Christmas means so many things for so many people, but at its heart lies the very concept of the incarnation, the very pivot of our Christian faith: God takes on human flesh, God became part of the human story: this is the true uniqueness of our faith, as Tertullian articulated so well in the first centuries of the Christian era: “Nothing disconcerts the human mind as much as the simplicity of divine works when compared to the great effects they obtain.”
Christmas is a time for celebrations, for gifts, for parties, for holidays, for family gatherings, for the very things that break the mundane of ordinary living. It gives us a taste of beauty, of love, of a different season, and all this is more than beautiful: it is heavenly in the sense that it leads us into the Shabbat, the time when we can enjoy the works of our hands and be thankful for all the gifts received, especially the gift of life and love.
But for a Christian there is more than this. We are invited, through the liturgy, to meditate deeply not only on the event of the incarnation but also on the way that God has chosen for this mystery to be revealed. We always live time with a certain tension; the very fabric of our faith leads us to live this tension of paradox: Eternity entering into time; Divinity putting on humanity; the extraordinary coming to us in ordinary and simple ways. Yes, when God wanted to communicate His love to us He gave us a person, a relationship, His very son, and it is this spirit of the incarnation that holds the very secret of the greatness and the happiness that we seek.
Only people who have eyes for these signs of God’s presence can actually find Him
Those who prepared themselves through Advent know well that the incarnation has a language of its own: the language of surprise. We expected God to come into the world in a totally different way. When we think of God we imagine power, omnipotence, glory. What we get in the incarnation is humility, ordinariness, humanity. This is the very way that God has chosen to speak to us, and because of its simplicity most of us lose the whole point.
For most of us this paradox of the incarnation is difficult to digest as we desire greatness and power, and wish to distract ourselves from the gloom and doom of daily living. People try hard to change smallness into greatness and weakness into power.
The birth of Jesus is exactly the contrary. The one who made the universe decides to come to us in ordinary humanity. God will be very hard to find if we try our best to escape the ordinary. His place is not in palaces, nor in temples, but in a stable, with the outcast, in the heart of the night. Incarnation has great implications. God enters the world, becomes physical, and we must seek Him there if we desire to find Him. Only people who have eyes for these signs of God’s presence can actually find Him. God is found in brokenness, and in our messy ordinary human life with its own burden and contradictions.
Recently a young man coming from a well-off family told me: “Father, what I desire most this Christmas is to eat with my family, like a normal family. I do not desire anything more.” This young man is cynical about all the gifts and gadgets he will receive: he desires just a meal, a family, a table, a sense of belonging and parents who can be together at least for the Christmas meal.
In fact, in as much as there is pressure around us to celebrate and to break the ordinary mode of life and be alienated from daily life problems, there is also this deep desire for happiness found only in the rhythm of the ordinary, of human tenderness and relationships. Yes, our God in Christ has chosen to come to us in this way, and has not only showed us the way but has become The Way for us to follow.
frmartincilia@gmail.com
Fr Martin Cilia is a member of the Missionary Society of St Paul.