THE NATIVITY OF THE LORD
25 DECEMBER 2020
Christmas
teaches us a very important lesson about how the Lord chooses to love us. He did not choose to love us with power or
domination. The Lord loved us by
becoming vulnerable. Through the power
of the Holy Spirit, he took flesh in the womb of the Virgin. He was born not in an antiseptic birthing
center, but in a stable designed for animals.
He had to have his diapers changed.
He had to be taught how to walk and talk. He had to be taught the Sacred Scriptures and
traditions of his faith.
At the birth of the Savior, the
angels do not proclaim the good news of his birth to the powerful and wealthy. They proclaim the news to shepherds,
vulnerable vagabonds with no standing in the culture. As an adult, Jesus will choose to become the
Good Shepherd and make himself vulnerable to the sheep that were lost. He will heal the vulnerable and offer
miracles not to coerce faith, but to invite people to see his true identity. He will avoid speaking of his role as messiah
in terms of power and might. Instead, he
will remain vulnerable as the suffering servant who will wash the feet of his
disciples at the Last Supper. He will
enter into the most vulnerable condition feared by all – death itself.
Christmas invites us to reflect on
how the Lord has chosen to love us. We
are celebrating this Christmas in a particularly vulnerable condition. All of our lives have been changed by a virus
that is completely out of our control.
We have been isolated from one another.
We gather to celebrate Christmas in smaller groups. We wear masks, wash our hands, and maintain
social distancing as a way of protecting the most vulnerable from being
infected.
The Lord is using our celebration
of Christmas this year to teach us to love better by being vulnerable. We are vulnerable when we admit the truth about
ourselves before God. God has blessed all
of us with many talents and abilities.
But we all have weaknesses, and those weaknesses make us more drawn to
sin by turning away from God. We are
more vulnerable when we do not put on airs or try to impress others. True holiness involves being transparent. Others see what they get in transparent
people. We love those in our families
when we refrain from controlling or manipulating them. We love those who annoy us or treat us badly
by giving to them the mercy that the Lord gives to us in our weakness and
vulnerability. We love best when we apologize
for the times we have offended others.
In normal times, we gather for
Christmas pageants. Children dress up
like shepherds and magi to enact the stories of the birth of Jesus found in the
Gospels of Matthew and Luke. In the
absence of these pageants this year, we can reflect on the images presented in
the Prologue of the Gospel of Saint John.
Those images cannot be acted out in school Christmas pageants. Saint John tells us that in the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This Word shining in the darkness became
flesh and dwells among us. We see his
glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son.
This is the essence of Christmas. In the Mystery of the Incarnation, that Word
continues to dwell in our midst. The
Lord Jesus continues to remain vulnerable, present to us under the ordinary
forms of bread and wine. The Lord Jesus
continues to speak to us with ordinary words from Sacred Scripture. The Lord Jesus invites us to imitate his
love, not by resorting to power or greed or dominance, but by being vulnerable
in the way we relate to one another. It
is risky to choose to love in this way, because making ourselves more
vulnerable opens us to rejection.
However, it also allows the light of Christ to shine more clearly in the
darkness of our world. No darkness can
overcome that light.
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