What can one say about Christmas that is
even remotely adequate to the mystery
of God’s eternal and all-powerful love
come into the world as a Child?
Hymns, carols, artworks, nativity scenes,
the very Christmas Scriptures themselves, provide an
endlessly deep source of prayer and reflection. Yet they
can get a bit lost in the midst of all the other beauties ofChristmas: the tree, the presents, the family gatherings,
the favorite once-a-year foods.
What stands out about the Lord’s Birth that can give us
lasting hope, so much more than our seasonal
observances of traditions and customs?
In 2012, Pope Benedict XVI published the third volume
of his masterful work, Jesus of Nazareth. The key point of
this collection of deep faith and scholarly study is that the
Bible tells us the truth about Jesus. More than just stories
and myths from the past that can be explained merely in
terms of ancient literature, the Bible allows us to know
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our Savior. The scholarship
is important for a more nuanced understanding, but faith
does not rely on human intelligence: it speaks to our
assurance that God exists and only in that light does
human life and history make sense.
The third volume is The Infancy Narratives. It is short but
profoundly inspiring. I want to share just a brief edited
section as we come to the final moments of Advent and
come to the Christmas Masses:
Is what we profess in the Creed true, then? – “I
believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten
Son of God … [who] by the Holy Spirit was
incarnate of the virgin Mary”?
The answer is an unequivocal yes. [The German
theologian] Karl Barth pointed out there are two
moments in the story of Jesus when God intervenes
directly in the material world: the virgin birth and
the resurrection from the tomb. … These two
moments are a scandal to the modern spirit. [In the
worldview dominated by material science] God is
“allowed” to act in idea and thoughts, in the
spiritual domain – but not in the material. [To
modern thinking] that is shocking. He does not
belong there. But that is precisely the point:
God is God and he does not operate merely
on the level of ideas and sentiments. In that
sense, what is at stake in both the birth of
Jesus and his resurrection is God’s very
divinity.
We are not dealing [in the birth or
resurrection of Jesus] with the abstract, the
cosmological, the irrational or the
contradictory, but precisely with the positive –
with God’s creative power, embracing the
whole of being. If God does not also have
power over matter, then he is simply not God.
But he does have this power, and through the
conception and resurrection of Jesus Christ he
has ushered in a new creation in the midst of
the world we know, a radiant sign of hope that
God does not fail to fulfill humanity’s deepest
longings for goodness, hope, and peace,
though not in the ways we could have
imagined.
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