Sunday 25th December 2022 - Christmas Day

Today we celebrate Christmas, the birth of Jesus. We all know the story of the baby being born in a manger because there was no room in the inn. Most of us will have participated in a nativity play at school. We may even have played Mary, Joseph, or the Inn Keeper. If not, we might have been one of the sometimes bizarrely added characters selected to allow as many participants as possible or we may have been in the choir. In whatever way we may have participated or however we were exposed to the great narrative of that very special birth have we managed overcome the sometimes simplistic recounting of this, the greatest story ever told, to ponder on the wonder of what happened on that fateful occasion?

The prayers and reading for the Mass during the day on Christmas Day encapsulate the whole meaning of Christmas for us. God created the wonder of the universe including the dignity of human nature modelled on himself. Through sin humanity damaged this perfection by the use, or more accurately the misuse, of the free will that only humanity has in creation. God restored the broken relationship between him and humanity in a spectacular and wonderful way. Through Christ humbling himself to become human even sharing human death, we can share in his divine life. The wonder of God becoming like one of his own creatures even to the point of suffering death is almost too much for us to understand and appreciate. This is what we celebrate at Christmas. Not simply the birthday of a baby long ago in a land far away but our God coming to live and die amongst us. Sharing the trials and tribulations that we all must go through. This brings our God very close to us. We have a God who knows what it is like to live and die as one of his created beings. Most importantly, in Jesus we have an advocate who restores our broken relationship with God allowing us to follow him through death into the eternal life intended for us from the beginning.

The baby born in Bethlehem is the fulfilment of all the expectation building up in the Old Testament but is so much more than expected. Careful reading of the passage from the Prophet Isaiah will reveal that it talks not only of the redemption of Jerusalem but that ‘all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God’. The birth of Jesus is not just a Christmas gift to the chosen people of Israel, but it is a Christmas gift to all of us. This universal theme is continued in the Psalm which is one of the ancient prayers of the Jewish people. The promise of redemption is a promise to us all and it comes through the chosen people of God as it had been promised down the ages.

The understanding of who the Christmas Baby is comes across from the excerpt from the letter to the Hebrews and wonderfully from the opening passages of John’s Gospel. The understanding that the author of Hebrews and John have of Jesus is remarkable given that these passages were written so soon after the death and resurrection of Jesus. They both have a developed understanding of the divinity of Jesus but also of his humanity. If Matthew and Luke give us the accounts that form the image of the birth of Jesus familiar to as children, it is John who gives us the adult image of who that baby is. The infant narratives of Matthew and Luke give us the account of how Jesus came to be born into poverty and then exile but it is John who tells us exactly who Jesus is.

It is impossible for us humans to imagine God who is greater than our understanding. If we want to get to know someone, we start by meeting them and talking with them. This is challenging with a being so far outside of our imagination and understanding. Our starting point usually is through talking, through conversation in words. God gives us his word in a physical sense by becoming human so that we have a person like us who we can converse with and relate to. As John so eloquently put it, ‘The Word was made flesh, he lived among us.’

In these passages from John imagine substituting ‘Word’ with ‘Jesus’ so that it reads, ‘In the beginning was Jesus, and Jesus was with God and Jesus was God’. The theology surrounding God coming out of these passages is sublime summing up for us the entire work of God in our creation and redemption. All was created through the word of God who willed and spoke all things into being. Through his word all came into being, all life came through the word of God.

The passage goes on to explain how John the Baptist preceded the coming of Jesus describing the Word as the light. John prepared the way for Jesus coming into the world as the light for all, to enlighten us with the understanding of God and his intentions for us. The Word of God came into the world he had created but the world did not know him, and his own people did not accept him. It is through Jesus, the word of God made human, that we get to know God. If we know Jesus, we know God. It is our duty now to make God known to the world.

The joy that Christmas brings takes us beyond mere earthly happiness and pleasure. It takes us into the joy that the redemption the child of Bethlehem brought through his life, suffering and death. By Boxing Day the world will have had enough of Christmas but we will only just be beginning the Church’s season of this great celebration. Have a Happy and Holy Christmas not only for one day but for the whole of the Christmas season and beyond.

God Bless Brendan.