Born In Our Flesh

Somewhat the same homily from Christmas Eve, but tried to center it more on the Gospel for the Mass During the Day - the Prologue of John (John 1:1-18). A different Gospel deserved a little different focus, I thought.

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Homily for the Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord
Mass During the Day
25 December 2013

Stars flung like diamonds against the black sky,
Bethlehem sleeping as evening sails by,
Silent as sunrise caressing the Earth,
Deep in the silence a child comes to birth.

Just one of many born lowly and poor,
Prey for the hunger that waits at the door,
Born in a stable where strangers must lie,
A poor son of Adam, born but to die.

Born by the power that comes from above,
Born in our flesh to give flesh to God’s love,
Light for the blind, life for the dead,
Broken for us as the famished break bread.

What shall we call Him, this child of our dreams,
Israel’s beacon through many dim years,
The promise of ages, the long-waited dawn,
The future we cherish in God’s only Son!

Here where our hatred comes to an end,
Here where the stranger is brother and friend,
No longer abandoned by nation or race,
Here in our midst we touch God’s human face.

        This hymn-poem, entitled A Christmas Carol, written by Michael Joncas, has always been one of my favorite pieces when I think about the celebration of Christmas. Not only is there painted for us a quiet fulfillment of our anticipation of the coming of the Lord, but there is also a moment in which the reality of the situation at hand is truly made present.

        What is that reality? The reality that is present stands even before us now: That God continues to enflesh Himself through His manifestations to us, especially through the Sacramental life of the Church. The reality of the situation is that Christ was “born in our flesh to give flesh to God’s love.”

        In the Gospel we just heard the Word that spoke creation into being quietly slips into the realm of time and space. But it was about this baby that John reminds us that He existed from the beginning, and that “He was with God, and that He was God.” Yet Jesus Christ had to take on flesh so that we would ultimately know of the depths of the love of God for us. He had to become like one of us so that, in due course, we could become like Him.

        The Incarnation took place because God needed us to see, through His workings in the flesh, how far He would go to make His presence known – even to the point of death. We must remember that this “poor son of Adam [was] born but to die,” to be “broken for us as the famished break bread.”

        We don’t often recognize God’s presence working in our midst, most often in those moments of life where we are broken and suffering, where death has us in its hold. Nevertheless, it is in the majority of time that God works quietly in our lives, “deep in the silence”, where we don’t realize the immensity of His actions. But then there are moments where God truly makes His presence known, and He wants us to know about it. We celebrate the fact that today Jesus Christ becomes incarnate, enfleshes Himself, so that we may become incarnations, enfleshments, of God’s love in time and space.

        Yet, there is a reality we must face as well: The hungers of this world will feed on each one of us as prey if we are not careful. If we stop becoming enfleshments of the love of God, then we allow the hungers of the world to overtake us, to consume us.

        To be Christian is to incarnate the love of God in all things. To be Christian is to rejoice that our God continues to dwell among His people through Word and through Sacrament. To be Christian is to recognize that, not only on Christmas but throughout the entirety of the year, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us”; that, truly, Jesus Christ was “born in our flesh to give flesh to God’s love.”

        Now that we have encountered our God in the flesh, it is now our responsibility to enflesh that love of God: to be those feet that bring glad tidings, announce peace, bear good news and announce salvation. It is up to us to recognize how powerful the world’s hungers are, and how our human flesh, our human weaknesses can be a prey to their teeth. Nevertheless, as Frederick Buechner reminds us that “the place God calls [us] to is the place where [our] deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” It is there, “deep in the silence”, where we encounter our God. It is in that deepest place where we begin to enflesh the love of the Divine.

        My brothers and sisters, during this joyful and busy time, as we gather with family and friends to celebrate the ecstasy of the Mystery of the Incarnation – the fact that our God became like one of us in all things but sin –, we should not forget to spend some time in that silence where the Lord beckons us to encounter Him. And as important as it is to encounter Him daily through prayer, we can never forget the importance of encountering our Incarnate Lord in Word and in Sacrament when we gather each week as His Body, uniting our flesh to His through the worthy reception of the Eucharist.

        For it is here, in the flesh, that Jesus Christ calls us to come closer to Him. It is here, in the flesh, where the promise of eternal life begins. It is here, in our flesh, that our deepest gladness and the world’s deepest hunger meets. It is here, in our flesh, where Heaven kisses Earth in the eternal embrace of the Divine Love which was made manifest for our redemption and salvation.

        We have “been born in our flesh to give flesh to God’s love.” Yet this will be impossible if we, ourselves, have yet to encounter Jesus Christ in the flesh, especially through Word and Sacrament. For if it is “here in our midst [where] we touch God’s human face,” then we must make every encounter with God an intimate encounter with the Divine, so that, in the deepest place of our being, the joy we celebrate this day of our Lord’s Incarnation can be that starting point for Love, Himself, to rule and guide our lives.

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Enjoy the journey . . .