Dear Brethren, have you been born? – I know, it’s a bit late, and I have my French accent. But you did not get me wrong. I really asked you: Have you been born?
Tonight, we celebrate Jesus’ birth. He was born in Bethlehem, one of our human family, a brother to all of us. From the moment he took His first breath of our common air, He was a full human being. He was both the original idea and the perfect realisation of a human being. He was “the everlasting man”. He was “the man”. “Ecce homo”, “Behold, the man” – even Pilate acknowledged this.
He was a man in God, and God in a man. Like a bridge, He was solidly rooted on both sides of the river of life: the side of God and the side of the world. He was in His own person the stable link between eternity and time, God and the world, the Creator and men and women created in the image of God. He was man born of God and for God.
Jesus’ birth is so filled with life that there is nothing else to be seen. At Bethlehem, there is no temple for our God, no palace for the King of the Universe, no hostel for the fairest of the children of men, just a very humble manger for animals. The great and the good are not present to greet and celebrate this new Baby. We see no high priest, no great king, no journalist, no photographer, to report the most important event since the world was created. This birth is not to be observed through the lens of a camera. Angels announce it and sing in heaven harmonious melodies. Shepherds draw near to the Babe and adore Him quietly. The silence of Joseph and Mary is even deeper. This Child rests on an ocean of silence and love. He is poised on the unfathomable abyss of the divinity. He comes to us from the Heart of the Father. He is the Son whom the Father gives; He is the Word who reveals the Father.
In God, there is fulness of life and constant newness of life. Birth is eternal. The Child who is born tonight in Bethlehem was born eternally from the Father, in God. “In the beginning was the Word”. “The Word was made flesh”. The beginning drew near to us so that we, too, may, at long last, begin; so that we, too, may be born of the fullness of life.
Dear Brothers and Sisters, do you feel life coming to birth in you? Are you beginning to be born again – not of flesh and blood, but of the Word of God who reveals to you the invisible Father? Jesus is adamant: “unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (3:3). And St Paul explains: “the whole creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God… it has been groaning in travail together until now” (Rom 8:19.22).
The Son was born a man in order that we, too, may be born to divine life. He journeyed all the way to us, so that we may go back to Him. He is the Way – from God to us, from each of us to our Father. This is a way of life; on this way, you receive life; your life is a journey on this path which leads you to the Father. And the Father begets you: He gives you a share in His life; He makes you partakers in the divine nature of His Son.
Tonight, life has come to us. Let us embrace life. Let us say No to sin and death. Let us welcome the truth and the light. The sufferings of our world are birth-pangs. Let us not be afraid. The Child in the crib invites us into His life: “Come, my brother, my sister; be born and follow me to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God”.