Rev. Tatiana Cantarella

Isaiah 9:6–7; Luke 2:1–20; Titus 2:11–14

Christmas, 2010

"Clothed in flesh in order to clothe us in eternity”

For four weeks we’ve anticipated this day as we celebrated Advent ("the coming”) praying: "Come, Emmanuel”. Today this anticipation is over as we gathered together to participate in a great mystery, to follow the star of Bethlehem, to join all who gathered that first Christmas day at the manger. Christmas is a time when the whole world seems to change a bit, even though for a short time.  Human faces are aglow with some mysterious glow of Christmas, however brief, but reminding us about our own value and about what we’ve been created to be.  Even the most skeptical atheist senses some mystery of Christmas, set aside their unbelief and begin to question: what if God really did become one of us and therefore all things are possible.

Christmas – is the day when with all our singing we celebrate the Birthday of our Savior but also our own "birthday” if we accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord.  And because it’s also our birthday we have gathered today also to celebrate everything that has been born in us because of this wonderful Baby. Today we celebrate Christmas and everything seems to be in its places.  Most of us know these songs so well, we know the biblical story of Christmas and could retell it by memory: the star, the shepherds, the angels, the Child in the manger. But what Child is this? It will depend in large on us. Many imagine such a perfect Child as is often found on famous masterpieces or in our own imaginations – such a red cheek, glowing Baby, wrapped in soft blanket and above Him a ribbon saying: "Peace on earth, good will to all people!”  Such a Godchild as you find in the center of your favorite Christmas card!

But today we need to do something for His sake and for our own. Reach out into this picture and take this Child into your arms, this tiny parcel with a wrinkled face from a hard coming into the world. Explore His little fingers, brush off pieces of straw from his cheeks and say: "This is God in my arms”. Smell His mother’s milk on his lips, feel the warmth of his body through his blanket and repeat: "I am holding God Himself in my arms. That’s what God decided to become out of love for me”. Shocking, isn’t it? To look at the king of universe who cannot turn on his back without others’ help, who is totally at the mercy of His own creatures? Yes, we know this Christmas story very well but do we understand what it means? What Child is this and what does God want to tell us this day?

First of all, in ideal – a birth of a child is a testimony to a love affair and especially in the case of this Child. God was so in love with humanity from the moment He thought of making it but the relationship has not been easy. At first God thought that heaven would be enough for us. He gave us everything and hoped for the best. But we expected more than what was given – we wanted to be like God and ended up chased away from the Garden of Eden. Well, said God, you need something more specific. Lets make a covenant, between Me and you. I will be Your God and You will be my people.  You will be faithful to Me and I will be faithful to you. But we were not faithful. We constantly doubted God and protested not understanding what He expects from us.

Very well, said God, you need clear instructions. Here are the Ten Commandments and it will please me if you will follow them. I will write them on stone tablets so that you won’t loose them. And remember – they are for your good. Keep them and you will be happy. But we broke the commandments time and again. And God made another step toward us. I will simplify the covenant, said God, love Me and love your neighbor as yourself. Just these two commandments. And forget about the stone tablets, I will write these two commandments on your hearts, so that you can always have them with you. But even that wasn’t enough for us. The story of our love relationships with God is the story of our continuing fall and His forgiveness. Every time when the distance between God and us was becoming so wide that it threatened to break our relationships, God made a step towards us to bridge the distance. He took upon Himself another and another burden and when He came in a Baby, He took upon himself the whole burden of reconciliation.

Set aside the old covenant, says God today through the Baby Jesus. I have a New Covenant for you, which is harder for Me but easier for you. From now on you don’t need to come to Me where I am, although it always pleased me. But I love you so much that I will come where you are and will become flesh from your flesh and bone from your bone. I will do it all Myself and you will just need to believe Me – to believe that I love you so much as to become one of you. I love you to death. This was a really scandalous act on the part of God. Where is His majesty? Where is His pride? Whey does He think that we will respect Him after he lowered Himself like that before us? Does God not respect Himself at all that He humiliates Himself so much to show us His love, that He becomes a helpless Baby, just to help us love Him as much as He loves us!?

It is before this mystery that we bow down today, the mystery of God’s incarnation, the mystery of God who loves us so much that He became one of us. This truth is so familiar to us that we tend to ignore its amazing greatness.  If we really understood what God has done having come in a Baby we would act like one five year old girl who finished her version of the Christmas story with a question to her listeners: "and then the Baby was born”, she said, "Do you know who that Baby was?” "This Baby was God Himself” she whispered and then jumped up, spun around and fell on the coach covering her head with a pillow.  It was the only proper response to this unprecedented joyful news about God becoming flesh and those of us who are not moved to fall down and cover our head in amazement, most likely have not understood the power of what God has done.  The first thing God wanted us to know was that Jesus – is the Child of love, in whom God is trying to show us how far He is willing to go so that we would embrace Him with love and take Him into our life.

The second thing was that God forever blended the boundary between holy and everyday, human thing. He could come to us as a heavenly creature or a great king, in a more exalted form than us, as someone unreachable.  And it would be easier for us to recognize God like that and we could keep a proper distance between Him and us. But God decided to come as a baby, and as a poor Baby actually. Having chosen flesh – the lowers human common denominator, He became so close to us that we cannot hide from Him.  That’s why it’s so important to let the Star show us the real Baby today, to believe that Mary and Joseph didn’t have a Christmas card type Baby, but a real, crying, burping, and keeping them up all night Baby.  And that having decided to come in into the world this way, God is showing us that He does not shy away from flesh and blood, from heaven and earth, from life and death. And more than that having become a part of them, He hallows them and leaves us nothing here on earth that we could brush of as something trivial or alien to Him.

There is a legend about St. Francis of Assisi. He and his poor followers decided to stage a Christmas play. All the props they got at the dumpsters of Assisi, made costumes from sackcloth and a stable from old boards and boxes they could find.  They filled it with everything they could find in the streets and in the manger Francis put an old wooden doll that some kid threw out. That evening, says the legend, Francis took the doll into his arms and when he spoke about the mystery of the Word that became flesh the Baby in his arms came to life. The mystery of the incarnations amazes so much that one is moved to fall down and cover one’s head in amazement! The impossible happened that day: God came to us as the one who is crazy in love with us, God came as a Baby.  And every trivial, but created by Him thing lit up with the light of His glory. The straw was aglow with a golden color; the smell of animals in the stable is like a fragrance of incense. In dog’s barking one can recognize: "Thanks be to God!” and the star is pointing to seekers from all nations and tongues where to find God – not somewhere far in the heavens but here in the various aromas and hubbub of this world.

The birth of Jesus is the lesson in God’s faithfulness and love, but also the revelation about God’s heart. God identified with humanity in this simple birth and showed that the greatest value in life is found in life itself and not in amenities that accompany life. The story of Jesus’ birth is the story of each one of us, told for to us and for our sake, as if we were there among the shepherd and angels that night. What angels proclaimed to shepherds they proclaimed for each one of us: "Peace on earth, good will to all people”. The journey shepherds took in order to see what was announced to them with their own eyes must be a journey each person makes. We all must make find out that God does what He promised.  And their amazement should also be our amazement.  And our response can only be a totally grateful, faithful life in a constant praise to God for His inexpressible Love that became human.

And another thing we have to understand is that while true joy lights up with Jesus’ birth, it does not end with it.

Stars were fading quietly in the sky

But one - the sacred sign! ...

And He lay quietly in a manger

But knew everything that was to come...

He knew that a miracle would take place

The one foretold in ancient books...

He knew who he was and who Judas was -

His beloved disciples...

He knew what suffering

He will bear on earth

How he will hear "I wash my hands"

And "Crucify him! Crucify!"

He remembered everything: words and faces ...

How the darkness covered the earth,

But the light was filling the tomb

On the third day ... On the third day...

He knew: the journey is not finished, life is not yet lived.

But he knew: "The Father sent me to you!"

And as He laid under the star in a manger

He suddenly smiled at the Magi…