Hebrews 1:1-6; John 1:1-18
This is the only public Mass available for people here today because of the Restrictions, so I’ve skipped the Dawn Mass readings, and taken instead the tremendous words given us in the Day Mass readings: from the beginning of Hebrews, and the beginning of St. John’s Gospel.
These two passages are so different in style and form, yet they closely overlap in content. Both speak of God’s eternal Son, who is himself God, though also clearly distinct from God the Father. This divine Son is also God’s utterance, or perfect self-expression. Through him the whole created Universe was made. Today especially we proclaim that he, the divine Word, the second Person of the holy Trinity, became a man for us in Jesus Christ our Lord. Through him God, in a definitive, all-sufficient, unsurpassable way, has spoken to us, has revealed himself to us, has communicated himself to us, has given himself to us.
Now, on the morning of Christmas Day, we celebrate his birth: in poverty, in obscurity, in silence. How can we ever cease to be astonished, confounded, overwhelmed, by this mystery, this paradox, this manifestation at once of divine power and divine humility; this prophesied yet also completely unexpected pouring out of divine love, and divine mercy, and divine goodness, and divine wisdom? He who is great beyond all human conception became for our sake so small. He who is light stepped into the dark. He who is God’s perfect reflection, or as Hebrews has it, the splendour of God’s glory, came on earth as one un-recognised. More strange paradox: he who was already there at the beginning of the world, stepped into that world only at the end of the age. To most of the human race, he did not so fully reveal himself. But he did so reveal himself to us, to us few, so privileged few. Yet more strangeness: he does not force himself on us, but gently, courteously he asks us to receive him, and to bear witness to him with our lives.
This homily is supposed to be brief. Let me try then to make just two points now; maybe ending with a third.
First: this is all true. Not myth. Not fantasy. Not imaginary wish-fulfilment. So much to the contrary, indeed, that this mystery abides always as a fixed reference point for all truth. No human being invented this. This is the Truth of God, and of the divine intervention in history; the truth of divine revelation. We need to underline that today, because we all now live in a culture dominated by relativism, whereby all truth is considered to be purely subjective, and personal, and private. One religion, then, or philosophy, or life style, or “truth”, is considered to be more or less as good as another. But no: we Christians affirm, if necessary with our life’s blood, that Christ is himself and in Person the Truth. Other religions or philosophies certainly possess shadows and images of the truth, but only Christ perfectly manifests and communicates God to us. And therefore: it is only through him that we can come to God, and to freedom from our sins, and to adoption into divine sonship, and to God’s eternal life.
My second point: Jesus Christ is God’s great Christmas Gift to us. Everything about today’s mystery is sheer, astonishing, beyond generous, beyond lavish gift. In comparison with this one, no other conceivable gift can compare: not the whole world with all its goods; not perfect health; not any human achievement or success; not any earthly happiness; not even life itself. Jesus encompasses in himself all conceivable goods, and more, because he is God: and he is given to us. God does not only give himself a bit in Christ. No: in Christ God gives himself totally! And he gives himself in such a way that he is truly ours, and to keep! But how, you cry, can we finite, mortal, time-bound beings receive what is infinite, heavenly, eternal? We can, because he is given in a human way, humanly; perfectly fitted to our capacity; not consuming us with his power, but lying at our feet in his weakness. What are we to do about that? Let us at least fall to our knees and confess this truth; and let us receive this gift today, with gratitude in our hearts, and joy, and adoration, and never ceasing wonder.
To end: Christmas day is the day of Christ’s Mass.
The whole mystery of Christ is made present here, comes to its focus here, in our own time and in our own place: using material things, and human words and human gestures and human actions. Christ Jesus himself is the principal actor here, through the working of the Holy Spirit: so we rightly affirm that this is a divine work. Here, in the Mass, we are given direct access to God. Here we receive God: because God here gives himself to us. We also have here the perfect means whereby we can respond in kind, giving ourselves to God in return: through the mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus (1 Tm 2:5). Two thousand years ago he was born for us. May he be born again in our hearts today, and continually, until we meet him at last in heavenly glory.