Christmas Day 2021
Is 52: 7-10
Hb 1: 1-6
Jn 1: 1-18
“There was evening and there was morning, one day” (Gn 1:5). Jesus’s birth belongs to the night. It is revealed and at the same time hidden in the great symbols of the night: the shepherds watching, the star rising, the angels singing, the good news shared as a mysterious secret with the poorest of the poor. God often works at night, when we cannot see, when we cannot impede His mysterious action by our activity. When we did not know, when we were not ‘doing things’ but rather asleep, then, while gentle silence enveloped all things and night in its swift course was half gone, [God’s] all-powerful word leaped from heaven” (Wis 18:14-15). Such was God’s silent entry into the world.
“There was evening and there was morning” and the glory of the Word was made manifest. “He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of His nature, upholding the universe by His word of power.” God spoke to us, not only through a messenger, not only through an image. “In these last days” He spoke to us “by a Son”. “We have beheld His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.” Here is our day: not only evening and morning, “one day”; here is our Day One, the first and absolute Day. For Christ, born in the night, does not belong to the darkness. He is light and day, through and through. He shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome him. He is eternal light – beyond night and day. He is eternal day – beyond evening and morning.
Christ is the Day One of a new era – the Christian era, measured from the starting point of His birth in Bethlehem. With him, the era of sin and guilt finds its evening, while the era of grace and holiness dawns as a luminous morning. “From His fullness have we all received, grace upon grace.”For “grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” The day has come when no one can hide any more. A time is given us so that we “come to the light”: “he who does what is true comes to the light, that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been wrought in God” (Jn 3:20-21). Do you see the day? Become day! Do you perceive the light? Become light. Be, in your turn, “the light of the world”: do not hide under a bushel. “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Mt 5:14-16).
For to those who receive Him, who believe in His name, He gives “power to become children of God” that is to say to be born not “of the will of man, but of God”. This Day is our day. This birth makes possible our birth. Jesus’ Father is given to us as “our Father in heaven”, the One to whom the Spirit in our hearts cries “Abba! Father!” (Rom 8:15).
“There was evening” when we did not know God’s mercy and were walking burdened by sin. “There was morning” when God’s mercy was revealed in Jesus. It was the first day of the redemption of the world, when God’s mercy presented to the world the Child born of Mary who is the Son of the Father. The light of Mercy is life given to all sinners. It is meaning and direction for all of us. “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light” shining from a little Babe: in the crib of Bethlehem; on the altars of the Church; in the hearts of all who believe and become “children of light, children of the day”.
Happy Christmas, brothers and sisters of Christ. Give glory to your Father in heaven, in all that you do, by all that you are. Shine as burning lights and bring to the world grace and truth, mercy and love – the silent Love of the Child in the crib.