Merry Christmas! Christmas is a season of presents and we are here today first before gathering around our Christmas trees because we acknowledge that the greatest present is not what we give to each other, but what God gives to us. Today our Savior Jesus Christ is born for us. All the readings show how His birth came to be. Jesus comes to us as a present from the Father to save us from sin and death. I would like us to meditate on how to unveil this gift from God. I would like to show that God’s packaging of His gift is so different from how we package our gifts. At the heart of every veiling is the fact that whatever is precious is veiled. The more precious the gift, the more the veiling. It takes the eyes of faith to appreciate the gift beyond the veiling. We typically package our Christmas gifts with a lot of beautiful wrappings, paradoxically God’s gift for us at Christ comes to us in a packaging that is not the most appealing. For instance: Our Christmas gift, Jesus is conceived by a poor virgin, wedded to a simple carpenter; He is to be born on a cold winter night not in his hometown of Nazareth but in the distant city of Bethlehem about 90 miles away. Despite the tedious journey, there is no room in the inn; He is born at night in a manger; his first play mates, goats and sheep; his first visitors, unkempt shepherds, and behold the gift in swaddling clothes! When we look at the layers of unveiling we have to uncover to meet our Savior Jesus Christ, born for us tonight, the question we must ask ourselves is the question the Fathers of the Church would often ask: Why is it fitting that Jesus our gift is given to us as such? Such will be the series of questions we will ask as we approach the manger to do Him reverence. We do so by taking a step backwards. This lesson became very clear to me on Wednesday evening as we were trying to change the bulbs in the Church. We brought the advanced lift and started fitting it together, but the base just wouldn’t fit. We kept forcing it to no avail until we got stuck. Then we took a pause and re-examined it, only to realize that it had one of its pins to make it level. The point is, when life is not going as we perceive it to be, it is an opportunity to take a break. Trying to force things that are not going can only lead to more breaks, chaos, contamination, and waste of time. Christmas is a time when we pause with the Word of God, Jesus the Christ, made flesh for us so that He may show us the meaning our lives, of all that has gone on so far so that we may engage the new year and the future with more wisdom and confidence. The question for our meditation this Christmas is: What has been the trajectory of your life this year that you need to pause with Jesus, the Word made flesh that He may enlighten you on how to proceed? Let us now unveil this gift of God in its various layers.
The Veil of Providence: Why is it fitting that the Savior is born of a virgin? To make it abundantly clear that the birth of our Savior is the work of God and not the work of man. It is fitting that the One who comes to save us from sin should be born of one conceived without sin.
The Veil of Prophesy: Why is it fitting that she was betrothed to a young man Joseph of the tribe of David? To fulfill the prophesies of all that the Savior will spring from the stump of Jesse. According to Mother Angelica it is fitting that Joseph was a young man because old men don’t walk to Egypt, and we can add, old men don’t ride nor walk at night for 90 miles or more. It is fitting that Joseph be a young man to get the credits of being a chaste guardian to the Mother of God.
The Veil of History: Why is it fitting that Jesus is born not only from the line of David, but also from the line of some gentiles? The Gospel more than any reading shows how Jesus comes for each and every one of us. There is no category of persons that is left out of His visitation. Such is the reason His genealogy is full not only of saints such as Abraham, David, Joseph and Mary, but also of Gentiles such as Ruth and sinners such as Rahab. We must see ourselves as part of the family tree of Jesus especially in our brokenness and in this time of affliction and fear. We live in a time when we know what it means to wait for a solution, for a savior. The pandemic has kept us in a very long advent. How refreshing it is to see things slowly getting better. It is fitting that the Savior of Mankind with a messy history should be born of a messy genealogy. St. Joseph again stands for us a great example of what it means to be reconciled with the past in order to embrace the future God has for us. Pope Francis explains it thus:
“Often in life, things happen whose meaning we do not understand. Our first reaction is frequently one of disappointment and rebellion. Joseph set aside his own ideas in order to accept the course of events and, mysterious as they seemed, to embrace them, take responsibility for them and make them part of his own history. Unless we are reconciled with our own history, we will be unable to take a single step forward, for we will always remain hostage to our expectations and the disappointments that follow. The spiritual path that Joseph traces for us is not one that explains, but accepts. Only as a result of this acceptance, this reconciliation, can we begin to glimpse a broader history, a deeper meaning.” Jesus is born to assure us that history is not just repeating itself but leading to God with Jesus Himself as the center and goal of history.
The veil of suffering: Why is it fitting that the Holy Family should suffer so much in bringing forth the Savior? There were almost at a point of divorce because Joseph did not understand what was going on. Many would have looked at them especially Joseph with disappointment to allow his nine months pregnant wife to undertake such a journey, talk less of the cold nights, the uncertainty of a maternity, just to have the God of the universe be born in a manger! It is fitting that He who comes to be the light of the world should be born at night. It is fitting that He who is to be the leader of God’s people to deliver them from suffering should be acquainted with suffering.
The veil of poverty: Why is it fitting that the Savior of all humanity should be born of a poor estate? As the Fathers of the Church simply put it, “Whatever is not assumed, is not redeemed.” By beginning from the least amongst us, there is not a class or condition of humanity that Jesus does not assume in order to redeem.
The Veil of Humility: Why is it fitting that his first visitors are shepherds and wisemen? No one has best explained the fittingness in this regard like Archbishop Fulton Sheen who simply maintained: “Christmas reminds us that God has decided to reveal Himself only to two categories of persons: to shepherds and wisemen – those who know they do not know anything, and those who know they do not know every thing.”
The Veil of Vulnerability: Why is it fitting that God is born as a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes? Nothing creates a firm bond between us as vulnerability. It is fitting that He who comes to heal our three-fold broken relationships with God, creation and each other, should be born in the most dependent state of our existence in order to gain our trust. To make us trust and depend on Him, He first becomes dependent on us. We must transcend the swaddling clothes to receive the Gift from God. What are the swaddling clothes in life that often tend to hide God from you? As archbishop Fulton Sheen puts it, “Divinity is always where we least expect to find it.”
Where in your life are you longing earnestly for the Savior? He comes as the King of kings to enrich our poverty by His riches; He comes as the Savior to carry our cross; He comes as the Lord of history to lead us to the Father; He comes as food for us on this earthly pilgrimage in the form of the Eucharist. As we receive Jesus today, may we praise and thank Him for all the gifts (peace, hope, joy, etc) He brings to us especially the gift of Himself: “O Come let us adore Him..”
Fr. Valery Akoh