Christmas Night 2022
Is 9: 1-6
Tit 2: 11-14
Lc 2: 1-14
There is something lovely in a child, a very young child, in a baby. Here is one who is entering life. We cannot avoid thinking: “What will this child be?” (Lk 1:67). There are so many possibilities. So much is unknown. We have all been this page which was not yet written. We all have had this disconcerting quietness, this ability to sleep deeply, and then to wake up and open eyes full of curiosity on people and things around.
Jesus, tonight, is the new baby. With Him we cannot expect to have a conversation – I mean, an exchange of words. We have to use our heart and our intuition. We have to relate with Him through His body. We have to give to our own presence near Him a special quality of goodness, care and respect so as to open for Him a shelter in our heart – a crib, an inn, a house, even a temple.
Jesus, of course, is not only -if I may say so- one baby more. While He is fully human, really one of us, one among the multitudes who make up mankind, Jesus is unique. He stands among us as the one whom Pilate one day will designate with the words: “Behold the man” (Jn 19:5). For Jesus is man in a such a way that we all find the key to our human condition in Him. He is the man who opens up for us the mystery of our being and solves the puzzle of our calling. Basically, He is the man whose Father is God. He is the Son of God. His appearance in our flesh tells us that God who created us now offers us the privilege of becoming His own daughters and sons. The silent baby tells us: “If you wish, you can be born again: ‘of water and the spirit’ (Jn 3:5); ‘of God’ (Jn 1:13)”.
This frail and lovely baby in the crib has the divine power to enable us to “become children of God” (Jn 1:12) and to recognise God as our Father, just as He is His. This child reveals to us the life giving power of the Father’s love for the world (Jn 3:16) and for each of us (Jn 16:27). Therefore we can sing together with this child, as we did in the chant at the beginning of this Mass:
The Lord said to me, ‘You are my son, today I have begotten you’ (Ps 2:7)
We, too, Dear Brothers and Sisters, are children of God. We, too, receive our new identity as children of the Father when we confess that Jesus, the baby in the crib, is the Son of God. The rule of our relationship with God is the childlike simplicity of those who know that they owe all that they are to their Father in heaven, just as Jesus receives Himself and all things from His Father.
We love Christmas because something in us longs for a childlike simplicity in our dealings with God and with one another. We have no nostalgia for the limitations and weaknesses of childhood, but we would so much like to be able to rely totally on our loving Father and to trust utterly in Him. If we were children as fully as our baptism tells us we are, we would stop worrying. We would hand over to our Father all our sufferings, challenges and questions. We would trust and be at peace. And our peace would be an invaluable contribution to the peace of our world.
Can we not trust a little more tonight? Can we not imitate the confidence of the Baby who sleeps in the arms of Mary? “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.” (1 Jn 3:1) We have been eternally loved by God. We have been loved to the end by Jesus on the Cross. We are loved now, and for ever. “Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God.” (1 Jn 4:7). Let us love and trust, for we have a Father.