Christmas - Homily 3

Homily 3 – 2008

Luke has his army of angels clarify for his readers the practical effects of the mystery that has occurred with the birth of Jesus: Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace to men who enjoy his favour.  The birth of this child to Mary and Joseph will reveal the glory of God and make peace possible on earth.

The term glory refers to something that can be known or seen of God who is ultimately unknowable.  Through the birth of this child, it will become obvious that God is a God who loves people.  As the chorus sang: We are people who enjoy God’s favour.  To the extent that we accept God’s favour, God’s love, revealed in Jesus, then our world experiences peace, and the truth of God as the God who loves becomes visible to all.

So it’s all Good news.  God is known as the God who loves; and the world can know the peace it yearns for.  But there’s a catch.  It is of the nature of love that it is powerless until it is believed and accepted.  God’s love achieves nothing until the world accepts it and makes it its own.  This means that, until the world accepts and takes hold of God’s love, the peace we yearn for remains pure possibility, but never becomes reality.

You would think that it would be easy for the world to believe it’s loved.  It hungers for love; it cries out for love, but it is slow to believe it, to trust it, to surrender to it, and to let itself be transformed by it.  I wonder why …  I think there are two problems.  

The first comes from the fact that you can only believe love.  You can’t ultimately prove it.  You can only let it be.  And you can’t ultimately control it.  You have to let go of what seems secure (or at least familiar) to step beyond what you can control and take a risk.  Another way of putting it is to say you have to be humble.  The ego has to accept that it is out of its depth.  The insecure struggle to do that.

The other problem is that opening ourselves to be loved doesn’t simply stop there.  Being loved will change us.  It will change us into itself.  It will make us into people who love.  And that can be dangerous.  We only have to look at the outcome of Jesus’ loving to see that.  To love renders us vulnerable; and it opens us up to exploitation.  And we struggle with that.  

So the world still struggles to accept the peace that could be its experience … and the glory of God who loves is largely unrecognised.

The world won’t know peace – no matter how wonderful the world’s leaders (or how much people get carried away by Christmas) – until sufficient people believe in God’s love, surrender to it, let themselves be transformed by it and live their own lives courageously and consistently in love.

But, in the meantime, the wonderful thing is that each of us can have a real personal experience of peace irrespective of where others are at.  We don’t have to wait indefinitely.  To the extent that we let God love us, humbly and consistently, our lives are changed and we experience a true inner peace.  Jesus knew that peace, and he offers it to us.  Being loved, and loving, both take courage.  We struggle.  Let’s help each other.  That is what Church is about.

And, on that note, I wish you a truly Happy Christmas!