Christmas 2024: Gazing at the Innocence of the Child

Christmas 2024: December 25, 2024

Readings: Lk 2:1-14

What kind of newness could this Christmas 2024 bring to us?

Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ - painting at Infant Jesus Church, Ernakulam

Christmas is not for faint-hearted and hopeless people. Christmas is not meant for people who do not desire to see great things in their lives. Christmas is not for those who are unwilling to embrace change, flexibility, and openness to newness. Christmas is not meant for those who are fearful, diffident, lost in the little things that worry them, or lost in their smallness. Christmas is not meant for those, who have low self-confidence, are lazy and lack imagination. In other words, Christmas is for those who are courageous and hopeful people. Christmas is for those who desire to see great things in their lives. Christmas is for those who are looking for change, dynamism and openness to the greater things that happen in their lives. Christmas is for those who are confident, hardworking and who can imagine greater things in their own lives and the lives of those who are around them.

1. Unforeseen Circumstances in Jesus' Birth

As we celebrate Christmas, we imagine, the Child Jesus, Mary, Joseph, Angels, Shepherds, cows and goats around them. Not just human beings but even animals participate in Jesus's birth scene. It is something uncommon for a Jewish family to give birth to a child in a cowshed. But this is what actually happens in the life of Jesus. If the Roman Emperor's diktat of the census was not in place, Jesus would have had a normal home for his delivery. Mary and Joseph now find the right place of a manger where the cows have their food and become a place for Jesus to be born and sheltered in that inopportune place.

2. God enters into the lives in an uncommon way

When we look at the life of Mary and Joseph, certain things are obvious and vivid. These days we are also reading about Elizabeth and Zacharias the parents of St John the Baptist, just six months in advance their son is born to prepare the way for Jesus. With the same kinship relationship, both Jesus and John the Baptist grow amongst the people of Israel. Interestingly, we see both Mary and Elizabeth go through a very strange phase of their lives of becoming mothers in an untimely manner. If Mary is young, not yet married, Elizabeth is barren and advanced in years. God enters into their lives at an unusual moment of their lives. Interestingly, both take God's promise boldly with natural yet initial hesitation. Both open up themselves to the new possibilities. The courage and hope of both these ladies are a model for all of us to cherish and imitate.

3. Ready for the unimaginable possibilities

We see that the Christmas of Bethlehem is full of imagination and unpredictability. Both Joseph, Mary's husband, and Zacharias, Elizabeth's husband, experience strange but unimaginable things in their lives. Yet both are open to new possibilities. They give themselves not just for divine dreams and revelations but allow themself embraced by this mystery of Incarnation. Joseph is ever ready to accept the new reality. He is ready for change and gets down to his feet and rescues the child that is just born from the clutches of evil King Herod.

4. Openness to God's way of acting and being

Christmas comes to us bringing full of hope and newness. Never before in the history of humanity, we have seen God becoming human in such a wretched situation. What brings salvation is not pride, riches or power but humility, self-sacrifice and compassion. This is the heart of Christmas. For God everything is possible. God accepts the reality of humanity in such a simple form that a good number of our people cannot be simple at all. We are lost in ourselves; in our status, positions, power, protocols and procedures. We have lost in traditions, customs and status. We have forgotten the human person in the rubrics of laws and legalities. We have misplaced ourselves. Instead of choosing newness, we are lost in things that do not bring salvation. We have lost in small things. In other words, we have lost a way to salvation.

5. Listening to the feeble voice of God

The unexpected coming of our Lord and being born in Bethlehem is recognized by the shepherds and the three unknown kings. The unexpected things that happen in the lives of the parents of Jesus and John the Baptist are a lesson to us to do always God's Will and listen to His voice and not the voices of this world. There is so much noise in the world, we fail to recognize the voice of God which is quiet and hard to hear. The Christian of today has to be ready to embrace not just the change but the incomprehensibility of God through one's imagination and a sense of wonder. 

6. Attentiveness to God's working even today

Jesus takes birth in our lives even today, when we are ready to accept God's voice in this messy world. Jesus takes birth in our lives, when we open ourselves to newer possibilities which may be unknown and road less travelled. Jesus takes birth in our lives when just like Mary and Elizabeth accept God's will and follow it with utter humility, courage and hope. What happened in Bethlehem 2000 years ago, still happens today in our lives, if we are ready to listen to God's voice in our lives. 

Prayer

Loving God,

You who chose the humble manger for the birth of Your Son,

teach us to embrace the newness You bring into our lives.

Help us to be courageous and hopeful, ready for great things,

even in the face of unexpected and challenging circumstances.

May we, like Mary and Joseph, open our hearts to Your will,

trusting in Your plan, even when it is beyond our understanding.

Grant us the imagination to see Your hand at work in the uncommon

and the humility to accept Your presence in the simple and the small.

In a world full of noise, may we attune our ears to Your gentle voice.

Amid life's uncertainties, fill us with faith to walk the road less travelled,

knowing that Your love and salvation are always near.

Lord, as we celebrate the birth of Christ,

may His light shine in our hearts and homes,

making us instruments of Your peace and joy to all around us.

We make this prayer in Jesus' Holy Name. Amen.

- Olvin Veigas, SJ

23 December 2024