Mass Readings for Christmas Day:
Isaiah 52.7-10 Psalm 98.1-6 Hebrews 1.1-6 John 1.1-18
Last night we read the story of the incarnation, the coming in the flesh of Christ, Jesus born in a stable, laid in a manger; but today we are asked to contemplate just what, or rather who, has come.
The word was made flesh and dwelt among us – and we say that this was God’s word that was incarnate. And as I’ve said in past Christmas day homilies that “word” in Greek, Logos is far more profound in its significance than we can imagine. It stands for the very mind of God, the rationality of God, the plan of God, the divine design, so that we might know how our lives are to be lived in harmony with God and creation, how our existence fits into the design of the universe.
There is a rather melancholy note that is sounded in this famous passage from John’s gospel. This word came and lived among God’s people but they did not recognize him; well, some did; and many did who had up till then not been counted among the chosen: the gentiles. And in recognizing who Jesus is, they ordered their lives accordingly, according to what they could discover in Christ and then apply by grace to themselves, building up from generation to generation wisdom born of that revelation in the flesh that came to birth in Bethlehem.
Now for all the centuries of this continuing work of deepening and broadening our understanding of Christ, and of passing it on to others, forming of ourselves and others in his likeness, we would hope that humanity would soon arrive at readiness to receive Christ again in his second coming. We would like to think that humanity learns from its errors, and recognizes its mistakes, and that after two millenia the wisdom of God made manifest in Jesus Christ would be something that could be universally admitted and adopted by people from one end of the earth to the other. But it’s not. Not yet.
I’ve mentioned before how we can look around and see so many people slipping back into chaos, confused about who they are, what their purpose is, where meaning might be found in this fleeting existence we know as human life.
We are all provided the materials from which to make a life, but we ought to be careful of making them through free invention.
Perhaps some might stumble onto something satisfactory, but more is it probable that we will be like children building towers out building blocks or lego bricks, piling up pieces ever higher, constructing our own little towers of Babel to see them totter in their instability and then come crashing down.
Our own St. Augustine, patron of this holy place, said of the word that it was like a blueprint, a building plan. The idea of it laid out upon parchment, all there in its details, but not yet built. He said,
“The plan is already born yet the work is not finished. You can see what you are going to make but no one else can observe and admire it until you have acted and put up that monument and brought it to its finely sculpted perfection.”
If we can admire human designs, and can assess the genius of an architect by the built examples of his work, projects realized from his blueprints, can we then not trust in the greater, ultimate genius of God when we look at what his word has made. As St. Augustine further exhorts,
“Take a look at the structure of the world, observe what has been made through the Word, and then you will have some idea of what the Word is like. Take a good look at the two parts of the world, heaven and earth; who can find words to talk about the splendour of the heavens? Who can find words to talk about the fruitfulness of the earth? Who can fittingly praise the changing seasons, fittingly praise the energy stored in seeds? You will notice how much I am leaving out, because if I went on listing things for a long time I would still in all probability be saying less than you can think up yourselves.”
In Christ made man we have the divine design, the blueprint for our lives, and we are called to study them and to build; but under guidance. As children we are scarcely skilled in such work; as youth we are barely apprentices; as young adults but journeymen who find ourselves often with children and instructing them before we ourselves have become master craftsmen.
As Shakespeare wrote, “there is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them as we will.”
I like to think that is a hint at his hidden Catholic faith, that he sensed the divine hand that gently guides us even as we clumsily work out our lives. This should prompt us to further prayer and attention to the Holy Spirit as we try to follow the plan, so that what we make of our lives is not too roughly finished, that whatever is done by us under the direction of the master builder, wherever and whenever we find ourselves halted and putting down our tools, a firm foundation of faith has nonetheless been laid, and the framework put up sound, the courses of brick level, so that God can then finish us to perfection, make of us something more splendid even than the heavens.
Amen.