“THE WORD MADE FLESH”
Saint John 1. 1-14
The Nativity of Our Lord: 25 December Anno Domini 2011
Father Jay Watson SSP
Birthdays are wonderful and joyous for the parents and immediate family. Birthdays are not really all that important in the grand scheme of the Kingdom of Heaven. Lots of things are born-all animal life: chimps, dogs, rats, as well as pagans and heretics. This happens all the time, but you pray that God would be daily re-born within you by your Holy + Baptisms.
The young baby Jesus was born from His Virgin Mother, Saint Mary of Nazareth. We don't know the exact date that this world-shattering event took place but we celebrate God's Nativity on the 24 and 25th of December.
You do of course celebrate your Lord's birth-and what a birth; a virgin birth is pretty hard "to top," but God does trump the miracle of being born without a human father. God's greater glory is that HE HIMSELF is born of woman; a virgin girl.
On this Christ Mass, you celebrate the Incarnation being for you and in your very midst. The Incarnation (i.e. the enfleshment of God the Second Person) actually began on March 25th (again, somewhat arbitrarily picking a date) at the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin by the Archangel, but the visual delivery (notwithstanding Mary's gradually swelling belly leading up to Bethlehem) made it manifest in that stable, and in that manger. The celebration today is no mere miraculous birthday, but the good news of Immanuel, God with us! Not God's spirit, or memory, or warm fuzzy feelings with you, but the Flesh & Blood Christ, the God/Man with you! With you!
The fetus in Mary's womb was God and man. The growing baby in her womb, turning and stretching, and being fed by her own nourishment, was God and man. That tiny baby that she so tenderly wrapped in swaddling clothes was God and man. And Who was this new-born infant God lying at Mary's breasts nursing and cuddling? This babe was "God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father, by Whom all things were made." The babe being rocked gently on her lap was He Who made all that is: "in the beginning was the Word, and The Word was with God, and The Word was God…all things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made…"
Your Deliverer is not a Law, a precept, an aphorism of wisdom, a resolution or program. Your Savior is a Man Who is God. This brand new baby boy is the Son of Mary as touches His humanity and the Son of the Father as touches His Divinity. In the Bethlehem bundle is the Personal Union of the eternal pre-existing Logos/THE WORD, with the assumed human nature taken from His still Virgin Mother-the highly favored handmaiden of God.
You know of all of this even if your recent December activities have not reflected and confessed this belief, this faith, to those that you could have mirrored the light onto and into. You know the Christ Mass story even if you've held your tongue from sharing it to those who sit in darkness and the prison house of death.
But the light cannot be hidden under a bushel basket. The Light shines out and cannot be dimmed or extinguished by your sins or by your sin. He, the Light, is your life, and you live and grow, and produce good fruit IN HIM! Gloria in Excelsis! Hallelujah! All Praise to the new born King.
As every Sunday in a "mini-Easter" every Mass day is the Christ Mass! The Incarnation-God in the Flesh (and Blood) never ceases, never expires, runs out, goes away, is absent or distant, but lays on the manger of this altar to be worshipped in Eating and Drinking-in full and total Communion with the God/Man-and thus with His Father and the Holy Ghost!
He Who started His visible obedience, His visible work, His visible Kingdom and deliverance of His people at Bethlehem, continues it this Christ Mass by being invisibly present amongst His Mother, His brothers, His sisters, His shepherds and lambs. He is here for you this morn to take away your sin and to take away your death. He is here right now to say: "You have pardon and peace!" He washes you from your filth and clothes you not in swaddling clothes but in a King's royal robe stained scarlet in the very blood of God the Paschal Lamb!
"In Him was life; and the life was the light of men."
Washed into Him and Him into you; you have Him now shined into your ears straight to your souls, not with a physician's light but with the Gospel trumpet: "His Name is Jesus, and He saves you from all your sins!" You will eat and drink Uncreated Light Eternal, Immortal, Invisible, to God be all the Glory. You are His glory, He joyfully, in Love for His Father and for you, was born a baby and died a condemned man so that THIS VERY DAY you and Him would feast together in anticipation of the Heavenly Eucharist.
How kind and considerate and loving for God of God, Light of Light, to come as a weak God/Baby and grow into a humble and meek God/Man. The Lord does not force everyone to be sun-burned in blinding heat and radiance against their will. He is not an undiscriminating forest fire who consumes all (though He does desire all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of God). This Christ-Child does not force people "en-masse" to SEE by a blinding super-nova of "provable" and empirical spectrum light. No. God sends His Beloved Son to be made man. God arrives as a babe, a small flickering candle of purity and clearness of vision; of hope and inner warmth. "And the light shineth in the darkness."
In this morning's unequalled joy, you nonetheless recognize a sense of sadness over the lost and fallen condition of man. There is a tragedy over the fact that so many are held captive in the darkness of death and the blindness of unbelief. "The world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not." The proof of this truth abounds when you look around at the darkening twilight of time. India is Hindu and Sikh. China and Japan are Buddhist and Shinto. Africa and the Middle East are animist, Jewish and Muslim. Most of Europe and Great Britain is, well if not already Muslim, than pretty much right now…nothing. And America: America is a giant mission field of pagans and those who worship the Government and War more than the Babe and the Peace He comes to bring. The saddest situation is that of the "lost people of Israel"-the Jews. "He came to His own people, and His own received Him not."
But as the Church sings in Matins: "We are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand."
So, you are not sad or disheartened this morning. Nor can your New Creation/inner Saint ever be morose on the Lord's Mass (Christ Mass or 14th Sunday after Trinity Mass)! Your Light and Life is not an unapproachable God of power and giver of rules…He is Immanuel-God with you; God with you in the hospital bed and funeral home; God with you in the unemployment line and divorce court; God with you as you weep and as you bleed; God with you in + Washing and at Table.
The wood of the manger that the baby Jesus was laid in prefigures the wood of the Calvary Crucifix. This is not a "downer" or a negative dark image but simply the fullness of Grace and the purpose of the Incarnation and Nativity of the God/Man. The babe quickly grew into an adult man. That's why Immanuel. Even as a little adorable baby (the only Baby that ever should be adored for He is God) He was the Lamb Who would be slain for the sins of the world. He dutifully obeyed and passively suffered and died so that He might go from the crèche to the chalice, to go from the stable to the bread box on this altar. He would let His life be given, His blood shed, and His life and light temporarily be extinguished so that you would this day be bathed in the brightness of His Love and Mercy. Do not just "experience" this Love but come and eat and drink this Love; come to the Christ Mass.
Hark! The herald angels are singing this morning with the whole company of heaven-your song, your victory and life: "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and you) behold His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth."
In the Name + of Jesus