MOLLY FERNANDES
Today, the Word becomes flesh and lives among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John 1: 14)
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It’s Christmas! How can we make Christmas happen today? Could we…for it’s not the outside decorations and cribs and sweets and carols…
Christmas cannot be bought, but we have to make it. So how can we make Christmas in our heart and hold it there forever? It cannot be bought but made. For that to happen, we need to go to that first Christmas, where Mary could put aside her precious dreams for the future to bring Jesus, to take on God’s great dream for mankind. When could Joseph put aside his firm and honourable decisions to take up what was God’s decision.
It happened when the shepherds could put aside their comforts, the security, their routine, to rush to proclaim God’s glory. It happened when the magi, of the East, could put aside their land and lifestyles, to reach out for that Star and worship the King.
Yes, Christmas happens when we can put aside not what we can spare, but when we dare to put aside what we treasure to make this world celebrate with us the promise of heaven – Jesus. When we can give what is most dear to us and when we can give up what is dear to us.
And yet, we all know, giving can really hurt. People whom we give regularly are the ones who take us for granted and we question why should I give as we have given and given and we often found that people whom we have given, they have returned evil for good. And today we are afraid to give.
Yes, Mary, Joseph, the Shepherds and the Magi gave what they treasured, but Christmas really happened when God gave all that he had and that is his son Jesus, the most beloved and treasured possession. So how can I repay the Lord?
The Lord says, whatever you do to the least, of my brothers, you do it for me. Yes, the saddest loneliest, the old, the poor, those who cannot pay us back. Whatever I can give them from what I treasure, when I do that, I do that for the Lord who abandoned his home for me. I do that for the King who stepped down from the throne for me. For the Father who gave up his Son for me.
“The word became flesh and dwell amongst us and we have seen his glory”. Certainly! God took human form not so that we humans may become superhuman but that God took human form so that we may rediscover the glory of humanity. Christmas happens so that we can see God. That we may be restored to humanity. Yes, that we humans may become human again. For we have lost the human aspects and become insane.
John takes us to the heart, to the meat of the story, when he says: And the word became flesh…
The birth of Christ is the moment when God puts on the meat of humanity, the flesh of our bodies. If you want to know what God looks like, look at the people around you, look at their skin and eyes and hair. When Mary and Joseph and those Shepherds looked into the eyes of the Christ child, they would have seen there all of humanity contained in flesh. Do I recognise Baby Jesus in people with whom I live and work?
Christmas begins all things new, because the darkness of sin and death will no longer have hold over us. Because the old order of things has ended, and now the Christ born into flesh has come today. St John directly begins his gospel minus the infancy narrative, stripping the details back, to open ears to hear, our eyes to see, our hearts to know that this story of a babe being born to virgin in a stable in Bethlehem, is the story of God coming into our world, coming in order to be near to us again, the God Immanuel. May Peace, Joy and Love reign in our hearts.
