Homily, Christmas 2022
From The Pastor
Babies are wonderful. They inspire joy and happiness in their innocence and complete helplessness. When a baby is born, everything changes. Mother and Dad are filled with love and fear of the unknown beyond words. The whole family is touched by the experience. Bonds of love are realized and felt in ways as never before. The innocence and vulnerability of an infant child stirs the heart toward the mystery of God and the wonder of new life. The wonder of new birth moves the human heart beyond the biology of human reproduction to a sense of the sacred. In every birth, God is present.
We have figured out where babies come from, but what happens when God has a baby? It is often said that the Trinity is the greatest mystery of the Christian faith. If this is true, what do we call the Incarnation of God revealed and fully given in the child Jesus? Mostly, we hold this action as an unknowable work of God realized in the grace of faith. This is true. God, in the infant Jesus is purely an act of faith. Scientifically or biologically, it cannot be proven. However, if pondered, this mystery of God reveals more than first realized.
In the Divine Trinity, Jesus is one of three in the essence of unitive love. One God expressed in three ways of being: Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier. Jesus is the Word spoken by God and given to the world. ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, …and the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.’ Jn 1:1-14ff. Jesus, born of Mary, is fully human and fully Divine. Jesus is a person distinct from the Father, but a perfect image of the Father. The life of Jesus is uniquely his own, yet so perfectly surrendered in love and desire to the Father, he perfectly reflects all the Father is. The Father and the Son are One in the communion of love that unites them in the Holy Spirit.
Love begets love. Love proceeds and goes forth outside itself. It is hard to miss the parallel with human marriage and bearing children. Two come together in love to become a union of one. In love and mutual commitment, love seeks to share itself as it longs for wholeness with the other. Love seeks to be fruitful and bring forth new life. In the fruit of love a child is born.
God is the essence of love with the perfect desire to be one with all that is created. God is our origin. The Creator who brought us forth. The Divine DNA is in the fabric of our created human nature. Why would God not want to be one with us, we who are his beloved children? Consider how deeply the parent is in their child. Not only in the physical DNA, but the undeniable bonds of human love that seek health, wholeness, safety, and success for their children. In God, there is an infinite desire for ‘oneness with’ each of us. This desire is mirrored in the love of parent and child. It is fully human even as it reflects the nature of Divine love.
Christmas has an undying power over all of us, even over those who do not believe in God. Why? The obvious is the gift of our redemption realized in the dying and rising of the adult Christ who secured our reconciliation and oneness with God. As a fruit of redemption, Christmas is a sacred time when human beings are given social and religious freedom to share love more openly than any other time of year. Why? The mystery of Divine love breaks forth and reveals itself through gift giving, bonds of charity, renewed family bonds, with stirrings of faithful hope that one day there will be universal peace.
Christmas is a kind of coming home to our roots in the Love in which we were created. Christmas is an expression of our longing for wholeness in the love we so deeply need and endlessly seek. This is captured in the desire to surprise children and others with the perfect gift to inspire joy and full hearts. Isn’t this an image of God giving us the perfect gift we most need and most deeply long for? It is! God gives himself. The whole Divine self is given in the simplicity and smallness of an infant child. A child who is fully dependent on the love and duty of his parents as well as the whole human race. A vulnerable love longing for oneness with.
Even in a house where children are grown and gone, God can be felt. In the quiet calm of one or two, the birth of the Messiah is enough to warm the hearts of those inclined to loneliness. A prayer of memories can be said with joyful gratitude for the years of child raising in the success of adult children. The peace and surety of God’s gift of the Christ child is felt in the promise of heaven.
Christmas is a mystery to be sure; perfect and powerful. It awakens the heart and stirs the soul. Allow the reality of Christmas, in the birth of Christ, to become your power. That we are loved is undeniable. Even the greatest parental love cannot outdo the love of God. Be a gift to others by loving more this year. Allow the grace of God to touch your soul so you can touch the souls of others. Do not cling the mystery of God as unknowable. It is all over you like white on rice. God is in you and you is in God. The more you love, the more obvious God will become. If all else fails, go where there is a new baby. Wear a bib. Merry Christmas.
Father John Esper
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