about God/Man that we should get rid of and forget, before we can become attracted and seduced by the God whom Jesus has revealed to us.
How different things can become once we realize that Jesus is God’s human face to us. Everything becomes simple and clear. Only then, we see God’s face whenever we suffer, and He finds us when we are lost; He understands when we deny Him, and forgives us, too. In Jesus, God’s grace and truth are revealed.
God – our Neighbour
Celebrating Christmas is, above all, believing and enjoying God’s closeness. These
Holy Days can be celebrated fully only by those who believe God is nearer and more understanding than we had always imagined.
The Child born in Bethlehem represents the place and time in creation when the truth, goodness and the loving closeness of God appears in their most beautiful and understandable manner.
We know very well how difficult it is for many to find or even imagine God.
Many would like to believe in Him, but they don’t know how. They wish to pray, but they can’t find words to do it. Christmas could be the feast day for all those who feel
God is too far away for them.
At the heart of Christmas, when we celebrate how God became Man, we should all hear a call, a loud message for everyone: “When you find no one to help you, or you do not see a way out, and you believe you are lost, trust in God! He is always there by your side. He knows, and He is your Salvation.”
There is always a way out. Our very existence is in God’s hands. God’s faithfulness and goodness are above everything else, even above sin and death. Everything can come to life, if we truly trust in His pardon. The Child born in Bethlehem announces a new beginning. For God nobody is completely lost.
We all know that Christmas Holidays are not easy for everyone. Those who are lonely, feel so much more painfully their solitude: parents whose children are away long for their presence; lovers whose love has cooled off feel the inability to rekindle the fire that once made them so happy.
We all experience during this season the nostalgia for another, more humane and better world. We know very well that, apart from many other reasons, we are not happier because we aren’t good enough!
Christmas, therefore, is a reminder that, in spite of our superficiality and egoism,
there is in each one of us the potential to hear God’s call to get out of our mediocrity.
When men run away from God, deep down they are running away from their own
failures and futilities.
Happy are those who, amidst the noise and dizziness of these holidays, find time to pray to and welcome our neighbourly God among us with a believing heart and gratitude. For them this Christmas will be a happy one!
He was born – One of Us: and his own did not know Him.
God didn’t assume human nature; God became one of us: the son of Mary. Still more than that, God did not take some general human material and mould it into the human perfect person. Instead of becoming a human in general, God became a certain person in particular. And that decision restricted his human experience the same way it would for any of us. Because God became a man, he could not be a woman. Because God became a Jew, he could not be a Roman. Because God was a day labourer he could not be an executive. Because God was poor he could not be rich.
In all these ways and thousands of others, God restricted his unlimited possibilities to a few basic experiences. And we saw where it got him. He enjoyed a few friends and many enemies; his audience could not be larger than the people within earshot; his teachings was limited by his native intelligence and the teachability of illiterate peasants and fishermen; his chances of success were curtailed by a foreign military force; the possibility of reforming his religion was thwarted by an entrenched religious establishment.
All this is so familiar that we tend to overlook its implications. Maybe to appreciate the actual life of Jesus we need to imagine what it might have been. How would Jesus have related to poor people if he had been born rich? How would he have related to God if he had been a professional priest? And what if he had been born she?
But to begin his story at birth is to begin too late. God began his heavenly descent to human form nine months before his actual birth. And what unseen, momentous things might have happened to him in the secret of the womb? What if Mary had had a miscarriage? What if he had been aborted? Or what if his ears or eyes had failed to function or his brain had not developed correctly? A blind Jesus couldn’t have seen or talked about birds and lilies. And instead of telling scintillating parables, a dull-witted teacher would have spouted knock-knock jokes.
If all of this seems far-fetched, we must admit that it is nearer-fetched than God becoming a human. We know how God in the flesh turned out: poor, failed, betrayed, misunderstood, and executed. Was God willing to risk even worse? Could God stand to be you or me?
The mere fact that God freely chose to become any human being, that God lived our lowly, earthy experience, shows how much God wishes us to live the divine life. And the fact that the glory of God was overshadowed by the nature of a particular person and curtailed by the culture of a specific time encourages us to imagine what God in fact is now like, as we see God’s image reflected in every human. He is truly ONE OF US!