will you hold me?

Homily

Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord

25 December 2020

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG +JMJ +m

Will you hold me?

Last year I asked you what you wanted for Christmas.  I confessed that I wanted someone to hold me.  It was embarrassing to admit.  Yet it's still true this year.  It's all I want.  In that smallest place where I am alone and afraid, I want to be loved.  In that weakest place where I am convinced no one understands, no one cares and nothing can change, I want someone to hold me.

This year I have a better question, though.  What does Jesus want for Christmas?  Do you know?

It's a strange question perhaps, on this night we celebrate Him as greatest, and purest, and most needed gift.  Yet the question is right there in the Christmas story.  Jesus is not only gift, He is also in desperate need.  Jesus comes to reveal that God is both love given and love received.  So are we, made in His image.  So I dare say Jesus wants for Christmas what I want.  Where He is alone and afraid, where He is poor, naked, cold, homeless and vulnerable, He wants someone to hold Him.

He appears at Christmas to tell you what He wants, and to ask you the ultimate Christmas question.  Will you hold me?

You might be asking how does this question help?  How does it save me and the world?  Yet this is the great paradox of Christmas.  Jesus helps by being helpless.

He knows nothing else can work.  If Jesus appears first as a warrior King, my defenses will go up.  If He asks first how He can help, I'll tell Him what I always do.  I'm fine.  I got this.  Keep your distance.  Are you familiar with this word distance?  It's the buzzword of 2020.  It's a dangerous word.  It might preserve existence for a moment, yet distance always ends in death.

Knowing my defenses, Jesus has to slip behind enemy lines.  He has to trick me.  Yet even begging me to hold Him as a baby is not enough.  He knows I can avoid, and fear, and even kill a baby to defend my fear and doubt, my control of that space where I know nobody understands, nobody cares and nothing can change.

So God who became a baby tonight is a baby who becomes bread.   Bethlehem means house of bread.  The ridiculous scene of Bethlehem merely sets the stage for tonight.  The Christmas question sentimentally and historically present at Bethlehem appears fully in mystery on this altar.  For the same God made baby is right here, right now, a baby made bread, conceived in the womb of the Church and destined for the roof of your body.

When I put the Mass in Christmas, tonight's Christmas question is asked from the inside of me, where only the Eucharist can reach.  Sneaking behind my defenses, Jesus now asks his question from the inside of me, where I can no longer distance myself.  At my smallest and weakest space, where I most fear and doubt, and where I am convinced nobody understands, nobody cares and nothing can change, Jesus asks me to love Him.  Will you hold me there?

It's a trick, and a darn good one.  My future, and the future of the world, await my answer. Will you hold me?

If I dare a yes, then the greatest of Christmas miracles might come true.  I may no longer fear the very thing I most want for Christmas.  In holding Jesus, in the depths of my heart, I will find that I am the one being held.  I am the one being saved.

Jesus helps then by being helpless.  As you receive the Eucharist tonight, ask Him what He wants for Christmas.  I dare say He wants to appear on this altar at Christ's Mass, and enter your body, simply to ask you the ultimate Christmas question.  Will you hold me?