The Birth of a Child - Christmas, Year C
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| The Nativity, as depicted at Conception Abbey |
A couple of weeks ago in St. Louis, I had lunch with two
friends, who got married last year and now were preparing to give birth to their
first child! It’s been
awesome for me to see their love for each other grow, and their strong faith in
God continually inspires me. So at this
lunch, I asked them, “What are you most excited about parenthood?” They thought for a couple of seconds and
responded, “Just to meet this child!”
They left it a surprise to find out if it was a boy or girl, and they
were just so excited to meet this child that they’ve had for nine months, to
hold the child, adore it, all of the things that new parents get to do! It was so beautiful for me to see their joy
and expectation. And I’m sure all of you
parents can relate to this, the joy of welcoming a new child into the
world. It’s not an everyday event but
really is life-changing, as you’re filled with love for this child even before
meeting him or her!
I think we all know, however, that it can be easy to lose
this joy, when we get caught up in the normal activities and burdens of
life. It becomes easy to lose this awe
and wonder, especially when that newborn baby is soon keeping you up at night
and learns to say the word “no!” And
it’s definitely easy to lose this joy when it comes to our faith, to just treat
our faith as another thing to do or not do and not as the center of our lives. But every year, we come to Christmas. Our Church gives us the opportunity to regain
this joy, and even our society takes time to pause and be filled with gratitude
and love.
Today, we are filled with joy at welcoming the child
Jesus! We join with Mary and Joseph in
our Gospel in welcoming Jesus into the world.
And of course, Jesus isn’t any ordinary child. He is the eternal Son of God, who has chosen
to become man to redeem all of us from our sin.
The incredible thing is that we don’t treat this as a nice story or a
helpful idea, but we realize that this is a historical reality, that on a
particular day in history, God entered the world, and that later, on particular
days in history, Jesus was killed and then rose again from the dead, giving all
of us hope.
Here’s the key point: either we are the craziest and most
prideful people in the world for believing this, or we have the greatest news
to share and live out. Either this is
all nonsense, or it’s the deepest meaning of our lives. Really, there’s no middle ground; this is not
a “ho-hum” happening. I know that so
often in my own life, I find myself living on this “middle ground,” and it’s
never satisfying. Indeed, sometimes I’ve
honestly wondered: is this whole Catholic thing true? And it better be true if I’m giving my life
up for it as a priest! However, I’ve
learned that there are answers to this, that when I dive in deeply, there is
evidence that what we believe as Catholics is true.
We simply can look at the historical evidence. Yes, the Bible is not just made up; there are
plenty of other ancient historical documents that give testimony to some of the
events of the Old Testament and also demonstrate that Jesus of Nazareth is a
historical person who lived and died, and that his apostles proclaimed that he
rose again from the dead. The four
Gospels are some of the most documented manuscripts that we have from history,
and we also have the history of the Catholic Church from the earliest times. I feel like that at some point in 2,000
years, the Church would have realized if this were all made up. But instead, men and women at all times and
places in history have met Jesus in their own lives and have loved in the same
way that He did by the power of the Holy Spirit, giving up their lives for Him
and becoming saints.
And what so many men and women have encountered is
redemption, that we don’t have to remain stuck in our brokenness. Sometimes when we hear the word “sin,” we
just equate it to “breaking God’s rules,” but it’s so much more – sin is
breaking the relationship we have with God and with each other. We know from Genesis that God created us to
share in His love, not to be His servants but to be His friends, but Adam and
Eve were the first to turn away from Him.
It’s clear in our world that there is so much brokenness and suffering
caused by evil, which we can describe as the effects of that original sin. And it’s truly heart-breaking to sometimes
see this within our Church as well, which we’ve all become aware of again in
these past months. But God did not give
up on us or on His Church, and instead of just providing us with some solution,
He gives us Himself. He gives us Himself
as a child, as a baby born not in the highest of palaces but the lowliest of
stables, born not with pleasant surroundings but the smells and sounds of farm
animals and shepherds. Then through his
death on the cross, he takes all of our sins upon Himself, putting them to
death, and his resurrection shows his ultimate triumph that he wants to share
with us, which we share in even now through the Holy Spirit.
This is the most incredible news that we could ever have,
that we don’t have to remain slaves to fear but are made children of God
Himself. This is what I’ve experienced
in my own life, that in the midst of my own anxiety and fear, I can turn to God
immediately in prayer and live in His grace, because Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, is
with me. This is what has led me to
prepare for priesthood, that I may live in His life and share this with so many
others. I’ve experienced this
transformation, and I know there’s a lot more that the Lord wants to give.
So when we encounter this incredible news, we are free to
make a response. Yes, we can turn away
and go back to the middle ground, or we can let this begin to radically transform
us. Just as Mary and Joseph are filled
with joy in welcoming Jesus, we are filled with joy today. And the incredible thing is that Jesus didn’t
just leave us with an idea of him – he left us Himself here in the Eucharist –
that the priest shares in Christ’s power to transform this bread and wine into
Jesus’ Body and Blood, and that we can receive this time and time again at
Mass! And when we sin, it’s never the
end, but that we can turn back to Him in the beautiful sacrament of
confession. And when we share in this
love for others through our own acts of mercy and charity, especially for the
poor, we love with Christ’s own love. We
know that we also can’t do all of this alone, which is why our parish, St.
Anthony’s, exists. We want to walk
together here, to become a family in God’s love, and all of us can be connected
here to live out the mission that Christ gives us. Right now at Mass, if you are willing to take
the next step, ask the Lord, “How do you want me to follow you? What’s the next step?” Imagine what could happen if we all took this
step in this next year – how we can be closer to the Lord, walk with each
other, and be witnesses to so many who need this joy.
Today, I invite all of us, myself included, to receive Jesus
with a new, Spirit-filled joy, just as my friends welcomed their son into the
world! The birth of a child changes
everything, and we are changed today by Jesus.
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