What Christmas Is This?
“...the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” – Jn 1:5
I’ve been having this recurring thought these last weeks of Advent: This is a terrible time to celebrate Christmas. But has there been a perfect time? For nearly two thousand years we’ve been celebrating the Birth of Christ while suffering and death still plague our world. Every Christmas, injustice, suffering, pain, sin, and darkness threaten to make our joyful celebration seem empty, devoid of meaning and purpose. Perhaps more of us feel that more deeply this year, but some of us—maybe all of us—have known other hard Christmases, other times when the beautiful words of today’s Gospel rang hollow. But I’ve been learning that the truth of our faith is that God always comes to meet us not when it makes sense to us, but right here and right now. We are always longing for the gentle light of dawn. And so, this is the perfect time to celebrate Christmas.
I’m a hopeless romantic, so the Rom-Com, Hallmark holiday movies can appeal to me. But like a sugar high, most of the time they only lead to a superficial sense of happiness amidst the harsher reality of the world. But Christmas does not come to distract us from grim reality. Rather, it brings us to a cave in Bethlehem, with an animal’s feeding trough for a crib, attended by poor parents and surrounded by poor shepherds. Christmas tells us how his family was forced to flee like the millions of refugees and victims of injustice in our world today. Today, we don’t celebrate the removal of evil, sin, and suffering. We celebrate Emmanuel, or God-is-with-us. Genuine joy doesn’t come right away or disappear as quickly. God doesn’t allow sickness, doubt, despair, loneliness, fear, or death to keep us from him. God loves us enough to be with us now.
Christmas celebrates the promise that God-is-with-us, suffering with us, being lonely and grieving with us. And this presence redeems because we don’t feel alone. This presence is born to give us courage, to strengthen and empower us. Perhaps we feel like the other inn-keepers who turned the Holy Family away out of fear or some sense of not wanting to be bothered. Perhaps we feel like the shepherds whom Scripture tells us were fearful and not fully understanding. Perhaps we feel like Mary and Joseph, trying to return to the grace of their particular “annunciations” where they trusted in God’s promise and courageously said “yes” to him in the midst of uncertainty.
Perhaps we doubt, perhaps we despair, perhaps we are afraid, perhaps we don’t understand. That’s okay. If that’s where we are, then that is where our loving God comes to meet and be with us.
Lord Jesus, be with me wherever I find myself today. I trust this is the place where you long to be born and reveal your humble light.
David Romero, SJ
P.S. Pope Francis’ homily last night at the Christmas Eve Mass is an inspiring and challenging gift.