Merry Christmas to all!

My brothers and sisters, it is so very good to be here with you this evening to celebrate once again the reason for this most glorious and beautiful season of the year, Christ our savior is born to us!

On this very special occasion, I believe it is my duty as a priest to speak of that which is so difficult to put into words, and yet is something that God so desperately wants us to experience, that which the angels proclaimed to the shepherds in the fields of Bethlehem some 2000 years ago,  “I proclaim to you good news of great joy!” Salvation has come upon you.

This is indeed good news that we gather here to celebrate this evening! Our hopelessness need not be, for Christ has come to bring us hope, joy, and everlasting peace.

In order to really grasp what it is that God has done for us, we’d almost have to be in Heaven. In a world where there are Christmas villains all around us, experiences, people, notions, addictions, struggles, which constantly try to strip away our peace and joy, it can be and often times is very difficult to grasp, to comprehend, to be enlightened as to the consequences of what Christmas means to us.

In order to understand the Incarnation and it’s implications, We really need to understand something about the nature of God and his creation.

Before there ever was a universe there was God, God who exists in a Trinity of perfect love, perfectly complete, perfectly happy, perfectly content and just perfect. Then, for a reason, which was unknown to us, but perfect because he willed it, God chose to create the universe. The only reason in which someone who is perfect would choose to create is for himself. So for his glory, he chose to create a universe through his word, through the second person of the Trinity. A universe we are discovering has the characteristics that tell us something about our creator. It is almost infinitely vast, incomprehensible, millions upon millions of galaxies, and God created it and it was good. However, it was not simply in God’s mind to create a vast universe alone, but also he desired to share this vast creation with you and I. And so on a small, insignificant planet, amongst billions of others, God raised up men and women in his own image and likeness, and to our knowledge, according to what we have discovered and what has been revealed to us through God’s divine revelation, we are the only creatures of our type. And yet even this wasn’t enough for God’s perfect plan. It wasn’t simply God’s desire to create a universe and share it with creatures that were like Him in Image and Likeness, no, he wanted to go a step further and not only create us, but also deify us, make us like him, and so before God every set out ot create anything, in his mind, he knew that He Himself would become one of us so that we could become as He is. For why share anything less than himself, his nature, with us? He didn’t create us for our glory but for His.

All of this took place, not as a consequence to the fact that we rejected his plan for us, but before we ever were created he had already planned the Incarnation, that the same word which he used to create the heavens and the earth, would also take on human flesh to save us from ourselves, to show us the way to Heaven, and ultimately to make us sons and daughters of God.

And even this good news, is not enough for us to understand and grasp what it is that God has done, is doing and continues to do in our midst. We will only comprehend this fully in Heaven, for as now we experience through faith, and do not see, in Heaven, we will experience perfect charity, perfect love, and see perfectly, and understand clearly, what the implications of the incarnation of Jesus Christ means.

So what of this incarnation? God’s greatest work, destined to enlighen and save the whole world, what of this? It easier to appreciate the implications of a savior, if we recognize first and foremost, we need to be saved. We cannot begin to grasp what Jesus Christ born in a manger means, if we don’t understand we need Him. This is why the simple shepherds marveled, and why Herod was fearful, and why the scribes and Pharisees missed out, because the simple understood that salvation had come while the prideful, and self-righteous went out their business and missed out on what it was God was offering. A pattern that continues to repeat itself even to today.

It is only in humility that we are able to experience a taste of the implications of the Incarnation of God become Man. Why because of the humble origins of Jesus Christ Himself. God deserved to be born in a palace of which human minds and hands have not the capacity to conceive of, and yet instead of this, God chooses a place in total obscurity and silence, and under the most humble and most human conditions.

Cesar’s edict obliges Mary and Joseph to leave their little home in Nazareth and undertake a journey. They travel on foot like the poor, in spite of the discomfort of Mary’s condition. They do not think of objecting to the trip; they make no complaint, but obey with promptness and simplicity. He who commands is a man, but their profound spirit of faith discovers God’s will in the command of the pagan emperor. And they go, trusting in God’s providence; God knows, God will provide.

In Bethlehem there is no room for them; they are obliged to take shelter in a hillside cave. The poverty of this refuge for animals does not dismay or scandalize them. They know that the Child who is about to be born is the Son of God; but they also know that God’s works are very different from the work’s of men. And if God wishes His greatest work to be accomplished here, in this wretched stable, in utter poverty, Mary and Joseph embrace His will! The least bit of human reasoning would be enough to confuse and disturb them, and arouse doubts. Mary and Joseph are extremely humble; hence, they are docile and filled with faith in God. And God, as is His custom, made use of what is humble and despicable in the eyes of the world to accomplish the greatest of His works: the Incarnation of the Word.

And so it is with us my brothers and sisters, if we desire to truly experience Christmas Joy as the reality which saves us from all of our problems, and becomes our one and only Hope, we must become like children. We must allow this joy to happen to us, not to go out and grasp it, but like Joseph and Mary, be open to receive it. In this humility, we begin to grasp and experience what exactly the implications of Jesus Christ means for us. And once we do, nothing can take that Joy away!

May God Bless each of you on this Christmas Eve/Day, and may you experience the same Joy the shepherds did in fields when the good news was proclaimed that night! I proclaim to you good news of great joy

that will be for all the people.

For today in the city of David

a savior has been born for you who is Christ and Lord.