I had just finished celebrating Mass. With altar servers ahead of me, I was processing down the aisle towards the back of the church. A few pews down I could see a three or four-year-old kid keenly watching the procession. Normally, I high-five kids on my way out, kiss their probably germs infested hands, or give them a blessing. Before I could do any of these things, this kid waved at me and said, “Hi, Jesus!” I grinned, then looked at his parents, knelt down to give the kid a hug, and I walked out. But what I really wanted to do was scream, “Don’t do that to me!” What I really want to say was, “Do you know what they did to Jesus?” What I really want to say was, “Dude, you are stressing me out!” Years back, another little girl used to call me Jesus. One day, her mother said to me that her daughter had woken up at three in the morning and said, “Mom, Fr. Satish is not Jesus!” Well, it kind of broke my heart, but she had just realized what I had known all my life.
Today is Christmas. Christmas is the day on which God came to us as one of us. This is the day on which we look at an infant lying in a manger in a stable and say, “Hi, Jesus!” His name is “Wonder Counsellor”, “Father Forever”, “Emmanuel”, Prince of Peace.” His name is Jesus.
I would like to present three things for us to consider.
The Incarnation: God Embraces Human Life
At the incarnation, the Son of God came to us as a human person. Many people would look at Jesus and not see God. Many did. The shepherds watching their flocks that first Christmas night came to him. They saw and they believed. The magi came and they too did him homage. Later when he began his ministry, a blind man heard that Jesus was passing by and cried out, “Jesus, Son of David! Have pity on me!” He was blind, but somehow, he knew. Another time, Peter looked at Jesus and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God”! Somehow, he realized it. There were many others.
But there was a tragic side to incarnation. As Jesus began to reveal the face of God his humanity became an obstacle for some. Gradually, resistance began to grow. Despite all the good he taught and did, resistance turned into opposition, hate, prejudice, false accusation, and ultimately a violent death.
Here me, God’s people. This little child was human but he was God. Some made room for him, many did not. Some saw he was God, others did not. Some called him Christ, others eliminated him. I am not trying to create a division between those who see it and those who don’t. I merely saying, God is in our midst. He walks like us, talks like us, cries like us, laughs like us, suffers like us, loves us more than we can ever imagine, and brings heaven to us. This is truly the miracle of Christmas.
Whatever You Do to the Least
God becoming human was not some reluctant thing that Jesus did for a few years and then happily return to heaven. Jesus may have ascended into heaven but he lives on amidst us, in human persons.
The scene in the final judgment is a telling account of Jesus continued presence among us. In describing that scene Jesus said to the righteous, “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink, or see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you, or ill or in prison, and visit you?’ The king will say to them in reply, "Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me."
Don’t be scandalized when I say this, but there are people in our midst to whom we can say, “Hi Jesus!” Jesus himself pointed people out people in whom we can find him. Jesus lives in our midst in the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the ill, those in prison, and many others who, like him, are rejected, ignored, and relegated to the periphery. In them, Jesus continues to take flesh. Whatever we do for one of these least brothers and sister we do it to Jesus. This is the miracle of Christmas.
Word Made Flesh
Christ lives among us in yet another way that makes his presence real amidst us. Before he died on the cross, Jesus sat for a meal with his disciples for the last time. It was no ordinary meal. It was the Passover meal. But Jesus changed this meal in a way that left it unrecognizable as the traditional Passover. At that Last Supper, he took bread, broke it, gave to his disciples and said, “This is my body.” Then he took wine and gave it them in the same way, saying, “And this is my blood.” He could not have used more incarnational language. “My body” and “my blood” is an incarnational as it gets. The Eucharist is an actualization of the incarnation. The Word becomes flesh and dwells among us in the same way it did that first Christmas.
But there is more. In Catholic biblical theology, the Christian community is called the Body of Christ. If we understand this right, when that little kid called me Jesus, he was not wrong. In fact, because we receive the Body and Blood of Christ, we can all say to each other, “Hi Jesus!” And that is the miracle of Christmas.
At every Eucharist, we receive a simple piece of bread and a little wine from this altar. When we receive this bread and wine, we receive the “Word made flesh”, Jesus Christ! And we say, “Amen!” May we truly believe in his presence in us. And may his presence in us be so manifest, that people say to us, “Hi Jesus! That truly would be the miracle of Christmas.
Fr. Satish Joseph
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