Christmas

Jan 29 2025

God’s Christmas Card

The beautiful feet of Isaiah’s messengers announcing peace and bringing glad tidings can seem distant from our lives. Living in the digital age can diminish any excitement at receiving a message, since they pour in all the time. E-mail, cell phones, and digital intersections like Facebook and LinkedIn bring instantaneous connection, obliterating time and space barriers once crossed by such “antiquated” forms as snail mail, the telegram, and . . . does anyone remember the rotary phone?

But still, at the heart of all communication is the word, and that is the image today’s readings present to us in speaking of the mystery of the Incarnation, our God becoming human. Luke’s baby of Bethlehem, wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger, is first presented in John’s Gospel as the eternal Word of creation, as life, as light shining in the darkness, as the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth, and finally, as the Word become flesh who dwelled among us, true God and true man.

Give yourself time over these days to ponder (a good Christmas word) not only the babe in the crèche but also the profound mystery of the Word of God in whom and through whom all things were made, this Word who became human, revealing the image of the invisible God. The human warmth Luke presents in his Bethlehem story is matched by John’s image of Jesus as the only Son, standing (as the New English Bible translation has it) “nearest to the Father’s heart.”

Consider/Discuss

Do you think about Jesus as the Word of God, the Son “nearest to the Father’s heart”? What do these expressions say to you?
How does the opening prologue of John’s Gospel speak to your life?

Responding to the Word

Eternal Word of the Father, you became human so we might become divine. Let your message penetrate deeply into our minds and hearts, and move us to bring your light and life into a world often threatened by darkness and death. Love us today into a new birth. Amen.

Jan 29 2025

Scripture Study for

The proclamation of good news is dramatically portrayed in the scene of the messenger running swiftly over the mountains with the message of peace and salvation. There is excitement here, for the message holds a promise of peace, good news, and salvation. In a second scene, the arm of God is bared, revealing the source of the divine power that brought about the deliverance that the city now enjoys. Just as the messenger heralds peace and salvation to Zion, so the deliverance of the city heralds the mighty power of God to the ends of the earth.

The confessional hymn in the reading from Hebrews celebrates Christ as the agent of revelation, creation, and salvation. As the reflection of God’s glory and an exact representation of God’s being, Christ is the perfect revelation of God. The author reinterprets the wisdom tradition, where we find that it was through Wisdom that God created. Since Christ is indeed the Wisdom of God, it stands to reason that all things were created through him. The author of this letter has used ancient Israelite religious understanding to illustrate and develop his Christological faith. Jesus is indeed the Son of God, the Wisdom through whom all things came to be and remain in being.

John’s lofty presentation of Christ is comparable to that found in the reading from Hebrews. Both characterize Christ as pre-existent; both depict Christ as an agent in the creation of the world. In a free-flowing manner, the author ascribes life-giving power to the Word, the kind of life that gives light. While the Word is the true light that comes into the world, John is merely the witness who testifies to the authenticity and superiority of this light. The Word has entered human history and now dwells in the midst of humankind. Women and men have been greatly enriched by this divine presence, transformed by the love that first prompted God’s revelation and Christ’s incarnation.

Jan 24 2025

The Ancient Promise Is Fulfilled

Look at me. The skin on my hands is so thin that I can see my veins and my bones. My feet shuffle so slowly that everyone rushes past me in the street. The ache in my back never stops. Isn’t it enough already, you who have been our hope for ages past? Long ago, you said that you would not take me to you until I had seen your Messiah. I felt then that it was a wonderful promise. But extreme old age is a burden heavy to bear. All that I love is gone. I have waited so long.

What’s that? This is the day? Go to the temple?

Look at her. Her cheeks are fresh, gleaming with joy, as she holds that boy. She is young. Yet a sword will pierce her heart. The babe is light in her arms. She doesn’t know how heavy it will be to hold a lifeless child. The man stands behind her, a holy family. She doesn’t know the hole left in your heart when your spouse dies. O Lord, I have seen too much. The heaviness of earth weighs me down.

What’s that, you say? This is the One? The child?

Look at him. His tiny head nestles in the crook of my arm. His eyes briefly open. His eyelids flicker as he looks into my eyes. This, this is the one who will set your people free? Joy rises within me. We your people have waited so long. This baby so small will be our hope for years to come? My ribcage swells in jubilation. My aches are gone. I feel like dancing!

Now, Master, please, set me free. Let me come to you in peace. You have fulfilled your promise! Bless you, bless you, my God!

Consider/Discuss

God works miracles through the very old. Abraham and Sarah, Simeon and Anna—they were faithful for so many years. The Lord’s promises to them were fulfilled. How have you seen the beauty of God through eyes of those who have lived long?
God works miracles through the very young. The Holy Family is a sign of promise for years to come. How have you seen the beauty of God through the lives of those who are very young?

Living and Praying with the Word

God of the heavens, you asked Abram to count the stars, to trust you for descendants. You asked Simeon to trust that the Savior of the world would come. You ask us to trust that you do fulfill your promises. You came to us within a human family. So this day, we entrust our families and all those we love to you to hold and keep safe. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, pray for us!

Jan 24 2025

Scripture Study for

The story of Israel commences with an elderly, childless couple to whom God promises countless descendants. The Lectionary reading begins with the initial promise to Abram, made in response to his complaint that all of the blessings he had received will pass to his servant—an unsubtle critique that the promise of descendants has not been fulfilled. In an intervening passage (Genesis 17) God makes this already improbable promise even more unlikely by insisting that ninety-year-old Sarah will be the mother of those countless descendants. The increasingly implausible promise of descendants, however, is finally fulfilled, setting the biblical precedent that God has the power and the will to bring life where it does not seem possible.

In his Letter to the Hebrews the author here focuses on the faith of Abraham, who trusted in God’s promises (Genesis 12:1–7). When God told Abraham to leave his family and go “to a land that I will show you,” he went. Abraham also believed that God would produce an heir through Sarah—and so it happened. The most difficult act of faith came when God, without explanation, commanded Abraham to sacrifice that very same heir (Genesis 22). Although the Genesis account reveals nothing of Abraham’s thoughts about this command, the author of Hebrews draws on the tradition that Abraham trusted God to raise up his sacrificed son, a symbol of the resurrection of God’s own sacrificed Son.

The central theme of the Gospel reading is fulfillment. The Holy Family fulfills the law, obeying it by circumcising Jesus (2:21) and now presenting him to God. According to Exodus 13:11–16, the firstborn male was to be set aside exclusively for God. Usually, the child was redeemed, “bought back,” for five shekels. Jesus is not redeemed, however, because he will remain consecrated to God. The purification of the mother, who became ritually unclean during childbirth for seven days, lasted for thirty-three days after that; then she could once again enter the temple. Jesus himself fulfills God’s promises to Israel. Both Simeon and Anna represent pious Jews who trusted in these promises. They thus represent also those who would recognize and favorably receive Jesus as the Christ.

Jan 24 2025

Jesus, the Light of the World

In the time of Isaiah, messengers carried their proclamations from one post to another on foot. The messenger in this passage brings “glad tidings,” which will be rendered a couple of centuries later in the Greek translation of Isaiah as euangelion. The “good news” is that the Exile has come to an end and the sovereign God who defeats all enemies intends to bring salvation and restore the people. The watchmen in Jerusalem see not only the messenger but also the salvation itself, very likely a reference to returning Israelites heading toward the city. Such is the power and goodness of Israel’s God that all nations will see and admire it.

The Letter to the Hebrews focuses on the unique accomplishment of Jesus Christ. Because he is not only God’s Son and heir, but especially “the very imprint of his being,” Jesus has revealed God more clearly and fully than had the earlier prophets. Whereas in the past God had provided for the broken human condition by legislating repeated purification from sin, now God has provided a fuller and final purification through a great High Priest (Hebrews 4:14–5:10; 7:1–8:6). Finally, as God’s Son and heir, Jesus reigns with God in heaven. As God’s equal, he is therefore also worthy of the worship of all creation.

The beginning of John’s Gospel emphasizes two themes. The first has to do with the person of Jesus as the “true light . . . coming into the world.” As he comes into the world, Jesus, as God’s Word, brings with him the very presence of God: life and light, grace and truth. In other words, as God coming to dwell among us, Jesus brings every good thing that God has to offer the human race, and to creation as a whole. The second theme is the rejection by the world of its very source and life. When the Word comes into the world, the world the Word created, it either cannot or will not recognize him, or at least some in the world have not recognized him. These two themes of presence and rejection will develop throughout the Gospel.