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| From a blogsite of Loyola School of Theology |
So there we were, just a few hours ago, kneeling at the manger, falling in love all over again with Baby
Jesus. Babies grab our hearts. The least maternal among us cannot resist
offering a finger for a tiny hand to grasp.
Then along comes the Gospel according to St. John. Every Christmas Day, we read this poetic and compelling yet mysterious prologue to John’s account of Jesus the Christ. It refers to “light,” which we associate with Christmas, but we’re less sure about ”the Word” and its connection to anything.
Where, we might be tempted to ask, is the babe? Where is Mary, the blessed mother, Joseph, the faithful father? The shepherds? Why can’t we just stay at the manger and play with the baby for awhile?!
Here’s a Gospel trivia question for you: Where and how does Jesus the human first appear in the Gospel according to John? In verse 29 of Chapter 1, as a 30-year-old man, when he comes to the river Jordan to be baptized!
John is the only gospel writer who does not tell the story of the babe in the manger.
In John’s interpretation of Christmas, the babe in the manger is “the Word” that not only was with God, but was God, “the Word” spoken in an act of self-communication. He echoes the creation story, and tells us again that God exists outside of time, and that light and life itself are from God.
We readily identify with a human baby. Not so much with an abstract concept.
John reminds us that we can know God only as God comes to us in self-revelation. Nothing we can do—not our most noble aspirations, not our most pious devotions, nor our most dedicated acts of service—can earn or precipitate such an event. Christmas is a celebration of God’s gracious act of coming to us.
But we need John’s account to also remind us that the babe in the manger was rejected. He tells us that The Word came to a world that should have known him, and to people who understood themselves as “chosen,” yet he was rejected.
The remainder of John’s account is story after story of debates and disagreements between Jesus and the religious people of his day, their ultimate rejection of him, and the price he paid, not only for them but for all humankind.
Of course, some did accept him and we are their descendants and the heirs of their faithfulness. But they aren’t the company we quite expect to find ourselves in: fishermen, a tax collector, a Samaritan woman with a checkered past.
Part of what got Jesus into trouble with the religious authorities of his day was that he just wouldn’t hang out with the “right” crowd. What a motley crew they were!
And what an unlikely community to be called into being to change the world. But they did!
This tells us much about God and God’s intentions: If the apparent division between Creator and creature can be overcome, if a community to change the world can be forged from such a motley crew, then all other divisions and prejudices can be overcome as well.
Certainly it still often seems that God is far away and uninvolved. We have only to listen to the news of wars and violence at home and abroad. We have only to visit the Refuge of Hope or the food bank or walk the streets of our cities to see more than enough human need and misery. And we often feel powerless.
But if we accept in faith that God has seen fit to materialize in human flesh and form, then we can begin to see that we live in a universe of possibility we can hardly imagine.
I learned recently via Twitter that a journalist I follow by the name of Ann Curry started a movement called “26 acts of kindness.” It is people all over the country who are responding to the slaughter at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut by going around doing all kinds of wonderful things in the names of the victims.
Here’s a few I’ve seen in my Twitter feed:
-giving a toddler whose dad had no cash a ride on the carousel at the mall
-paying for an elderly person’s groceries
-buying $26 gift cards at Target and giving them to the cashier to use as needed
-putting flowers and a thank you note under the windshield wipers of a city maintenance worker’s truck
My favorite is the woman who tweeted that she’d done her 26 acts of kindness but couldn’t stop. Suddenly, she saw human need and something she could do about it like she never had before.
Please understand I’m not suggesting that “26 acts of kindness” is the underlying “reason” that Sandy Hook happened, or that any good that comes out of that event in any way justifies the tragedy.
Then along comes the Gospel according to St. John. Every Christmas Day, we read this poetic and compelling yet mysterious prologue to John’s account of Jesus the Christ. It refers to “light,” which we associate with Christmas, but we’re less sure about ”the Word” and its connection to anything.
Where, we might be tempted to ask, is the babe? Where is Mary, the blessed mother, Joseph, the faithful father? The shepherds? Why can’t we just stay at the manger and play with the baby for awhile?!
Here’s a Gospel trivia question for you: Where and how does Jesus the human first appear in the Gospel according to John? In verse 29 of Chapter 1, as a 30-year-old man, when he comes to the river Jordan to be baptized!
John is the only gospel writer who does not tell the story of the babe in the manger.
In John’s interpretation of Christmas, the babe in the manger is “the Word” that not only was with God, but was God, “the Word” spoken in an act of self-communication. He echoes the creation story, and tells us again that God exists outside of time, and that light and life itself are from God.
We readily identify with a human baby. Not so much with an abstract concept.
John reminds us that we can know God only as God comes to us in self-revelation. Nothing we can do—not our most noble aspirations, not our most pious devotions, nor our most dedicated acts of service—can earn or precipitate such an event. Christmas is a celebration of God’s gracious act of coming to us.
But we need John’s account to also remind us that the babe in the manger was rejected. He tells us that The Word came to a world that should have known him, and to people who understood themselves as “chosen,” yet he was rejected.
The remainder of John’s account is story after story of debates and disagreements between Jesus and the religious people of his day, their ultimate rejection of him, and the price he paid, not only for them but for all humankind.
Of course, some did accept him and we are their descendants and the heirs of their faithfulness. But they aren’t the company we quite expect to find ourselves in: fishermen, a tax collector, a Samaritan woman with a checkered past.
Part of what got Jesus into trouble with the religious authorities of his day was that he just wouldn’t hang out with the “right” crowd. What a motley crew they were!
And what an unlikely community to be called into being to change the world. But they did!
This tells us much about God and God’s intentions: If the apparent division between Creator and creature can be overcome, if a community to change the world can be forged from such a motley crew, then all other divisions and prejudices can be overcome as well.
Certainly it still often seems that God is far away and uninvolved. We have only to listen to the news of wars and violence at home and abroad. We have only to visit the Refuge of Hope or the food bank or walk the streets of our cities to see more than enough human need and misery. And we often feel powerless.
But if we accept in faith that God has seen fit to materialize in human flesh and form, then we can begin to see that we live in a universe of possibility we can hardly imagine.
I learned recently via Twitter that a journalist I follow by the name of Ann Curry started a movement called “26 acts of kindness.” It is people all over the country who are responding to the slaughter at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut by going around doing all kinds of wonderful things in the names of the victims.
Here’s a few I’ve seen in my Twitter feed:
-giving a toddler whose dad had no cash a ride on the carousel at the mall
-paying for an elderly person’s groceries
-buying $26 gift cards at Target and giving them to the cashier to use as needed
-putting flowers and a thank you note under the windshield wipers of a city maintenance worker’s truck
My favorite is the woman who tweeted that she’d done her 26 acts of kindness but couldn’t stop. Suddenly, she saw human need and something she could do about it like she never had before.
Please understand I’m not suggesting that “26 acts of kindness” is the underlying “reason” that Sandy Hook happened, or that any good that comes out of that event in any way justifies the tragedy.
I’m
also not suggesting that the people doing the acts are Christians. I don’t know
if they are. They might just as well be Muslims or Jews or Buddhists or nothing
for all I know!
I am saying that God comes into this world, over and over again, through human acts of love and kindness and reconciliation.
Here’s how one of my spiritual mentors, Fr. Richard Rohr, explains it: In Jesus, God achieved the perfect synthesis of the divine and the human. The incarnation demonstrates that God meets us where we are as humans. God freely and fully overcomes the gap from God’s side. …For the Christian, spiritual power is always hidden inside of powerlessness, just as God was hidden and yet revealed in a defenseless baby.
May we this Christmas Day begin to see how we as people of the Word can be God’s healing and reconciling self in the world.
I am saying that God comes into this world, over and over again, through human acts of love and kindness and reconciliation.
Here’s how one of my spiritual mentors, Fr. Richard Rohr, explains it: In Jesus, God achieved the perfect synthesis of the divine and the human. The incarnation demonstrates that God meets us where we are as humans. God freely and fully overcomes the gap from God’s side. …For the Christian, spiritual power is always hidden inside of powerlessness, just as God was hidden and yet revealed in a defenseless baby.
May we this Christmas Day begin to see how we as people of the Word can be God’s healing and reconciling self in the world.
Amen.
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