CHRISTMAS DAY : Is 52:7-10; Heb 1:1-6; Jn 1:1-18 or 1:1-5, 9-14  

Eight-year-old Benny died of AIDS in 1987. CBS made a movie drama about the trauma called Moving Toward the Light. As Benny lies dying in his mother’s arms, he asks, “What will it be like?” His mother whispers softly in his ear, “You will see a light, Benny, far away — a beautiful, shining light at the end of a long tunnel. And your spirit will lift you out of your body and start to travel toward the light. And as you go, a veil will be lifted from your eyes, and suddenly, you will see everything … but most of all, you will feel a tremendous sense of love.” “Will it take long?” Benny asks. “No,” his mother answers, “not long at all. Like the twinkling of an eye.” — Many families have been devastated by AIDS. Amid the darkness and despair an eight-year-old boy and his mother witnessed to the sustaining power of the Light of God’s presence. They have touched the lives of a multitude of people. “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you: God is Light and in Him, is no darkness at all” – (1 John 1:5).

 

 While Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus goes back to Abraham, the father of God’s people, and Luke’s genealogy of Jesus’ ancestry goes all the way back to Adam, thus embracing the whole human race, John’s goes back to God Himself. John is the only Gospel writer who does not stop at Bethlehem to explain the “reason for the season.” John is more concerned with the WHY and WHO of Christmas than with the WHERE of Christmas. So he travels to eternity to reveal the Person of Jesus Christ. This is a great passage because it gives us the theology of Christmas. While the Gospel selections for the Vigil, Midnight, and Dawn Masses describe the history of Christmas, the selection from John’s Gospel for this Daytime Mass lifts us out of history into the realm of Mystery—His wonderful Name is the Word. The reading tells us that the Baby in the manger is the Word of God, the very Self-expression of God. He is one with God just as our words are part of us and they will always remain ours as inseparable. God’s Word was present at creation; He is actually the One through Whom and for Whom all things were made. The Prologue to the Gospel of John and the prologue to the Letter to the Hebrews in the second reading are superb affirmations of the Person of Jesus Christ, expressed in beautiful theological words and metaphors. 

The first reading gives us the assurance that just as Yahweh restored His chosen people to their homeland after the Babylonian exile, Jesus the Savior will restore mankind to the kingdom of God.  In the Responsorial Psalm (Ps 98), the Psalmist reminds us that the Kingdom includes everyone, not just the Chosen People, singing, “All the ends of the earth have seen the Salvation by our God!” In the second reading, St. Paul tells us how God, Who conveyed His words to us in the past through His prophets, has sent His own Son so that He might  demonstrate to us humans, by His life, death and Resurrection, the real nature of our God. In the Prologue of his Gospel, John introduces the birth of Jesus as the dawning of the Light Who will remove the darkness of evil from the world. He records later in his Gospel why Light is the perfect symbol of Christmas:  Jesus said “I am the Light of the world,” (Jn 8:12) and “You are the light of the world” (Mt 5:14-16).

John says, “He came to His own home, and His own people received Him not” (1:11; RSV 2 Catholic).  Jesus “came home” to Israel, where the people should have known Him.  And it was the homefolk, “His own,” the Israelites, the Chosen People, who did not receive Him.  God had prepared them for centuries to receive the Messiah into their midst, but they rejected Him.  This rejection of the Word by Jesus’ own people is restricted neither to the time of Jesus nor to that of the Fourth Gospel. Much of the world today is still in rebellion, “preferring darkness to Light, because its deeds are evil” (3:19-20). We need no testimony to that if we look around or watch the news. It is not just others, but it is  true of all of us at certain points in our lives. But we do not need to remain imprisoned in those moments, as long as we are alive, turn to Him, repentant and believing, and become His own again.  “But to all who received Him, who believed in His Name, He gave power to become children of God” (v. 12).

Today, let’s remember that there isn’t room in the manger for all the baggage we carry around with us.  There’s no room for our pious pride and self-righteousness.  There’s no room for our human power and prestige.  There’s no room for the baggage of past failure and unforgiven sin.  There’s no room for our prejudice, bigotry, and jingoistic national pride.  There’s no room for bitterness and greed.  There is no room in the manger for anything other than the absolute reality of who and what we really are: very human, very real, very fragile, very vulnerable beings who desperately need the gift of love and grace which God so powerfully desires to give.

 

Today, while we remember and celebrate God’s first coming into our world in human form, we also look forward, because the liturgy we celebrate reminds us that the Lord is going to return in his Second Coming.  However, Christ is not going to return as a Child but as a Warrior, a Judge, a mighty Savior.  The liturgy calls on us to prepare His way, to be ready to be judged by Him.  So we are looking back and remembering the past coming of Jesus as our Savior, and looking forward and preparing for His future coming in glory as Judge to reward and punish.  In addition to these two “comings,” the Church teaches us that Christ is here now, Christ is present, Christ comes to us today, and Christ comes to us every day. Christmas is a celebration calling us to be vigilant and prepared. In his Dec. 22 speech, Pope Francis focused on Christmas as a time of joy but also conversion, which he said is a lifelong process requiring the faithful to always be vigilant. Christmas is actually a celebration intended to heighten that awareness of ours to the fact that Christ has been born, Christ lives, and Christ is present now in our souls and in our lives. May this awareness sharpen our eagerness to welcome Christ today and every day of our lives.