The Nativity of our Lord - Mass During the Day

A number of years ago, a certain priest had gone on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. While he was there he bought a beautiful wood carved Nativity set. It was so delicate, he did not want to risk putting it his checked luggage, and so decided to carry it in his hand luggage. While he was going through the tight security checks in Tel Aviv airport, the security personnel passed each figure individually through the x-ray machine, including Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus. “We can’t take any chances” the security officer told the priest, “we need to check that there is nothing explosive in this set.” As the priest thought about this incident later he said to himself, “if that officer only knew, this set contains the most explosive power in the world.”

This story takes on a rather ironic twist as we now contemplate the scenes of rubble in the Gaza strip caused by the relentless bombing of the Israeli Defence Forces. As we consider the Holy Land torn apart by a very different explosive power, we might ask ourselves where is the explosive power of the Nativity? If God works in hidden ways, then we are unlikely to find the explosive power of the Nativity by looking to the political powers that are ripping the Holy Land apart.

Instead, we will find it in the hidden alleyways and byways of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, the West Bank and Gaza. We will find this explosive power in a humble Jewish woman who lives in the north of Israel by the name of Yael Noy who is involved in a different kind of battle from the one going on in Gaza. She says that she is “fighting to be good, fighting to stay moral when both sides are in terrible pain. I’m fighting to be the same person I was before.” Yael Noy is the founder of a nonprofit called “Road to Recovery,” which is comprised of about 1000 Israeli men and women who volunteer on a daily basis to drive sick Palestinians (mostly children) from the Gaza strip and the West Bank across check-points into Israel in order to access vital medical facilities at Israeli hospitals. But ever since the 7th October attacks by Hamas terrorists that led to the death of 1,200 Israelis, Yael Noy is “fighting to be the same person she was before.” She is fighting because four of her volunteers were among the 1,200 Israelis killed by Hamas on 7th October. She is fighting because two of her volunteers are among those people who are still being held hostage by Hamas. She is fighting because every time she talks to her fellow Israelis about the suffering of Palestinian children, they look at her like she is the enemy.

For three days after the October 7th attacks, Yael says that she “felt like something was broken inside my heart” and she vowed that she would never talk to Palestinians in Gaza again. But she found that she simply couldn’t allow herself to lie in the cesspool of hate and allow the atrocities to change her. So she and most of her volunteers went back to transporting Palestinians to life-saving medical appointments in Israel. The volunteers who continue to operate Road to Recovery are testaments to the explosive power of the Incarnation which allows love to triumph over hate, forgiveness to triumph over bitterness and hope to triumph over despair. People the world over have been struggling to find the appropriate words to bring lasting peace to the Holy Land. It is such an intractable complicated problem, which the current violence will do little to solve. Into this intractable problem, God speaks a Word, God’s one Word who needs utter no words in order to communicate peace, love and joy. In the words of Yael Noy, she cannot ignore the plight of the Palestinian children, because whether Jewish or Muslim or Christian, people are people. The Word by taking on our human flesh has sanctified our flesh and gives us power to become the children of God.

John’s gospel is unique amongst the four gospels in that it alone begins Jesus’ story not from his earthly life, but goes back to before the very beginning of time. In this way, John’s invites us to meditate on Jesus’ pre-existence. Before his coming to earth, Jesus existed as “the Word.” John tells us that from the very beginning the “Word was with God.” The English doesn’t do a great job of translating the Greek, seeing as the word “with” gives the impression of a static abiding of the Word “with God.” But the Greek is far more dynamic and a better translation would render this verse “the Word was turned towards God.” There is not a complete identity between God and the Word – rather there is a dynamic interpersonal relationship between God and the Word. The beginning of John’s gospel is a very deliberate allusion to the beginning of the book of Genesis, so that the Word is identified with the words that God utters at the beginning of all creation that bring about light, life and the earth. The Word goes from being an inwardly focused Word spoken and echoed in the eternity of God’s Being, to being a Word that flows outwards and creates the world. The Word is the means by which God shares God’s life with us. It is a Word spoken in the eternity of God which then takes on different forms throughout history to draw humanity and the whole of creation ever deeper into the Triune life of God.

We first encounter the gift of life in a very visceral way when we experience the goodness of creation through our senses: the taste of a peach, the beauty of a sunset, the fragrance of a rose. These experiences of sensory joy are a participation in God’s Word uttered at the beginning of time and echoed throughout creation in a hymn of praise back to God. But this was just the beginning of God’s communication through God’s Word. This type of communication was still very “hit and miss,” as 5 times out of 10 when we bite into a juicy peach, we are not led to explicit praise of God and deepening of our relationship with God. And so God began to communicate though God’s Word more explicitly, as our second reading tells us: “in times past God spoke in partial and in various ways to our ancestors through the prophets” (Hb 1:1). And so the relationship got that much more intimate and personal. God’s Word was not simply communicating to us through forests, glades, peaches and the song of the bird, but in a language that we might hear and name as our own. But the prophets were mostly killed, and at best derided and ignored. So in the fullness of time, God sent his Son in order to release this explosive power of the Word. For while Jesus spoke many words to us, which are retained for us in the Gospels, his greatest communication to us was his very life, his very being amongst us. The baby Jesus doesn’t speak any words to us, but nevertheless the message of the Word as a vulnerable baby born in a lowly stable speaks volumes more than any words. It is this Word that has been releasing its explosive power to all who care to tarry a while at the manger and contemplate the mystery of the Incarnation.

A story is told of a young Jesuit scholastic who was attending a theology lecture on the gospel of John. He was wrestling with the high flown theological discourse of the opening chapter of John’s gospel and attempting to give his own interpretation of this classic text. Having expounded his theory, his professor said to him, “Michael, what you just said that was brilliant. Absoutely brilliant, but completely wrong.” To which the intrepid theologian responded exasperated, “So then Professor, what is the Word?” “The Word, Michael, is Christ” This answer did not satisfy Michael, who responded laconically “Professor that’s a tautology” “No Michael, you haven’t understood me, Christ is all that the Father has to say to us, about anything. Christ is God’s only self-description, Christ is God’s only dream for us. Christ is all that God has to say, has said and will say to us!” Questions for reflection

1. Where in my life do I need the power of wordless acts of love break through the deadlock of hatred, jealousy, grudges and bitterness?
2. How can I communicate the simply hope of God’s being-with-us to those whose humanity is degraded and those who are left in the darkness of despair?