The Gift God Wants
Christmas Homily
Christmas morning is full of joy, but maybe something is nagging at us. We know we should be happy that Christ is born, but maybe we feel like something is still missing. Maybe we feel like we have rushed to get presents for everyone around us, but we are not sure about the gift God wants from us.
The presents are under the tree, but have we forgotten the most important gift? There may be no gift labeled for Baby Jesus. What do you give to the one who is the creator of the world? Jesus is less concerned about receiving gifts because what he really wants is you. Wrapped presents have increased our expectation and excitement as we have drawn closer to Christmas over the course of Advent. It is easy to live the weeks leading up to Christmas without thinking very much about Jesus. I was recently reminded about the centrality of Baby Jesus for Christmas.
I have a four-year-old niece who has been very excited about Christmas. At the beginning of Advent, her parents put up a Nativity scene in the home, with all the figurines, except Baby Jesus. She asked about the baby not being there, and my sister explained that it wasn’t Christmas yet. It was not yet the birthday of Baby Jesus. My niece proceeded to ask each morning, “Is today the birthday of Baby Jesus?”
More than a birthday celebration, today’s Gospel, from the Prologue of St. John, uses mysterious language to place the Incarnation in the context of eternity. We are celebrating the birth of Jesus while using language that speaks of the Eternal Word.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (Jn. 1:1).
The child born in Bethlehem is truly God and man. He is beyond time yet enters time at a precise historical moment. He takes on human flesh out of tremendous love.
He was in the beginning with God (Jn. 1:2).
Jesus is God, and in taking on our humanity, he shows the depths of the Father’s love for us. Christmas is a great feast because we celebrate the wonder of God’s love for us and try to respond as best as we can. I have always felt that it is special that God comes as a child. It is hard for us to be angry with a child. We can feel upset and isolated, blaming our troubles on God. But when we dare to look at God as a baby, our defenses begin to soften.
God accepts us as we are but calls us to more. He does not seek perfection but rather seeks to perfect us. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote:
Out of love for human beings, God becomes human. He does not seek out the most perfect human being in order to unite with that person. Rather, he takes on human nature as it is (Dietrich Bonhoeffer).
God meets us where we are. We experience the fallenness of our human nature, yet God chooses to unite himself to us through the Incarnation. By taking on human flesh, he opens for us the gates of Heaven and gives us hope. Our sinful failings discourage us, but on Christmas, we celebrate the one who came into the world to save us from our sins. Sometimes, we might be worried that the theological richness of Christmas gets lost because of all of the commercialization we experience in our society.
Too often, it feels like the Christmas message is lost. Nevertheless, I find that even in many secular Christmas movies, salvation history and Jesus are still proclaimed, albeit with different terms. I recently re-watched the movie, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the Jim Carrey version from the year 2000, and was surprised by a deeply Christian message.
When the Grinch brings the presents back, he owns his mistake and says he’s sorry. The mayor, his nemesis throughout the story, demands that the policeman arrest him. “Did you hear him? He admitted that he stole everything!” The policeman responds, “I did hear him. He said he’s sorry.” It seems like a great example of the selective hearing of Jesus. He knows our sins, but he takes them upon himself to save us.
When Mary took Jesus into her arms, she looked down at a precious baby, but at the same time was worshiping the Creator of the universe. She wrapped him up in swaddling clothes yet knew that he was the Messiah, the Savior.
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth (Jn. 1:14).
He made his dwelling among us as the child of Mary and Joseph. Jesus comes into the world as Light, and yet many people still experience so much darkness. Today, we can think of the sick and suffering, of the homeless, and the imprisoned. God wants us to be light for them. When we show mercy – by listening, forgiving, or simply speaking to someone we don’t know – we are light.
Christmas is not only about remembering that Christ was born long ago, but about welcoming him to be born in us now. The Eternal Word comes to us as a child, wrapped in love, asking not for perfection but for our hearts. If we give him that gift, he will do the rest. Give Jesus your heart, and you will carry his light.