The Nativity

Christmas
Today’s Readings: [Click here]

A very joyous Christmas to you all! How beautiful and special it is to be together tonight. And welcome home to family members who are back here visiting for the holidays.

Not all our loved ones are necessarily in church, though. I recently heard about a couple who had what I guess you could call a “mixed marriage.” One was a Christian and the other wasn’t. The one who wasn’t a Christian was still very angry about how the church had treated her when she was a child, and she got very cross around Christmas and Easter. She could no longer believe that God had become human, and she just didn’t want to pretend anymore. The Christian spouse was very patient and simply went on practicing the faith and going to church alone, without much fuss.

One Christmas, the Christian half of the couple went off to midnight mass, while the other one stayed at home. After a while, it began to snow—they lived out in the country and the snow looked wonderful in the fields and on the trees. A short time later, though, she heard a thud, and then another. She went to investigate where the sound came from, and she found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the snow. They had been caught in the snowstorm and in their desperate search for shelter, they had seen the light and flown into her window!

“I can’t let these little creatures lie there and freeze to death,” she thought. “But how can I help them?”

Then she remembered her barn. It would provide a nice warm shelter for them. She put on her coat and made her way through the snow to the barn. There she put on a light, but the birds wouldn’t come.

Then she thought, “Food will attract them.” So she scattered a trail of breadcrumbs all the way to the barn. But the birds still wouldn’t come. Next she tried to shoo them into the barn by walking around them and waving her arms at them. This only scared them, and they scattered in all directions.

Then she said to herself, “They must find me a strange and terrifying creature. If only there was some way I could get them to trust me.”

At that very moment, the church bells began to ring. She stood silently as they rang out the glad tidings of Christmas: And the word was made flesh and dwelt among us. She sank to her knees in the snow and said, “Lord, now I understand why you had to become one of us.”

If you want to really understand and be in touch with ordinary people, you have to go where nobody recognizes you. You have to see what they see, hear what they hear, live what they live. Understanding it in an abstract way is different from feeling it and experiencing it with your whole being.

In Jesus, God drew near to us in the flesh—in person. He literally became one of us. He lived among us. Jesus is the gift of Christmas. This was no loving “from a distance.” This was loving at close quarters.

God meets us where we are. He took our humanity on himself. This means we don’t have to deny our humanity, or any part of who we are, in order to know God and experience his love and blessings. He showed us how to live out the fullness of our humanity. Religion and holiness have become very real. They’re not just concerned with the spirit and heaven, but also with the body and the earth… here and now.

When God became a child, completely dependent on human care, he took away the distance between the divine and the human. We’re not afraid of a little child. And very simply, the meaning of Jesus’ humble birth in a rude stable in an obscure corner of the Roman Empire is “Be not afraid.” No matter what our fears, the message of Christmas echoes down the centuries to speak to us today: “Be not afraid. I am here with you and for you. Always.”

Jesus has become a brother to us—close family. What would we do without him? Abstract talk, hypothetical talk, theological talk about God can unfortunately leave us empty. We need God made flesh—human like us—walking in our street, even in our shoes, teaching us the way of God. And that is precisely what we are celebrating at Christmas.

The Son of God comes to us not as a judge but as a savior. He comes to reveal our divine dignity as God’s children, and the glory of our eternal destiny in heaven. This is the good news. This is the great joy which the angels announced to the shepherds, and which is announced to us tonight.

I pray that we will truly open our hearts to receive it.

A blessed, holy Christmas to you all! Amen.