One of the most important and central themes and messages of this great Feast of Christmas, perhaps THE central message, is just how far God is willing to go, the lengths he will go to, in order to reach us. Christmas shows that he will stop at nothing. In that context, there’s a beautiful appropriateness to hearing the Prologue of the Gospel of John this morning. It might seem strange that we’re not given one of the stories describing the birth of Christ, and indeed at the other Masses of Christmas, those are the gospel readings assigned. But today, on Christmas Morning itself, at the last Mass of Christmas, for the final culminating liturgy of this feast, we have this soaring theological reflection from St. John about what is really going on here: the Beloved Disciple reminds us that the birth of Christ fits into the great story of salvation, a story that goes all the way back to creation: he’s not just in the lineage; he not just connected to the activity of God that’s gone before: he was always there. He was always working. He was always part of the story: in the beginning was the Word. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him. And now, the Word is made flesh and dwells among us.
God cares enough about our salvation, cares enough about being with us here in the world, cares enough about us realizing how profound his love for us truly is: that he is willing to jump into human history. What could motivate a God to do something like that for those he has created? He certainly didn’t need to come to earth for his own benefit. It’s not a justice issue: he didn’t owe us anything, especially in light of our sinfulness. The answer is: This story is a love story. Not in a sordid or inappropriate way of course, but in an intense and pure way, a love story. It’s not for nothing that we refer to what the Lord does on the cross, as his “passion.” What goes on at Christmas, what goes on on Good Friday and Easter Morning: these are chapters of a great love story whose authorship began millennia ago, and in which new chapters are still being written even today, as his love is made real and tangible in each one of our lives. It’s a universal characteristic of passionate love, to look very reckless. For example, when a man and woman make those beautiful promises to each other in marriage: for better OR for worse, for richer OR for poorer, for ever NOT just for as long as I feel like it: those are beautifully reckless, risky promises: they make you vulnerable. But they also make you loveable, and they manifest a complete giving over of self in trust and in confidence. Think about how reckless God’s love is, taking on the weakness of the human nature. Now he’s vulnerable. Now he can be reached. God, who is being itself, life itself and the source of all life, the one through whom all things were made, completely omnipotent, immortal, and eternal, somehow finds a way to be vulnerable to us: somehow finds a way to give himself to us with a recklessness and a vulnerability that is necessary for this to actually be a love that we can see and understand.
So he comes to us, not only with the weakness of a human nature subject to the possibility of suffering and death, which he does in fact receive as the price of his love: not only that, he comes to us as an infant. And he didn’t just seem to be a little baby…he really was. In the tiniest, most vulnerable, humble circumstances: a baby, whose parents don’t even have a room to give birth in, or a crib in which to lay their child: they’re in the cold, under the elements: they have to put the baby in a feeding trough. Every detail in this story is about fragile vulnerability. Every detail in this story is about love. This feast is a reminder of how completely, passionately, recklessly God loves us; and how completely, passionately, recklessly he loves you, specifically and personally. The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. He dwells among us even now. And the Word will become Flesh in mystery again today, this morning, here, in our little church, upon this very altar. And that flesh will be given to us as food for our journey through life. What can our response possibly be, besides profound and intense gratitude and worship: loving him in return, who has first loved us. O come let us adore him, Christ the Lord.