Joh 1:1-18
Is 52:7-10
Heb 1:1-6
focus: God’s gifts often come in simplicity.
function: We are invited to notice the gift, to adore, and to be a gift to others.
The largest diamond of all times was found in a mine in South Africa in 1905. It was bigger than a man’s fist and weighed more than a pound, or 621 grams. The Transvaal government at the time bought it from the mine and it decided to give it as a gift to the king of England, Edward VII. First, however, it had to be shipped to England! Due to its extraordinary value, a rumor was spread that it would be transported on a steamboat. A parcel was ceremoniously locked into the captain’s safe there and guarded on the entire journey. However, this was a tactic to divert the public’s attention. The stone on that ship was fake; and not too much would have been lost if someone would have stolen it. The real diamond was sent in a simple cardboard box through regular mail. Both diamonds, the fake and the real one, made it to England without a problem. The raw diamond was later cut into 105 smaller diamonds, the two largest of them are among the jewels in the British crown.
Just like the gift of the diamond arrived in a cardboard box in simplicity, so it is with the much greater gift that we celebrate today: Jesus Christ, who is God’s gift to us. He came in the simplicity of a stable. The child was born in poverty. Mary, his mother, laid him in a manger, a feeding trough for animals. And there in the stable he was surrounded by Mary and Joseph, the simple shepherds, marginalized at this time because they were smelly and often considered thieves. And there were some animals.
Today’s gospel points us to the true magnitude of God’s gift: Christ is the creative Divine Word through which in the beginning everything came into being. He is the source of life. His life is the light of the human race. He shines more than any diamond ever can. No darkness can ultimately overcome his light. And then there is the key sentence: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” He pitched his tent among us, would be the literal translation from the Greek text of the gospel. He became one of us, in all things like us except for sin. He knew poverty and life’s hardships. The tent reminds me of refugees. Jesus was a refugee himself as a baby in Egypt. Later in his ministry Jesus will show how much God cares for all, especially for the poor, for those on the margins like shepherds and foreigners, for sinners, and for all of us.
Jesus is the fulfillment of what the prophets of old longed for. “How beautiful upon the mountain are the feet of the one who brings glad tidings, announcing peace, bearing good news, announcing salvation.” This was originally an oracle for the people who have returned from the Babylonian Exile, but the beginnings were difficult. With the help of God’s amazing grace, the prophet says, Mount Zion, the temple, Jerusalem, will be restored. The people can live again at home with peace and joy. What follows then certainly became true more in Jesus: God’s salvation, God’s comfort, extends to everyone, to all the nations, to the whole world! We have reason for joy!
To those who accept him, St. John says, Jesus gave power to become children of God. We can be born anew of God. “God took on our human nature, in order for us to share in God’s own nature,” Pope St. Leo the Great says in his famous Christmas sermon that we heard last night. He continues, “Do not forget that you have been rescued from the power of darkness and brought into the light of God's kingdom … Christian, remember your dignity … Through the sacrament of baptism you have become a temple of the Holy Spirit. Do not live below your dignity.”
Dear sisters and brothers in the faith, God’s gifts often come in simplicity. We are invited to notice the gifts, to adore, and to be a gift to others. How have God’s gifts come to you in the course of this year which was still marked quite strongly by the pandemic? Let’s think of the simple gifts. While we have been able more this year to go about the activities of our lives as usual, some of my meetings still took place on videoconference rather than in person. We sometimes conversed on Zoom or on the phone rather than in the same room. Did you have more time to go out for good walks, to get things in order in your home and to pray? I can say that this was true for me and I am grateful for it.
Our nativity sets that surround us these days are an invitation to sit down in front of one quietly in adoration. As we do so, the darkness about which the gospel speaks may come to our minds at first. The suffering of so many of our relatives and friends from Covid or other illnesses, the loneliness and the economic hardships that so many still experience and so much more. And yet we can pray that the gentle Divine Light that shone forth at the first Christmas may brighten our hearts and the hearts of those who are near and dear to us. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.
Christmas shows us God’s greatest and most precious gift to us, his Son Jesus Christ. We can ask ourselves: How can we whom his has given a share in his divine nature, be a gift to others? Through listening, through tokens of appreciation, through sharing what we have, through prayer? There are many ways of extending Jesus’ work of making known God’s great love for all and so become God’s precious gift for others. AMEN.
~Fr. Thomas Leitner, OSB