Christmas Day

A man once said, “I’m glad that Christmas comes only once a year. It leaves my wallet pretty thin.” If all that Christmas means is a seasonal shopping spree, it leaves only a bitter taste in the mouth. For many folks, when today is over, a feeling of letdown sets in. Another Christmas has come and gone. Does this mean that, like the ornaments on the Christmas tree, the Christmas story too is to be stored away until next year?

Those who have grasped the true meaning of Christmas know that it’s not just a date on the calendar. It’s a glorious truth which retains its vitality throughout the year.

The author of the fourth gospel captures the perennial truth of Christmas and tells the story in a strange way. John says nothing about the angels or the shepherds, about the manger or the star of Bethlehem. But he grasps the permanent meaning of that event, and what it means to us today. The almighty God, who by his word made heaven and earth, expressed himself, made himself known to us, by taking on the flesh and blood of a human baby. The eternal word became a human being. This is the abiding mystery and wonder of Christmas.

An atomic scientist, speaking on behalf of exchange scholarships for students from different countries, said, “The best way to send an idea is to wrap it up in a person.” This is what God did on the first Christmas. The theological term for that divine action is incarnation, derived from carnis, the Latin word for flesh. “The word became flesh and dwelt among us.” The meaning becomes clearer when we use another translation of this sentence: “So the word of God became a human being and lived among us.” A Swedish-American theologian, Nels Ferre,  coined a new term for the incarnation, “enmanment.”

Whether we use the word of Latin or of English origin, it stands for something astounding and unfathomable. The baby born to a young Jewish girl some 2,000 years ago is none other than “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God.”

Our life is now linked with God’s life. Saint Irenaeus, one of the great early Fathers of the church, states the meaning of Christmas in words of simple beauty and depth: “Jesus Christ, in his infinite love, has become what we are in order that he may make us entirely what he is.”

It’s easy to lose this depth perspective which differentiates sharply between the Christian gospel and all other forms of religion. The miracle of a God born in a stable may come for its share of wonderment at Christmastide, but all too often during the rest of the year Jesus is presented only as the Master Teacher whose precepts we are to learn and practice, as the Model Man whose example we are to follow.

The enmanment of God gives way to folks’ efforts to realize their own divine potentialities. God’s way to humanity is abandoned in favor of humanity’s way to God. Ideas and ideals, programs and policies, take the place of the word that became flesh.

But the Christian message must never lose sight of its ultimate goal, the establishment of a personal relationship between human beings and the God who confronts them person to person in Christ. For this reason, the “Jesus our Immanuel” of whom we sing at Christmas must be the Jesus who brings God into our life every day.

As a mother tucked her child into bed and left her alone in the bedroom, she said quietly, “It looks like we’re going to have a thunderstorm tonight. But don’t be afraid. God will take care of you.” When the storm did break with fierce flashings and thunderings, the frightened child cried out for her mother. When the mother came and comforted her, she said gently, “You know, dear, I told you God is right here and he takes care of you.” The child replied, “Yes, mom, I know, but when it thunders like that, I need somebody who has skin on.”

A word was not enough. Even a mother’s reassuring word was inadequate. The child needed a gentle human voice, the touch of a warm human hand. That is how the babe of Bethlehem brings God to us. The word becomes flesh. God puts on human nature, with its skin and all, and becomes a living and saving presence. He is now more than a word. He is Immanuel, God with us.

The biggest problem which the world faces today is the transformation of human nature. This has become acutely important in the nuclear age when man has achieved mastery over the basic forces of physical nature but has not learned to control the destructive power of evil within himself. The solution does not lie in developing man’s natural capacities but in implanting God’s life into man’s life.

One of the most delicious and valuable of fruits, the peach, was once in its wild state used only as a source of poison in which Iranian tribesmen dipped their arrows to slay their enemies. But through a patient process of grafting and cultivating, the poisons have disappeared and a wholesome fruit has emerged. The lasting significance of Christmas is that the branch of righteousness, the rod from the stem of Jesse, the Christ of God, has been engrafted upon our sinful stock so that human nature might be changed, rid of the poisons of sin and ennobled to become what God meant it to be.

Christmas is God’s way of transforming human nature. It provides the divine resources needed to overcome evil. But these resources must be appropriated. This means that the story of the birth of the baby in Bethlehem is only the preface to the birth of the Christ-life in the hearts of men and women, of boys and girls. When Christmas ceases to be just a seasonal sentimental story and becomes a living experience, it produces changed lives, lives more sensitive, more sympathetic, more patient and more loving.

The incarnation is a unique event that reveals the method which God uses to win back his lost children. Through consecrated men and women in whom the Christ-child has been born anew, God manifests himself in human relations and makes his saving impact upon the world.

In Soren Kierkegaard’s language, God becomes real to people only when the incarnation is “reduplicated” in the lives of Christians. Paul made similar use of the concept of incarnation when he said that we carry in our bodies the crucified and risen Lord “so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh” (2 Corinthians 4:5-11).

The word that became flesh for us becomes flesh in us as he uses us to reach other people. Christ himself walks in our steps, looks through our eyes, thinks in our thoughts, speaks through our words, loves through our hearts. Through us the Kingdom of God impinges on the lives of men and women and God becomes real to them.

An anonymous poet has expressed well this process of ongoing incarnation which makes every day a Christmas day:

Not merely in the words you say, Not only in your deeds confessed,

But in the most unconscious way Is Christ expressed.

Is it a beatific smile? A holy light upon your brow?

Oh, no! I felt his presence while You laughed just now.

For me ‘twas not the truth you taught, To you so clear, to me so dim,

But when you came to me you brought A sense of him.

And from your eyes he beckons me And from your heart his love is shed,

Till I lose sight of you – and see The Christ instead.

Have a joyous and blessed Christmas – today and every day.