CHRISTMAS – B (Midnight Mass: Is 9:1-3, 5-6; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-14) (Day Mass: Is 52:7-10; Heb 1:1-6; John 1:1-18) Theme: Let Us Become Ourselves A Crib For The Lord Reflection: - Happy Feast and Happy Christmas to all of you. It’s Great Day. It’s a Joyful Day. It’s a Blessed Day. It’s a Marvelous Day. It’s a Delightful Day. It’s a Luminous Day. It’s a Day of the Lord. It’s a Day of Man and It’s a Day of Appointment of God with Man. The list can go on. We are very happy and elevated to hear all these excellent and beautiful words. Yes, indeed, they are true and they are a reality ‘Today before Our Own Eyes’ because ‘Is born for us a Savior’. - It is the Day the Lord has made and let us rejoice and be glad in it. Today is not the day the humanity has found or has organized or willed. It is the Day the Lord himself willed, planned, proclaimed and placed before us. We are called to rejoice over this Day. We are called to overwhelm this Day. We are called to leap with joy of this Day. And finally we are called to be glad IN this Day. And today is the Day because ‘Is born for us a Savior’. - Being glad in it means ‘making the day our own’ and ‘making the Lord’s doing our own’. It means also ‘entering ourselves into the design of God’s salvation’. It means also ‘living and proclaiming the same joy which is given to us’. We are here to ‘listen’ to that Good News. We are here to ‘see’ that Light. We are here to ‘experience’ that Grace on Grace. We are here finally ‘live’ the joy of being part of God’s Day. We are really partaker of his holy will because ‘Is born for us a Savior’. - Day of Love: Above all today is the ‘Day of Love Incarnated’. Today is the day that has proved that ‘love’ is no more a word, no more a concept, no more a idea or no more a wish. Today is the day that has proved that ‘love’ is a presence, that love is a ‘being with’, love is a ‘giving’ and ‘offering’, that love is a ‘loving action’. We are happy to see this ‘transformation’ of word-love into love-action. Love has become ‘flesh with the flesh and bone with the bone’. It is not four lettered word anymore but ‘it is an event happened, still happening and will happen for ever’ because ‘Is born for us a Savior’. Festivity of the ‘Sun’: ‘Sol Invictus’ - In the roman empire of that epoch there was a feast of the celebration of the sun. According to the roman culture of the time, during the season of winter the days were short with the long nights. There was more darkness than the light. There was more night than the day. It is only around 25 December that the days of the winter start changing. Little by little there was a more light. Days started to be with the sunlight. The darkness became shortened. In this ‘period of change’ of the winter night into the spring day, there was a feast celebrated in the honor of the sun which comes to illuminate them and to give them the more light. This was the feast of the sun. - The early church has thought of Jesus Christ who has come to the world as ‘the Light of the World’ and his nativity was in the time of winter. In this context the church has delighted herself to call her ‘Savior’ and ‘Messiah’ Jesus Christ as the ‘Sun’ that has come to visit us and to illuminate us. therefore, merging the prophecy of the OT and the reality of NT into one person: the prophecy is that of Isaiah 9:1, “the people who walked in darkness has seen a great light” and the reality is that of the Benedictus of Zechariah, in Luke 1:78, “by the tender mercy of our God, the dawn (light) from on high will break upon us”. Two verses or two prophecies are realized fully and perfectly in Jesus Christ who manifested himself as the ‘Light of the World’ (John 8:12). Thus the feast of the sun has become the feast of the ‘Rising Sun’, Jesus Christ. - By the word ‘sol invictus’ means the ‘invincible sun’: the sun which has its light forever and that light which is never extinguished by anything. Jesus Our Savior is the Sun which makes us awake and keeps us alert and enthusiasm and makes us clear about the things of the world just as the natural sun which makes us rise up in the morning and keep us always alert during the day without falling down and which finally helps us to see the things clearly. Let us turn to the Sun which has shown for us because ‘Today the Savior is born for us all’. Festivity of the Humility - Decree of registration: the manifestation of the power and authority o In the gospel of Luke (2:1ff) we see the Emperor Augustus who has made arrangements for the registration of the names in their proper native places. It is an occasion for demonstrating the authority of the emperor. Through this the power of the emperor is recognized. This is the way to measure the ‘power and authority’ of the empire and the emperor. How much of the land is occupied by him? How much of property he has saved? How much of peace he has acquired in the kingdom? How many people are under his rule? All these are the measurements to know the capacity of the emperor. It is for this reason that even Emperor Augustus has made the decree with the want of ‘showing himself’ as a great and powerful emperor. o Even before this we see King David in the last days of his life doing the same and finally receiving the punishment of God (2 Sam 24:1ff). o God punished David not just because of the census of Israel and Judah he has ordered but because of the intention behind it. He wanted to prove himself great and he desired to have all the praises and glory, thus, forgetting that it is the Lord who increases the number of his people. o In both occasions the emperor has strived for their personal glory and wanted to show their power and authority by their orders and decrees. In both occasions they have neglected the True God, the True King and the True Emperor of the entire world and they have not given him proper glory and praise. - Degree of meekness and humility: the manifestation of God’s reign and God’s glory o Instead, Jesus Christ has shown another path, a different mode of conquering the crown of glory: it is by the total self-renunciation and by utter giving up of oneself. o His total offering of himself for the loving will of the Father and for donating a true and eternal life to the humanity have been revealed in his taking the human form: “though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself and became obedient to the point of death – death on the cross” (Phil 2:6-7). o Jesus found this ‘total self-emptying’ as the only way to offer to God, his Father, the glory. He has made himself small; he has made himself servant; he has made himself loser; he has made himself a sacrifice. o This is the only way to meet God and to be always in his will and way: this the proper message of Christmas: we have to humble ourselves to be partaker of his glory: “who humbles himself will be exalted and who exalts himself will be humbled.” o If we want to live genuinely the message of Christmas we have to ‘low ourselves’, we have to ‘bend our heads’ before him; his birth was in a such small hut that those who enter to see the baby they have to bend and enter in. This may be small gesture but it has a spiritual meaning: that we have to lessen ourselves, we have to humble ourselves and we have to bend ‘our heads full of pride and arrogance’ if we ‘want’ to enter into the small house - ‘tent amidst us’ – prepared by the one who has born for us and to experience his peace and his salvation. o Therefore, Christmas is the feast of celebration and living of humility keeping aside/ emptying ourselves of our desire for power, name and fame, authority, greatness. Only then we celebrate a real birth of the Savior for us and in us. Festivity of contradiction - Jesus makes himself poor and weak while Augustus had made himself great before the world. Jesus makes himself a ‘giver of life and giver of his total self’ while Augustus had made himself a ‘taker of life for his name and for his glory’. Jesus empties himself of his heavenly glory and humbles himself to become a human like us, while Augustus had filled himself with the immeasurable riches of the world and exalts himself to become an ultimate power and authority of the world. - One side there is the worldly greatness in the form of the emperor of the earth - Augustus, on the other side there is the heavenly smallness in the form of the emperor of the whole creation – Jesus Christ; one side there is manifestation of power and authority – Augustus, on the other side there is revelation of poverty and humility – Jesus Christ; - How can we balance this scandalizing difference? Where is the proper meeting point of both of them into one true reality? It is ‘in the birth of Jesus Christ’ – the Christmas; - In the very message of Angels: ‘To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.’ (Luke 2:11-12). There are two phrases of truth: the birth of the savior and being lied in a manger; the connecting phrase or the central words are important: ‘this is a sign’. - The birth of contradiction of Christian life and existence: birth of savior but birth place is contradictory; according to human mind and human wish, savior is a great person, more over he is the Messiah, the Lord, therefore, minimum thought is that ‘his birth has to place in the palace, his birth should be to the parents who are great like king and queen’. This is the authentic sign for the human intellect. BUT ALREADY CONTRADICITON HAS STARTED. Already a different sign is made. The normal human intellectual sign is changed. Everything has become contradictory even to believe what is really happening: Birth of a savior in the stall, to the poor and unknown parents, in the small village of Bethlehem which is not even identified in the world map of those days. - Therefore, to be joyful in the difficulty, to be patient in the suffering, to be vigilant in the temptations, to be tranquil in the anguish….. the contradicting attitude is already revealed in the mystery of the Savior Born In The Stable. - Today we feel so much disturbed and depressed in the midst of the sufferings and difficulties but living these moments with the hope and love is already manifested to us before two thousand years by the birth of the Savior in the Stable. - Therefore, as Jesus himself said, we have to renounce ourselves/empty ourselves and take up the cross/daily difficulties and go behind him with calm and serenity because He himself is walking before us with the biggest and heaviest cradle-cross. Therefore, during this Christmas we have to learn to accept and to live the contradictory life in our confrontations in the world and with the things of the world. Festivity of Good News that has changed the phase of the world: Good News of Love - The ever refreshing, ever encouraging and ever cherishing good news is that “the Word is made flesh and came to live amidst us” (John 1:14). This is the news and the only news that has promised to change the world, still continues changing it and will continue to change in its journey into eternity. - We have many other good news in the world: with the rapid development of the scientific technology humanity is fast growing, with the knowledge and with the industrial empowerments the political and economic standards are rising to the skies, with the awareness of absolute freedom and ultimate liberty the social, cultural and moral values of the humanity are ‘reaching their highest degrees’. - In spite of all these revolutionary and technological definitions and developments is man going ahead with happiness and joy or is he in the situation of self-closure? A sincere and deep search into this ever trickling question will make us realize the ‘authenticity of the news’ and the ‘efficacy of its proclamation’ whether it is good and useful. - Man is doing anything and everything to be happy, it seems to be its ultimate goal. And our Christian faith teaches that Man is created to be in joyful relationship with himself, with the other, with the world and with God. He is destined to find his felicity in his being ‘rational and relational’ and more than that in his possibility of being ‘spiritual and supernatural’. This happens when man journeys from his rationality to personality and from his personality to spirituality. - His rationality is in his ‘becoming mature in mind and thought’, his personality is in his ‘becoming mature in will and relationship with himself and with others’ and finally his spirituality is in his ‘going beyond all the previous stages and entering into his thirst of the heart and the spirit’. It is here that we may find the limitation of all other ‘linguistic, cultural, even philosophical relations’. Man has to go beyond, yet living all of them, to find true happiness and this we Christians call it – the friendship with God and an intimate bond with him. - And it is ‘to restore’ this broken relationship with God ultimately but passing through our normal and conditional bonds – personal, family, social and political – that Jesus Christ, the Word of God has taken human form: that is what we celebrate now – the Christmas. - This Good New of God’s Entrance into the World has: o Changed the story and history of the humanity: according to our faith, it is for this that the whole story has been placed in time and space; whole story of God’s interventions in the life of the people of Israel from Abraham to John the Baptist has taken place – in view of Him and in the preparation for Him, Jesus Christ, who willed to take up our story as his. This story of God has become history in the very person of Jesus Christ. With the coming of the Word into the world everything has a CENTRAL POINT, for which, to which and around which all move and have its being: Jesus Christ – that is the real Christmas we celebrate today. o Revealed the ‘limitation of human inquiry’ and ‘unlimited and unconditional love of God’: this is the good news that we have received with the birth of the Savior in the Stall.  It has revealed that the human mind and human inquiry has its limitations; it continues to research and research but at a certain point it finds it ‘blocking wall’ or ‘final station’ to get down and start return journey: the human language is limited in describing all the realities of the world, whether material or spiritual; the human science is limited because it may prolong the life but cannot stop the death; the human authority/political power is limited because though there is the possibility of ‘creating global solidarity’ still it fails because of its human fragility; finally even the human philosophy is limited because it may try to define and defend all that exists but at the end of day, it cannot enter into the integral reality of the creation and its systematic formation and the God who guides it and it accepts the limitedness and helplessness of the human ‘reasons and concepts’.  This is the last stop of human intellect and will which is not enough for the ‘ultimate bliss or blessedness’. Here there is some truth that comes to the aid of humanity; that helps him break the blocking wall; that enables him to build the bridge to go still ahead; that guides him to journey forward taking the same train which has stopped in the last station; stations are over but not the journey; stations can be always created and prolonged only if there is will and love to go into the search. The truth that leads the humanity into these unknown and darkened mysteries is only the Word of God: Jesus the Light of the World and he assures that when we walk in him we shall not falter but walk straight (John 8:12). The Christmas reveals this truth of love of God who wants man to enter into his intimacy accepting the human limits and taking guidance of love who makes him move forward with total trust and complete confidence. • Yes, indeed, Jesus reveals to all the peoples the love of God who wills to be in their midst and in their form so that they become partaker of his same love. • Yes, indeed, Jesus reveals that ‘all the human sciences and technologies’ find their ultimate rapport with God because it is from him that everything has taken its origin and it is to him that they return. • Recent Christian Theology explores this truth: Pope Benedict XVI puts it beautifully in his encyclical Deus Caritas est, 12: “The real novelty of the New Testament lies not so much in new ideas as in the figure of Christ himself, who gives flesh and blood to those concepts—an unprecedented realism.” And another theologian Balthasar explores that the incarnation of Christ has taken place “for the two reasons that cannot be separated. First, in order to restore what has been perverted and seduced from its end. On the other hand, it was not our wickedness that compelled the Son of God to become flesh; rather, it was God’s exceedingly great merciful love” (BALTHASAR, Theo-Logic II: Truth of God, p.234).  Only IN love and WITH love we can come out of ourselves, empty our heart of all the doubts of faith and difficulties of life, enter with humility and meekness into the ‘stall of Jesus’ and into the ‘sheep of Jesus’ to experience this love that wins everything and leads us to the ‘unbreakable and irremovable’ intimacy with the Lord, for, it is only IN HIM We find our life and our being. This is the truth of Christmas that we have to celebrate. Summary - Let us sum up into few points all that what we have said so that we have not the tips but the truths in our hand for the celebration of this Christmas: - Christmas is the Feast of the Sun which shines forever: Jesus Christ; let us accept this light so that we do not anymore walk in the darkness of fear and falling but walk straight in the way of the Lord. - Christmas is the Feast of the Humility and littleness: Word made Flesh; let us break all our pride and power in order to enter into the presence of the baby born for us so that the life becomes the testimony of humility and tenderness. - Christmas is the Feast of Contradiction: Savior in the Stable; let us realize that we have to undergo these contradictory as long as we are in the world just for the reason of being Christians for, as John Paul II has said “we are in the world but not of the world”. Jesus himself had made known to us this reality therefore, let us accept it and move forward with complete hope and self-emptiness. - Christmas is the Feast of Love: love goes beyond all the human ideas and thoughts and conceptual formulas; true love understands and does everything; it is the only force that makes us ‘confront’ and ‘pass through’ all the human weakness and human relations and finally to enter into the eternal blessedness, that is, Beatific Vision of God; love makes everything possible. Therefore, let us take this powerful weapon of love and win over our selfishness, our envy and our possessive nature so that we can clearly see God’s image in all and thus we may be able to contaminate ourselves first, our community and society next and the whole world finally, with the medicine of love. - Our celebration of Christmas is meaningful only when Jesus – the knowledge and power of God – the immeasurable love of God – is born in us and only if we are ready to make our life a ‘stable’ for his birth and for his indwelling. “To Him the Glory and To Us the Peace.” Amen.