Isaiah 9:1-6
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-14
Bishop Untener's Homily
There are so many things to preach about at Christmas that sometimes when we preach we try to say too much. It's such a beautiful story with so many details you can focus on. You can spin off on Mary, Joseph, the magi, the shepherds, Zechariah and Elizabeth...
That’s fine, but it can help, I think, to remind ourselves of the heart of the event- its deepest, core meaning. How would I describe the deepest meaning of Christmas to someone who had never heard of Christmas? How would I in just one sentence express what we celebrate? What would be the truest, deepest, most expressive sentence I could speak? Let's try that.
John, in his Gospel, doesn't tell the story of the birth of Jesus. What he does do is tell its meaning. He interprets it for us. So I thought it would be a good place to look for help. And I found it there.
You've noticed that fellow at sports events that holds up the sign saying "John 3:16"? Well, that's where I found this: "God so loved the world that God gave his only Son."
That catches the heart of the story. It is because God loves the world, and loves human beings, that God did this. If we think about that over and over, take it deeper and deeper, then we discover something about God, and a great deal about this world and about human beings. Imagine. Christmas expresses how muchGod loves the world.
Let's touch up that sentence from John a bit and see if we can catch even more of the core meaning. You could put it this way: "God so loved that world... that God became part of it." So, now it's not God loving us "from a distance." It's God loving us and becoming part of this whole cosmos, and because of that, everything is different.
We can add still one more nuance to this: "God so loved the world... that God became part of it... and stayed part of it." When we think about that, everything looks different. Not only did God visit us. God became part of the human family, and God is still part of the human family, and God will be part of the human family forever.
As I thought about this, something struck me: At the birth of Christ, the manger was full - he was lying in a manger as a baby boy. At the resurrection of Christ the tomb was empty. It's not as though human nature was a costume God wore and when he was finished with it he left it behind, and went back to being God. Christ became one of us, and when he rose from the dead his human body was still with him. That's why the tomb was empty. He still stayed one of us and is still part of our family today. The child who was in that manger lives on as a human being, one of us, today. That's what we celebrate at Christmas.
The Gospel of John expresses this in its opening words: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God... and the Word became flesh and dwelled among us." That truth, and its implications, is what we celebrate at Christmas.
Earlier today I sat in for an hour on the Art Lewis radio show and we talked not only about Christmas, but also about the condition of the world today, where things are going, and so forth. At one point I asked him, "Do you think that the human race is better today than it was 2,000 years ago when Jesus was born?" He thought about it and then answered, "No."
I hadn't planned the question, and I myself didn't have a ready answer. But as I thought about it later today, Christmas Eve, I said to myself, "I think I would have answered ¡yes' to that question. Because there has entered into the evolutionary process of human beings... and the evolutionary process of history - God. Now, God was always present to creation, but God became part of it in a new way with the coming of Jesus: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God... and the Word became flesh."
This has had an effect, a good effect. The gradual improvement of the human race over these 2,000 years may be infinitesimal, but for sure we, the world, the cosmos are moving in the direction of goodness. "Where sin did abound, grace did more abound."
God is part of our history. We are moving toward the full reign of God. It may take another million years, or even more, and it will require God's re-creative intervention at the end, but that is where we are headed.
If you get down on yourself, down on others, down on this world, take heart from the words of the angel to the shepherds: "Do not be afraid; for behold, 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 Messiah and Lord."
If you get down on yourself, down on others, down on this world, take heart from this good news. "God so loved the world that God became part of it and stayed part of it."
Take heart. There is a movement within you, within the human race, toward goodness, toward fulfillment. And it can't be taken away, for the Word became flesh and dwells among us. This is what we celebrate on this holy night. Merry Christmas!
Originally given at Midnight Mass on December 25, 2001