[This homily refers to John 1:1-18, the Gospel for the Mass During the Day of Christmas]
It’s hard to know for sure if the astrological event this week is what the wise men saw. But there’s still something fascinating about the idea that it might be, something that captures our imaginations and brings home the reality of what we celebrate today. Human beings have long looked up into the heavens to contemplate their own place in the universe and even to try to understand something about the One who created it. In the desire to know about God, many believed that God could communicate to human beings through the movement of stars and celestial bodies, and that these events signified something about what was happening on earth. It was as if the lights of the heavens could also be a light for our minds as well, to understand the universe and our place in it. The great difficulty, of course, is that that’s really hard to do, and perhaps impossible to do. The orbits of the stars and the planets are fascinating, but in the end, they don’t really tell us anything more about ourselves than what we might read into them.
But – and if you’ve been wondering, “Father, why all of this astronomy stuff on Christmas?”, here’s what I’m leading up to: God’s message to human beings *has* been communicated to us from the heavens. He did send a light from on high to illuminate us, but it came not in the form of a star, but in the Person of the Eternal Word, as we heard in the Gospel for our Mass. This passage, known as the Prologue to John’s Gospel, may seem like a strange choice for a reading on Christmas, since it doesn’t mention any of the things we are used to hearing: a star, angels from on high, shepherds, Mary and Joseph, a child born in a manger. What it does do though is clearly communicate what those other stories all mean: that this Child Jesus born in Bethlehem is the Eternal Son of the Father, the Person of the Divine Word of the Holy Trinity. He who is literally Life, through whom all life and all things were made, has now himself come from heaven to dwell with us.
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| Gerard von Honthorst, The Adoration of the Shepherds (1622) |
That is who Jesus is, but the question still remains: why has he come? To redeem us, to save us from our sins, to make it possible for us sinful human beings to go to heaven? Yes, certainly. But even more fundamentally: Jesus has come to reveal God’s love. John’s Gospel puts it so beautifully: “this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” I don’t need to tell you how dark this year has been: a global pandemic; devastating financial crisis; massive job loss; social isolation; fear and anxiety; racial and political tensions; increase in incidence of addictions and mental illness; millions getting sick; hundreds of thousands, including members of our own families and communities, dying. So many people have suffered, and so many of us are still suffering. We think, “Why, God? Where are you in the midst of all of this?” And I think if we are honest with ourselves those questions always come from this vague, underlying fear that we all share to some degree: that the universe is a cold and unfeeling place; that our short human lives are insignificant; and that, if there is a God, he has better things to do than worry with us.
Christmas, in its essence, is about assuring us that those fears are flat wrong. God *loves* us – not just collectively, but individually. He loves *you*. In Jesus, he has given you the fullest possible assurance of that love; Christ is God’s messenger of love, who is also the message of love himself, who is also God himself. Every question and desire and struggle and doubt that we have – and think for a moment about the ones you have experienced this year, or in any year – all of them find a response, an answer (sometimes, a very mysterious one!) in the Person of Jesus Christ. In truth, we could even say that he is the Great Conjunction of divinity with humanity; his coming tells us what God truly wants us to know.
Now, that is the beginning of the mystery, not the end. To understand that Christ has come out of love for us doesn’t eliminate our sufferings and woes, but it does allow us to begin to see with eyes of faith. At times, the darkness of the world can be thick and oppressive; it blinds so many still. Even we who profess faith, at times we can cast around in the darkness, grasping onto all kinds of things, desperate for something to illuminate our blindness, to assure us that God does love and wishes to communicate that love to us. But the fact is the Light is here; we just need to see it. We need to behold anew its coming – not as a star that appears only every few centuries, not even just in the Birth that we celebrate once a year, but in the presence of a Person always here with us – Really Present among us all the time. He is the Light shining always for us, and not just for us but for all. Having seen the Light, we can bear it also for others – to illuminate the path of those in darkness, to show them a Light no darkness can overcome.
Friends, there is no getting around that this Christmas feels different. Many of the things we like to do are not possible; the warm and fuzzies of the season may feel largely absent. But rather than let that lessen the joy of the season, I suggest it makes it sharper, all the more powerful and meaningful. Jesus is the Light of the World, born for us to show us God’s love, and perhaps we recognize that most clearly when the lights of this world are dimmed, when it’s only his heavenly Light shining in the darkness. May this Christmas be for all of us an opportunity to see that Light anew – not in the sky, not in a manger scene, but present in our minds and hearts, shining even in our darkest moments. Because “the light shines in the darkness” and now we see “his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.”
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