Monday, December 25, 2017

OUR TRUE VALUE IS CHRIST: a homily for CHRISTMAS DAY, Year A, (John 1)

You can hear the audio here.
            I remember when my niece was born.  She was a month premature and weighed on six and a half pounds yet what I remember most was the heat that came off her.  She was so small and vulnerable.  Without her Mam and the nurses she was helpless.  Christ too was helpless when He was born among us.  He was helpless at His birth and He was helpless at His death on the Cross.  Christ was born in the shadow of the Cross.  He, the All-Holy, All-powerful God made Himself helpless for us who are without help without Him.
                        It is so easy to bury Christmas and the wonder of this feast under excessive eating and drinking, under presents, wanted and unwanted, to build ourselves up to expect some perfect event that can never happen in our fleeting and fallen world.  It is because we are fallen that we so easily take our value from the wrong source.  It is because we are fallen that it is so easy for us to fall into the trap of imposing our own will on others, to try to put ourselves at the centre of everything rather than recognise that the only centre that can ever be is God.  From that temptation to put ourselves at the centre flow all our troubles and sins, from squabbles over what's for dinner right up to who controls what valuable resources.  All our moral ills in this world flow from that one source: we take our measure from the wrong template. 
            What I am about to say may upset or even offend some people but that is not my intention.  Please bear with me for there is a point to what I am about to say.  While we are made in God's image and likeness, you and I do not matter.  We, each of us, individually and collectively, are of no importance.  One day most of us will be completely forgotten, gone without a trace at least from the perspective of this world.  Even the few who are remembered for some time will be but footnotes, background noise to someone else's life.  To those whose hope is for this world we are not important; we are nothing and of no value in and of ourselves.
            The mystery and wonder of Christmas is that our true value comes not from ourselves, not from what we have nor from our achievements, from what we have made of ourselves or from what we leave behind.  Our true value comes from what God has given us.  In choosing to become one of us God has glorified us.  More than this He if offering each one of us access to the very heart of God forever. 
            He could've created us and left us in a state of natural bliss but that was not enough for Him.  After our first parents fell He could've simply declared us forgiven but that was not enough for Him.  Nothing was good enough but that He should enter our existence and become fully human.  Nothing was good enough but that He should offer to the Father on our behalf the perfect, eternal obedience and love of the Son on the Cross of Calvary.  Nothing was good enough but that He should make us one Body, one Spirit with Him, His Temple, and that He should feed us with Himself, heal our wounds Himself and unite us with the Most Holy Trinity in Himself.  Nothing was good enough but that He should give us Himself, completely and without reserve.  It is He who declares us and makes us valuable.  It is from Him that we derive our dignity and worth.  It is a value that we cannot lose because it is founded in Him not in us.  
            The true foundation of all our celebrations is not the birth of a baby they are born all the time but the birth of a baby who is also God.  If He was not God then His birth is no more worth celebrating that anyone else's and if He is wasn't human then He cannot have been born. 
            The Christmas tree points to the Cross.  The Cross is the Tree of paradise which bears fruit for our healing and sanctification.  That's why we cover it with baubles and glitter to symbolise the graces and blessings that come to us through Christ and His Cross.  Our feast, our Christmas dinner, is meant to be an extension of the Mass in which we already share in the eternal Feast of Heaven.  Therefore is you get the chance to give someone a place at your table you should take it for then Christ will welcome you at His in Heaven.
            Everything about this season points beyond itself to Calvary, through and beyond Calvary to Heaven.  Even the presents are not just echoes of the presents given by the Magi still less are they mere signs of affection and appreciation.  We can do that anytime of the year.  The presents are meant to symbolise the gift we are given in Christ. 
            The conception and birth of a child is an act of hope and trust in God.  Every life is sacred for each one is made in His image and likeness.  More, each one of us is made for eternal life with God.  The birth of Christ means we are no longer nothing.  We are no longer valueless.  Our value comes not from us but from God who has made us equal to Himself in giving us a place in His Son.  We are, each and every one of us, equal to God because God has made us so.  This is the true magic of Christmas.  God has emptied Himself.  He holds nothing back.  In His birth we are reborn.  We are no longer mere humans, here to strut our stuff for a few years and then fade away.  In Christ we are a new Creation, cracked pots called to become Immortal Diamonds, filled with the treasure that is Christ.
            He has given us the present of eternal life let us not leave it unopened.


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