We tend to live our lives from one happening to the next. We all have diaries or reminders on our cell phones or laptops or tablets, or whatever electronics we use. We have lists of stuff to do. And once we have attended to the schedule, we delete it with satisfaction; job well-done. And so, it seems with Christmas: it was on the list and now it is done and deleted; job well-done. Thing is, John has a different understanding of Christmas. John invites us to contemplate a Christmas that fills us with hope and joy the whole year.
Remember what he writes: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.”
This, for John, is the Christmas story and it is set in the context of creation, “In the beginning.” Creation is not an event of the past but the ongoing life of God with his people.
What is definitive, and therefore more important than all the good or bad things we carry with us, is that God has called us his own children; individuals who hold infinite worth in his eyes, deserve love and respect, and will be used by him to care for his beloved world.
Can we imagine that? That Jesus came and was born, lived, died, and was raised again not simply to pay some obscure penalty for sin but rather to remind us of and even convince us that God loves us more than anything?
Christmas is God continuing to give life to his people. Christmas, says Gregory of Nyssa, is the “festival of re-creation.” This festival of re-creation is God’s celebration of humanity. It is God entrusting God’s self to human beings, to you and to me. It is God’s reaffirmation of our goodness. It is the sharing and exchanging of life between God and you and me.
And that is why, I think, that Athanasius could say, as one of our Christmas antiphons paraphrases it: “O wondrous exchange, Christ became a human child, so that every child of Eve might become God.”
How amazing is that? Imagine what that means for us. It means we are holy and intended to be holy, not as an achievement on our own but as a gift of God. This is the gift of Christmas. We have been given the power to become children of God. As we have heard this morning, this happens not by blood, or the will of the flesh, or the will of people, but by God. “And the Word became flesh and lived among us.”
God sees humanity as the opportunity and the means to reveal God’s self. Yet far too often we use our humanity as an excuse. We say, “I’m only human,” as if we are somehow missing or lacking something. David Lose says that what we fail to see, to believe, to understand, is that in the Word becoming flesh and living among us we are God’s first sacrament. Human beings are the tangible, outward, and visible signs and carriers of God’s inward and spiritual presence.
Have you ever thought of yourself as a sacrament? Have you ever looked at someone and said, “Hey, look! There is the sacramental image of God?” And if not, why not? Why do we not see that in ourselves and each other? After all, “The Word became flesh and lived among us.”
In the Jewish tradition, the rabbis tell a story that each person has a procession of angels going before them and crying out, “Make way for the image of God.” Imagine how different our lives and world would be if we lived with this as our reality and the truth that guided our lives.
Everywhere we go the angels go with us announcing the coming of the image of God and reminding us of who we are. That is the truth of Christmas for us. It is also the Christmas truth for the person living next door, for those we love, for those we fear, for those who are like us and those who are different, for the stranger, and for our enemies. “And the Word became flesh and lived among us.”
The implications are profound. It changes how we see ourselves and one another, the way we live, our actions, and our words. It means that Christmas cannot be limited to an event. Christmas is a life to be lived, a way of being. Christmas is a reality that permeates our whole life.
And if we forget all the above, let’s try to remember what an old woman with advanced Alzheimer’s said in a moment of clarity: “You know, if I could have one more job, I would like to preach.” And when asked what she would preach, she said: “I will preach that God loves you and that’s about it.”
God loves you. And that is it. And that is everything.
Thank you Br Daniel. Live the imagery of the angels going ahead… and many other things too.