The accounts of the birth of Christ are inexhaustible.
All through our life, our faith finds resources in them
for nourishing itself and converting itself to become
more and more a faith in the God of the Gospel.
There, Christians find their God and discover
themselves, and the truth of their own heart.
Christmas introduces us to the paradoxes with which
the Gospel is strewn from beginning to end: the
infinite God is there in a little child; the Almighty God
is present in the weakness of a new-born infant; the
Word becomes crying. Has it been emphasised
enough how much these accounts are in profound
coherence with the rest of the life of Jesus?
Mistakenly, some people set them aside, as if they
were the residue of a form of religion still too
affiliated to the fabulous. Are we embarrassed by the
appearance of a star? We have to look at the point to
which it is leading us: to a naked infant in a crib.
Above all let us see what these accounts are
celebrating: God who expresses himself not through
force or violence, but through a being who is
helpless, and totally surrendered.
At Christmas, let us also have the courage to listen to
the word of Jesus: “Whoever sees me sees the
Father” (John 14.9). As a result, the fear of God, fear
which insinuates itself so easily, no longer has
grounds for existing. Saint Peter Chrysologus writes
that God became a child so that we might cease to
be afraid of him.
Many contemporaries of Saint John, both Jews and
Greeks, could have written, “In the beginning was
the Word…” Only John, the Christian, who had
touched with his hands the Word of Life, can write,
“The Word became flesh”. By “flesh” we are to
understand weakness, finiteness, mortal created
ness. Here is the scandal of the Christian faith. A
scandal that is not restricted to Christ’s birth, nor
even to his earthly existence, but continues in his
way of being present today. From this, Saint
Augustine draws a whole understanding of the
sacraments.
The Word took flesh, became flesh (John 1.14). And
so God is linked to a process of becoming. He is not
the unchangeable one that the philosophers imagine.
His transcendence does not consist in remaining
aloof, far from human beings. The transcendence of
the God of the Bible is to penetrate human history
and to bring newness to it. Where everything was
old, worn out, apparently exhausted, with no future,
the Word brings freshness, newness, zest for Life or
quite simply what Christians call forgiveness. For if
John writes, “The Word became flesh” with the
connotations of weakness and finiteness that we
have pointed out, he does not say, “we have seen his
misery”, but “we have seen his glory”. An intense
beauty, which John calls “glory”, shines forth from
the incarnate Christ. In his manner of living in the
midst of our world, in accepting human limitations, in
a total surrender into the hands of his Father, in
receiving his existence day by day, glory shines forth.
The face of God reveals itself.
Matthew does not tell us anything very different
when he gives us the long genealogy of Jesus. The
reader concludes that the history into which Jesus
enters is complex and far from perfect. Who is this
God who does not fear getting involved in the history
of human beings, with its density and even its
darkness? He is the God of the Nativity, of the Cross,
of the Resurrection, but also of the sacraments.
Through the Eucharist, he even mingles with our
body, as Saint Gregory of Nyssa dares to say.
It was to take time for Christians to draw the full
conclusions of this way of taking history seriously. It
is not even sure that the process is complete.
Why are we touched by the accounts of the Nativity?
When we read them something resonates inside us,
like an appeal to let go of our shell, and to get rid of
our armour and our self-sufficiency. Our hearts are
made for trusting. Charles de Foucauld expresses
this in his memorable prayer, “My Father, I surrender
myself to you… for it is a necessity of love for me to
give myself, to place myself without reserve into your
hands, with an infinite trust, for you are my Father.”
Very often, the heart only opens up in the presence
of someone humbler than ourself. Let us not forget: it
is the Wholly Other that is present in the crib. But
that child prevents us thinking of transcendence as
distance or as a threat. Open to his presence, we
shall not lose our liberty. We shall be led to make of
our lives a “creation with”. Yes, Emmanuel is there,
in that child: “God-with-us”.....

Couldn't read the post but i guess to Nigerians,any day is worth celebrating.

true.