December 25, 2022: The Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ
Isaiah 52: 7 – 10/Psalm 9/Galatians 3: 29 – 4: 5/John 1: 1 – 14
Bishop Ariel P. Santos
In the beginning was the Word, who was God, and all things, visible and invisible, were made by God.
Nothing came into being that has come into being apart from Him. With our God of the vast universe, do we realize how many stars and planets are our there? God made all of these and what He does, as King of the universe, is He became man to save us from sin and darkness and to give us life. He covers an infinite distance and suffers an unimaginable suffering and sets aside His prerogatives as King as He took a form of a slave and became human like us. This is Word becoming flesh.
Jesus also endured hostility and rejection of the very people who were supposed to appreciate what He did. He also suffered a cruel death in their hands - a death for underserving people. But this is our God! Jesus’ human act of surrender to His Father’s will is the greatest display of divinity and of omnipotence of His divine nature. We are awed by the huge creation of the stars and planets, and yet this is not the greatest display of omnipotence. God outdoes Himself by giving a better demonstration of His power. His power is seen in what some call the divine helplessness. He is the Lord of the vast universe and was bigger than our universe, and yet Jesus became a tiny dot, a start of the life of a human being, and lived for 9 months in a human body. He subjected Himself to a human body that He created. He became a baby dependent upon His parents.
In the midst of all the parties that we go to during this Season, let us not forget the reason for the Season – Jesus giving Himself for us and for our lives. We can rejoice and have a celebration of the amazingly good God who died and gave Himself for us. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we saw His glory. It is a glory greater than that can be seen in His creation.
Jesus becomes human in the fullness of time and when is this? For a couple getting married, they will undergo a lot of preparation from the wedding to the reception. After all of these are completed, it is their fullness of time. For Jesus, the fullness of time came when it was dark on earth. People sitting in darkness saw a great light. His fullness of time was not really the best of times, actually the worst of times because that is when He is most needed. He did not wait for the world to be in order before He came. What Jesus saw and experienced was rejection, insults, cruelty and unappreciated people.
A German theologian by the name of Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “God did not seek out the most perfect human in order to unite with that person. Rather, he takes on human nature as it is.” That nature was sinful, in darkness, malicious, evil and wicked. Jesus chose to come to these. It is very different from our attitude of saying, “Fix your relationship first, your group, before I can be with you.” When we forgive people, we have conditions because we want everything in order first before we help. Actually, when things are perfect, our help is not needed anymore. Why will God equip us when we have to wait before we help others?
Jesus jumped into our Jordan River when it was dirty and He cleansed it with His divinity. Jesus joined us in our leprosy, in our sickness, and healed us. He was not repelled by our “dirty” life. He did not wait for us to be cleansed first; He cleansed us in our uncleanliness, in our darkness, in our sickness, and in our mess. He came to correct our situation.
What we do is we try to escape or take the easy way out when things don’t go our way or when it is inconvenient. We want to go to a make-believe celestial utopia as spirits that heaven is supposed to come here and we participate so that this can happen. While God became human forever, we want to escape our humanity that is good and that which He gave us. What happened is we do not become good stewards of the material world that God gave us. We do not care about our world because we think we are going to escape it anyway. Why polish brass on a sinking ship? No, we will not sink because God will restore us.
Jesus became man and fulfilled His calling as a man. We should, too, because we have the same calling. We should be taking part in the work of the Kingdom. The work of the Kingdom is: where there is hatred, let us sow love. Where there is injury, we plant pardon. Where there is despair, we bring hope. Where there is darkness, we bring our light. Where there is sadness, we bring our joy. Instead of asking to be consoled, we console others. Instead of asking to be understood, we try to understand. Instead of asking for love for ourselves, we bring it to others. A messy and difficult work in the Kingdom requires patience. Nobody says it is easy but God say that we are equipped and we are able as we are called by God who is love and has put this love in us. The good news is that we are able to fulfill our calling.
God’s plan is to give dignity where it is lost; to restore glory to humanity; and His promise is that He will glorify it again. God will glorify His house. His house is us! He will glorify further His already glorious house. How will this happen? By His grace and by our works. As in the Lord’s Prayer, we say, “Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.” We need strength and equipping in order for us to participate in God’s kingdom coming to earth. We need to be forgiven as we forgive others, and this is by God’s grace. Our work is: we forgive those who trespass against us. This will result in His kingdom coming to our world.
The Christmas song says, “No more let sin or sorrows grow.” Nip it in the bud. Take it away. The Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world. He doesn’t recycle it but He removes it. This will result in peace on earth. Creation longs and waits anxiously for the revelation of the sons of God. The sons of God according to Matthew 5:43-45 are those who love and forgive their enemies. Jesus says to love our enemies; pray for those who persecute us; and bless those who insult us. Because then, we will be sons of God and we will be like Him.
The good news is us knowing how the kingdom of God can come to this world. We are all longing for this. This is the desire of our nations and our desire as well. This is what creation longs for and it eagerly awaits for this to happen. The good news is that we know that the forgiveness of sins is what will bring this about.
Isaiah says, “How lovely on the mountains are those whose feet bring the good news.”The good news is the forgiveness of sin and knowing what will bring about the kingdom of God.Jesus started it already and God and sinners reconcile because God forgives our sins.This results in peace, justice and righteousness on earth.The work has started and continues to do its work.We continue to be reconciled to God more and more fully because this is what Christmas is all about and the way it is in the kingdom of our God.
