See Christmas with Fresh Eyes

12-20-2015Weekly ReflectionDiocese of La Crosse, WI

Isn’t it funny how we get used to things?

We should never get used to Christmas. Today we celebrate the mind-boggling truth that God became man. When was the last time you really thought about that?

Why would the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity,do that? Why enter into a life of human limitation, fatigue and hunger? Why subject Himself to being misunderstood,hated and ultimately put to death? He could have comedown to earth as a glorious King and struck dead everyone who opposed Him with a wave of His hand.

But He didn’t. He came to an unknown maiden and her unknown husband and let Himself be placed in a feeding trough for animals. He spent the first 30 years of His life in obscurity. He pulled together a ragtag group of 12 followers who showed themselves to be confused much of the time, argumentative about who was the greatest,and mostly cowardly in His time of greatest need. Not to mention the one who betrayed Him to His death.

This has been the history of God’s dealings with us, from ancient Israel that repeatedly turned its back on Him and stoned the prophets, to the sin and nonsense of our own day.

The only explanation is divine Love, a love so deep and merciful we can barely begin to fathom it. The earthly loves we know – that of parents, or spouses – as beautiful as they are, are only faint shadows of God’s love for us.This is a love that saves us, rescuing us over and over again from the sin begun in Adam and Eve, and multiplied ever since.

God had given our first parents everything they could have wanted. For their own good, he had placed one limit on them, but the devil persuaded them that God was jealously holding back, and that if they would only defy that one limit, they would become like gods. Tempted by pride they disobeyed, rebelled against their status as creatures, and tried to become equal to God.

It did not end well, but from that very moment God promised a Redeemer. At this time we celebrate the coming of this One, the only Son of God, and the manner of His coming precisely reversed the proud sin of Adam and Eve.

Listen to the words of St. Paul to the Philippians:
Though He was in the form of God,
[Christ] did not regard equality with God something
to be grasped.
Rather, He emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave,
coming in human likeness;
and found human in appearance,
He humbled himself,
becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.
Because of this, God greatly exalted Him
and bestowed on Him the name
that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
of those in Heaven and on earth
and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord.

During this Holy Season, let us intentionally give thanks to our Heavenly Father, who in His merciful love, has given to us the gift of His Son. In doing so, we will know the true meaning of Christ’s birth and see Christmas with fresh eyes.

~Diocese of La Crosse, WI

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