God Sees His Son

Nativity of the Lord, Mass during the Day

            Have you ever noticed how everyone seems to soften in the presence of a baby?  It makes sense that mothers are very soft and tender in the presence of a child because of their motherly instincts.  But it even happens with the gruffest, toughest men.  In the presence of a baby even the sternest face can be softened by a smile, and the epitome of a man’s man starts talking gibberish, trying to communicate with the child and get it to smile back.

            Today we rejoice in the fact that, in the fullness of time, right when God wanted it, when all the conditions were as God knew in His Divine Wisdom they needed to be, the invisible God who could not be seen, the Word through whom all things were made, and without whom nothing came to be, became visible in the flesh.  God was made known to the world as a baby.  While we have grown used to this fact over 2,000 years of Christian activity, this was unthinkable, truly awesome, and even somewhat scandalous to Jews and Gentiles alike.

            In the past, as we heard in the second reading, “God spoke in partial and various ways to our ancestors through the prophets.”  From the very beginning, when God created Adam and Eve in His own likeness and walked among them in the Garden of Eden, God had wanted to be close to the crown of His creation.  He wanted to be with us in all things.  And even when, through Adam, sin entered the world, He continued to reveal Himself partially to the Chosen People: to Abram, telling him to leave Ur of Chaldea and go to the land of Canaan, where he would become Abraham, the father of many nations, and in the form of three visitors to announce the conception of Isaac, the son of the promise; to Moses in the Burning Bush and on Mount Sinai; to all the Chosen People in the form of a pillar of cloud and fire, leading them through the desert; through the prophets, those chosen by God to speak for Him to a people who constantly preferred to wander away from God, rather than be close, especially Isaiah, Jeremiah, Elijah, Ezekiel, and others. 

But this was always a partial revelation of God.  In Bethlehem, when Jesus was born, we had the chance to see that God had fulfilled the prophecies that a Virgin would bear a Son and would name Him Emmanuel, God-with-us.  In the Nativity of Jesus according to the flesh a marvelous exchange took place, what the Church Fathers called admirabile commercium.  In this great exchange, God took our sinful nature to Himself, though He was free from sin, and united it fully to His divinity, so that we could live forever in heaven united to the Son.  In the words of St. Athanasius: God became man so that man could become God.

This is what St. John is speaking of when, in the Gospel passage we heard today, he writes, “But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not by natural generation nor by human choice nor by a man’s decision by of God.”  In Baptism we were made members of the Mystical Body of Christ, and our nature was joined to Christ, just as Christ joined His nature to ours at the Annunciation, which we celebrated 9 months ago. 

The Gospel, the Good News that this truly is should astound us!  Because if we have been baptized and united to the Mystical Body of Christ, then when God looks down on us, he no longer sees a child born of natural generation, but His only-begotten, beloved Son, just as when Mary and Joseph looked down at the Christ child, they did not just see a baby, but the eternal God in flesh.  In baptism, where we are born again by water and the Spirit, we become a son or a daughter in Christ the Son. 

This participation in the Sonship of Christ is no small thing!  “To which of the angels did God ever say: You are my son; this day I have begotten you?  Or again: I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me?”  Because Jesus joined our nature to His, humbling Himself to take on all that it means to be human: hunger, thirst, pain, temptation, we have a higher dignity than the angels of God.  You are a higher creation than an angel, because Christ was not an angel, nor did He become one of them.  He chose to join our nature to His, and so we join in the dignity of Christ who is “as far superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.”

Do not cheapen, then, the great gift you have been given this Christmas, the gift of knowing that we can be united to Christ.  Do not count as worthless the great gift of being a part of His Body, the Church, with all the great gifts and duties that come along with membership in the People God has claimed for His own.  As Pope St. Leo the Great wrote in his Christmas sermon:

Acknowledge, O Christian, the dignity that is yours!  Being made a partaker in the divine nature, do not by an unworthy manner of living fall back into your former abjectness of life.  Be mindful of Whose Head, and of Whose Body, you are a member.  Remember, that wrested from the powers of darkness, you are now translated into the Light and the Kingdom of God.  By the sacrament of baptism you have become the temple of the Holy Spirit.  Do not, by evil deeds, drive out from you such a One dwelling with you, and submit yourself again to the bondage of the devil.  Because your price was the Blood of Christ; because in strictness He shall judge you Who in mercy has redeemed you, Who with the Father and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, world without end.  Amen.

Silent Night

Nativity of the Lord, Mass at Midnight

            I’ve mentioned before my deep love of the book The Lord by Romano Guardini, and it is the third chapter in book 1 that I reference tonight.  Guardini, writing in 1937, mentions in that chapter that in the Mass (what we would now call the Extraordinary Form), the words of the Book of Wisdom help to guide the feast: “‘For while all things were in quiet silence and the night was in the midst of her course, thy almighty word leapt down from heaven from thy royal throne…’”  He continues, “The passage, brimming with the mystery of the Incarnation, is wonderfully expressive of the infinite stillness that hovered over Christ’s birth.  For the greatest things are accomplished in silence—not the clamor and display of superficial eventfulness, but in the deep clarity of inner vision; in the almost imperceptible start of decision, in the quiet overcoming and hidden sacrifice…The silent forces are the strong forces.”

            We are here, in the midst of the silence of this sacred night, recalling an event that took place almost 2,000 years ago in the silence of the night in Bethlehem, which forever changed human history, whether you believe in Jesus or not.  As Christians we date time from this moment: everything which came before is BC—Before Christ.  Everything which took place afterwards is in AD—Anno Domini, the Year of the Lord.  Even those who wish to separate our dating of time from Christian belief, who use the term BCE (Before the Common Era) and CE (the Common Era), still point to the time when Jesus was born in the manger, in the silence of the night.

            The greatest things happen in silence.  The silent forces are the strong forces.  These words are no less true today than 75 years ago when Guardini wrote them.  The greatest things do happen in silence.  In silence the world was forever changed, not by some king, but by the King of kings; not by one who came to be served, but one who came to serve and give His life as a ransom for many; not by a strong, handsome adult, with thousands of Facebook friends, but by a child: a weak, helpless child, laying in a manger, surrounded by His Blessed Mother, His foster-father, and the animals of the stable. 

            But, as Isaiah prophesied, “upon his shoulder dominion rests.  They name him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, Prince of Peace.”  Do not let his lowly birth fool you.  Do not scoff at his humility.  For the child that the shepherds came to adore: the child who was helpless in His mother’s arms, is the Almighty God who created the heavens and the earth.  That little child caused a bush to burn without being consumed, split the Red Sea in two so that the Chosen People, His people, could escape from the Egyptian army.  This child is weak, but He is no weakling.  He is mild, but He smashes the yoke of slavery that burdened us and tramples underfoot the evil serpent, Satan, crushing his head.

            That power, that glory, did not come with human activity: the decorating, the hurrying about, the shopping, the partying, but was announced only by angelic hosts to the shepherds in the fields, who heard them say, “‘I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.  For today, in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Christ and Lord.’”

            So why come here now?  Why come to this church in East Lansing?  Why come each Sunday back to the Mass which, even given our new translations, does not really change that much?  Why come in the midst of this dark, cold night to hear familiar carols being sung?  We can do that at home, listening to the radio!

            We come, in the dark, silence of this night, and each and every Sunday because He who was born in Bethlehem, the city of David, the “house of bread,” as the name Bethlehem means in Hebrew, because Jesus Christ is born again for us in this Mass: not as a child, but under the appearance of bread and win.  His most holy Body and Blood adorn not a manger, but this altar.  He is surrounded on earth not by His Blessed Mother and foster father, but by His mothers and brothers and sisters, those who do the will of His heavenly Father, as He tells us in Sacred Scripture.  This holy night, this night divine, in the silence, broken only by the words of the priest saying those same words that Jesus spoke—“Take this, all of you, and eat of it;” “Take this, all of you, and drink from it”—Jesus Christ is made present to us today and at every Mass sacramentally just as He was made manifest to the shepherds 2,000 years ago in the stable in Bethlehem.  We get the greatest gift of Christmas, the gift of being able to receive the same Jesus into us that the angels proclaimed in the heavens. 

            “Beloved: The grace of God has appeared, saving all and training us to reject godless ways and worldly desires and to live temperately, justly, and devoutly in this age, as we await the blessed hope, the appearance of the glory of our great God and savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to deliver us from all lawlessness and to cleanse for himself a people as his own, eager to do what is good.” 

            “‘For while all things were in quiet silence and the night was in the midst of her course, thy almighty word leapt down from heaven from thy royal throne…’”  In the silence of this night Jesus Christ unites His Divine nature to our human nature, not just in the remembrance of His Nativity, but in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.  O come, let us adore Him: Christ the Lord.

A Christmas Carol-Scripture Style

Third Sunday of Advent

            Each year around this time, there are certain Christmas specials that air year after year: TBS always seems to have “A Christmas Story” with the kid who wants a bb gun for Christmas, but whose parent’s won’t let him get it, because he’ll shoot his eye out; CBS always seems to show all the classics: “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Frosty the Snowman,” and “Charlie Brown Christmas.”  ABC Family has the 25 days of Christmas, so they’re running just about every show ever made about Christmas.  And I’ve seen a few channels showing “A Christmas Carol.”  Whether it’s the 1984 version with George C. Scott or the 2009 version with Jim Carrey’s voice, or the Disney version, or the Muppet version, “A Christmas Carol” has certainly stood the test of time.  Almost any person from a certain age onward can tell you about the three spirits that visit Ebenezer Scrooge to try to get him to change.

            We hear a lot about, not about the spirit of Christmas past, present, or to come, but the Holy Spirit in our first and second readings today.  In the first reading, Isaiah prophesies the Messiah as one filled with the spirit because he is anointed by the Lord “to bring glad tidings to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives, and release to the prisoners, to announce a year of favor from the LORD and a day of vindication by our God.”  The time of the Messiah was one where the Spirit of God, or ruach elohim, would be very active, especially in the Messiah.  But it would also be active in all of the People of God, as Joel prophesies.  Joel writes, “Then afterward I will pour out my spirit upon all mankind…in those days I will pour out my spirit.”  This is what St. Peter references on Pentecost, as the Spirit descends, as the proof that Jesus is the Messiah.  St. Paul even says in the second reading: “Do not quench the Spirit.”

            We also see the Spirit at work in the Gospel through St. John the Baptist.  Of course, with St. John’s fire and passion, the Jews, priests, and Levites confuse John for the Messiah.  But John responds that he is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy, the same one we heard last week, “‘the voice of one crying out in the desert, “make straight the way of the Lord.”’”  But John the Baptist is part of the sign that the fullness of time, the manifestation of the Messiah, is upon them.

            We ourselves live in this fullness of time, the time of the Kingdom of God, fully present in the Person of Jesus Christ, but not fully present yet on earth until He returns in glory to judge the living and the dead.  We ourselves have received of that same spirit, the Spirit of the Lord prophesied by Isaiah and Joel.  We ourselves have the same Spirit, granted, perhaps in a different way, as St. John the Baptist so that we can prepare the way and point out the Messiah, Jesus, as he comes among us.

            We first received that gift of the Spirit at our baptism.  We received another outpouring of the Spirit at our confirmation.  And we can receive the Spirit daily; we don’t just have to wait until Pentecost to pray for a greater outpouring and recognition of the gifts of the Spirit.

            How can we tell if we’re using the gifts of the Spirit?  How can we tell if we are actualizing the potential that God has given us?  Isaiah gives us a pretty good list.  Are we bringing glad tidings to the poor: do we assist the poor with our words of blessing, rather than calling them lazy?  Do we, when we can, share our material resources with the poor, even those who might be standing with the sign at the corner of the street?  There are many who use the excuse, “Well, he’s just going to get drunk with that money.”  If that’s a serious concern, go buy a sandwich or something, and drive back to give it to him or her.  On the other hand, at the final judgment, I don’t think God will blame you for giving money to a man who was poor, even if he does use it for alcohol. 

            Are we healing the brokenhearted?  Do our words build others up, or do they tear others down?  This is something that is very easy to fall into, but so important.  I’m sure we’ve all had a time when we’ve benefited from a kind word said just at the right moment.  You never know when that moment is going to be, so if we’re building each other up, not giving false compliments but truly trying to help others with our words, then we can be that blessing to others.  St. James says in his letter, “If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue…his religion is vain.”

            Are we freeing the prisoners?  No, this does not mean we start attempting jailbreaks.  But we probably each know at least one person, in addition to ourselves, who are held captive by a particular sin or addiction.  Are we helping them to find freedom by helping them end the things which lead them to sin or which enable them in their addictions?  God wants us to be free in Him, not enslaved to sin.  Are we on the side of slavery or freedom?

            God has anointed us and given us the Spirit, the robe of salvation, the mantle of justice.  The Spirit is our diadem that adorns us bridegrooms, or the jewels that adorn the brides.  With that Spirit, if we use it, we can proclaim the Messiah, just like St. John the Baptist.  We are called to be the ones crying out in the desert of sin: make straight the way of the Lord.

The Comfort of the Truth

Second Sunday of Advent

            “Comfort, give comfort to my people, says your God.”  When I heard the word comfort, and try to think of what comforts me, I think of a cold, snowy evening, sitting by the fireplace, the living room lit only by a few flickering flames from candles, drinking my family recipe of hot spiced cider, and watching a favorite television show or movie.  For others it might be a hot tub, or a warm beach, or even just a pint of Häagen Dazs.  Or maybe you’ve got your own sense of what comforts you that is radically different from the examples I just listed. 

            It’s beautiful to hear the words of Isaiah the prophet, telling us that God wants to bring us comfort.  “Speak tenderly,” he says, “and proclaim to her that her service is at an end; her guilt is expiated…Go up on a high mountain…cry out at the top of your voice…Here is your God!  […] Like a shepherd he feeds his flock; in his arms he gathers the lambs, carrying them in his bosom, and leading the ewes with care.”  Who doesn’t want to know that the Lord is going to speak tenderly to us, to proclaim that our service is at an end, and that our guilt is no more?  Who doesn’t want the Lord to come as a shepherd, feeding his flock, gathering us in his arms and carrying us close to his chest?

            So what do we do with the middle part of the first reading and our Gospel?  We heard twice, “A voice cries out: In the desert prepare the way of the LORD!  Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!”  We have traditionally associated that proclamation with St. John the Baptist who, as St. Mark wrote in today’s Gospel passage, “appeared in the desert proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”  If any of you have seen the movie “Jesus of Nazareth” by Franco Zeffirelli, you can picture how enthused John the Baptist was about his message.  In the movie, John the Baptist is screaming at the top of his lungs: Repent!  And he’s only wearing a camel’s hair tunic and a leather belt around his waist, eating locusts and honey.  In fact, he screams so much that Herod has him arrested for preaching against his so-called marriage to his brother’s wife.  This is not the warm, pastoral scene that Isaiah has at the end of our first reading.  And it certainly doesn’t seem like the comfort that Isaiah prophesies at the beginning of our first reading.  So why is the figure of John the Baptist, the one crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the Way of the Lord, sandwiched between those two soft images?

            What John preaches is the truth.  As St. Augustine says in one of His sermons, Jesus is the word, and John is the voice.  Jesus is what is being proclaimed, and John is the one proclaiming it.  John is preaching repentance, which is the beginning of the comfort that God wants to give.  “But change is hard!  Change isn’t comfortable!”  Change can be difficult.  We’re seeing that as we slowly get used to our new translations, saying “And with your spirit” instead of “And also with you.”  But what is most comfortable is the truth.  The truth is precisely what gives comfort.  It may not always seem like it does, but if Jesus is the Truth, as he says (I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life), then when we receive the truth, we receive Jesus, who is the shepherd, drawing us close to his bosom, and leading us with care, from lies to truth, from darkness to light, from slavery to sin to freedom in God’s commandments. 

            It is true, sometimes the truth hurts, and we don’t usually associate that hurt with comfort.  But that painful truth is like knowing the reality that our infected wound has to be drained.  It is going to be painful at first, probably very painful, but it will actually be comforting to know that the infection is being treated, and the wound will heal properly. 

            So when John is preaching repentance, turning away from sins and being faithful to God, he is bringing the comfort of God.  Because it is only when we recognize that we need to turn back to the Lord, when we recognize the truth, that we can actually start going in the right direction with the help of God, rather than wandering off by ourselves away from the kingdom God has prepared for us, where the fullness of comfort is present. 

            We all need that message that John the Baptist preaches.  We need to hear, time and time again, “Repent!  For the Kingdom of God is at hand!”  We need the truth.  Otherwise we get stuck with the mentality: my sins aren’t that bad!  It’s not like I murdered someone!  It was just a little gossip; I just cheated a little bit; it’s just a little pornography every now and then; I’ll give back the money I took at my next paycheck.  If our mentality, no matter what sins we struggle with, is, “I’m really ok; I’m not that bad,” then we will not receive the comfort that God wants to give us, the comfort of living how God has created us: for Him in love, and with Him eternally in heaven.  If we do not repent, through the sacrament of Reconciliation, then God won’t be able to say to us, “your service is at an end, your guilt is expiated,” because we will have closed ourselves off to the mercy and love that God wants to communicate to us.  Next Sunday, on 11 December, we’ll once again host a Communal Celebration of the Sacrament of Reconciliation with Individual Confessions, with priests from around the Eastern part of Lansing offering you the sacramental grace and peace that comes from hearing the words and knowing the reality: your sins are forgiven; go in peace.  That’s the comfort the Lord wants to give you.  That’s the tenderness that waits for our response.  How will you answer?  Where will you find comfort?