Homily for Christmas

For daily readings, see http://www.usccb.org/nab/122507b.shtml

One of my least favorite songs on the radio goes like this – I’m only human, of flesh and blood I’m made. I’m only human, born to make mistakes! It seemed like this song was played every time I went to the health club that last couple of years. It seemed as if someone was watching from above waiting for me to enter the health club, just to make sure that they could annoy the heck out of me by playing this song – I’m Only Human. I kept saying to Fr. Bill Porter with whom I was usually working out – this song is bad anthropology – what a terrible view of the human person – born to make mistakes???
The solemnity of the Incarnation – the birth of Jesus Christ – that we are here to celebrate tonight, completely changes what it means to be a human person. The song I just mentioned implies that in order to become a person who no longer makes mistakes, we have to escape our humanity. The incarnation tells us just the opposite – our Salvation lies not in becoming something other than a human person, but in allowing the child born in Bethlehem to give a new hope and a new destiny to humanity. After the coming of Jesus, being human is not something to be escaped, but something to be embraced and celebrated.
Christmas is the season when we sense once again that everything is going to turn out the way it is supposed to. It is a season when hope is reborn. Pope Benedict wrote an encyclical to us just before the beginning of Advent – Spes Salvi – the hope of salvation. In it, Pope Benedict reminds us that if we hope in Jesus alone, everything will turn out well for us, because Jesus by his very name is the one who saves. Jesus is the one who heals us from our sins, and the futility they bring; He is the one who has power over sin and lasting death. Pope Benedict reminds us that a happy life is more than our ability to fulfill as many of our smaller desires as we can, however we can, within the context of this world. He says also that eternal life is more than just an extension of our days as we now experience them. It is more than another chance to pursue more of our smaller desires that were frustrated in this lifetime. No, Pope Benedict points us strongly toward the teaching found in the Gospel of John that this is eternal life: to know the one true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent (Jn 17:3). What is the Gospel of John saying here? It says that if we are honest with ourselves, the deepest desire our hearts is to see Jesus, and beginning tonight, in the child born in Bethlehem, this gift is given to humanity.
We desire so many things, we have so many expectations of how life should go for us and for others; but on Christmas night we are to recognize through the gift of the Christ child that our deepest desire has been fulfilled, even if many of our smaller desires have not been fulfilled. Tonight is the dawn of our salvation; it is seeing for the first time through the eyes of Mary, Joseph and the shepherds, this Jesus who will free mankind from his futility. Jesus is the one who saves, and He comes to save us not only from the original sin we inherited from Adam and Eve, from our endless series of mistakes. Even more importantly, Jesus comes tonight to save us from the futile condition of having to try to carve out a happy kingdom for ourselves by trying to fulfill as many of our smaller desires as we can during our brief time on earth. No, Jesus saves us from this kind of humanity. He saves us from having to become our own gods through pride, or even of having to try to make ourselves like God or to try to go to God. Instead, God comes to us to redeem and to elevate our humanity. Because of Jesus, it is now the worst sin to try to become like God, while it is glorious to allow God to come to us and to elevate what it means to be a human person. Jesus promises to be our everything, and to fulfill all our desires through a relationship with Him. The one who saves promises that if we have Him we lack nothing of eternal value. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end of the human desire to live forever and to have lasting peace and happiness.
If Jesus is our hope, we do not have to hope in ourselves; much less do we have to hope in progress or material wealth. If He is our everything, then the gifts we give to each other this Christmas are filled with deep meaning. They are a reflection of the reality that we have received in the Christ child everything we have ever wanted or will ever need. Our gift giving, our generosity, is a reflection of the freedom that we have in Jesus. I don’t know about you, but in my own spiritual life I am so liable to skipping over this fundamental step of celebrating Christmas fully, of allowing Jesus to be born in my heart and to fulfill every desire I have there. In my discipleship, I can get so concerned on whether I am doing God’s will, or whether I am worthy to be doing what I am doing, or whether I have done enough to be saved. I so often skip over Christmas, and I need tonight’s celebration to remind me that before I can do God’s will, I must first receive God. This is why Mary is the Queen of Vocations – her reply at the annunciation was not to agree to do her vocation, but to receive it as a gift, to let it be done to her according to God’s word. We are to receive the Christ child tonight in our hearts with the same humility and extraordinary receptivity shown by our Blessed Mother. Our vocation in life is not to try to do God’s will first through our own determination, and then to let the chips fall where they may. No, our vocation is to receive Jesus, to let him be our Savior, to be dependent on Him for our happiness, and then to magnify the Lord and to share this relationship with Christ that has saved us in all that we say and do.
We now celebrate together Christ’s Mass; on this holy night the Lord comes to us most intimately not in the manger scene or in the nativity story, but through the gift of his body and blood. John the Baptist has challenged us through Advent that as we approach the altar tonight, we should not eat and drink judgment on ourselves. Make straight the path of the Lord to our hearts! As we receive Him tonight, may He find nothing in our hearts except a complete desire for Him! May we receive him with the same expectation and joy that were in the hearts of Mary and Joseph. And may we leave this great celebration of our faith, and our experience of the child born in Bethlehem, not afraid of Christ’s coming at the end of time, but more ready to join in his mission to save the world, and to reconcile everything to the Father. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, to those on whom his favor rests! Amen!