A Christmas Homily

We sometimes think it is obvious that we can see or experience God.  For example, in the Catholic faith every time we contemplate the mystery of the Eucharistic bread and wine transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ, we “see” the divine present.  Yet, we have to be careful here.  To think we see God fully there or anywhere runs the danger of turning an experience of God into an instrument for our own purposes—be that purpose to feel close to God, to assure ourselves of faith, to think we are saved, or whatever else.  How many of us feel so close to the Lord in the Eucharist but then fail to see the Lord present in those who are different than us, who live at the margins of life, or who are in need?  That is why it is important to remember that we can never see or understand or experience directly the full reality of God, ever-present, ever-sustaining our universe, but only catch traces of that full reality of God as they are mediated through the experiences of life.   It leads to what we call a sacramental view of life.  That sacramental view of life invites us to be open to experiences of the divine, to be changed by those experiences, but always knowing that we will never fully understand them and that God is always more than that.

Take the experience of Edgar Mitchell, an astronaut who was on one of the Apollo moon flights.  As he was looking back toward the earth from the moon, seeing the earth and stars beyond the earth, he said: “Gazing through 240,000 miles of space toward the stars and the planet from which I had come, I suddenly experienced the universe as intelligent, loving and harmonious.  My view of the planet was a glimpse of divinity.”  He captures the experience exactly right: a “glimpse of divinity” that forever changed how he viewed his life and the whole universe.  To glimpse divinity is not to control what that means or to fully understand it, but it does mean, if authentic, we are changed at a profound level. Isn’t that the experience of the shepherds in the plains of Bethlehem that Christmas night more than two millennia ago?  The shepherds did not just see a newborn child, feel good about new life, and then go on about their business.  They saw deeper than that.  They saw in the fragile babe a Savior, Christ and Lord.  They did not know exactly what that meant, but they glimpsed divinity and were forever changed.

For people of faith the insights into the cosmos on the grandest scales or at the infinitesimal depths of quantum uncertainty can hint at the awesome reality of the One who ever-calls this universe into being, but God is not thereby defined by those insights.  In fact, for some (many?) such insights actually tempt them to naively think that they have somehow shown there is no need for God.  Even the deepest mystical experiences of saints, where they talk about losing themselves in the divine union, can be false experiences, if it does not lead to a deeper life of sacrificial love.  And yet, we can and do get glimpses of the divine all the time. The Feast of Christmas, the Nativity of Jesus the Christ, reminds us of that fact and invites us to contemplate what happens if we do get a true glimpse of divinity.  We are profoundly, deeply changed.

Christmas—the Word of God becoming flesh—speaks out boldly:  You can glimpse divinity in a helpless newborn infant.  You can glimpse divinity in the midst of humanity.  In fact, if you want to glimpse divinity—what divine love truly means—you need to look precisely at humanity, as the image-bearer of what the divine looks like.  But it is not humanity in general in which one glimpses divinity.  It is in a very specific human being—Jesus, Son of Mary, foster child of Joseph.  And in a very specific way of human life: a hidden glory that only faith reveals; an emptying of self so that the Father’s love shines through; a life rooted in the faith of the people of Israel, seeking to draw that people of God to its full stature; a life that will have to come to terms with suffering and death.

Thus the pattern is set.  At Christmas we remember the awesome reality that God chose to entangle Godself fully within the vagaries of human history by becoming flesh in Jesus of Nazareth, and chose that human history as the vehicle for the salvation of the world.  Christmas affirms that we can glimpse that divinity any time we attune ourselves to that same pattern in our own lives, when we look for the hidden glory that faith can reveal in us, when we find what it means in our specific case to empty ourselves, when we are willing to come to terms with the suffering and death within our own journeys of life.  But for that to be authentic, we must allow ourselves to be deeply changed.

So, pause at the crèche this Christmas season and contemplate it.  Let the wonder that the fullness of God can dwell in someone as fragile as that newborn babe change how you and I view everything.  Pause with oneself and discern the many invitations God gives you and I to be that gift of divine love so that others might know the presence of God in their lives, so that any lethargy and discouragement can be changed into new purpose and mission.  Pause with others, especially those who are most vulnerable, and glimpse the divinity within, beckoning us to re-order our priorities and let go of our hold on our comfortable lives, not fearing to be profoundly changed by God’s invitations to us.

To glimpse divinity is to be profoundly and deeply changed.   This Christmas season let us not be afraid to glimpse that divinity once again in the vulnerable babe, Jesus, and in the midst of so many vulnerable human lives.  We might be surprised at how that can profoundly change the joy, energy, and purpose we bring to each new morning of our lives.