Fr. Christopher Dylon
Christmas in a time of Covid is still Christmas, strange though it may feel. In fact, when you think about it, the inconveniences, the anxieties, the discomfort of it all, connect us somewhat to the situation of Joseph and his heavily pregnant wife, for whom there was no room in the inn. What an introduction for the Son of God to the world of his creation! “He was in the world that had its being through him and the world did not know him. He came to his own domain and his people did not accept him.” What might have been expected to be a stupendously triumphal entry, was a non-event, unnoticed, unwanted.
But, His ways are not our ways. As the heavens are high above the earth, so are his ways above our ways; His thoughts above our thoughts; so the prophet, Isaiah, reminds us. For He is full of grace; he is all gift, in our regard.
Did you notice those words of the Opening Prayer, just now; “O God, who wonderfully created the dignity of human nature and still more wonderfully restored it, grant, we pray, that we may share in the divinity of Christ.”? Not content with the dignity of our human nature, we ask for more. This is the Christmas present which we ask from God.
What is it, exactly, that we are asking for? What does it mean, to “share in the divinity of Christ”? That we become God-like; that we become, in some way, similar to Christ, the Lord of the Universe, whom we believe to be the Second Person of the triune God? How has it come to this, that we should presume to consider such a possibility and, even, dare to ask for it?
The dignity of that human nature which God created in the beginning, seems, in some fashion, to have included this possibility, the possibility which we destroyed by sin. But the coming of God in Jesus Christ into our world, by assuming our human nature and being born of Mary, has restored that original possibility; and that is now made available to us by God’s grace, by God’s gift. The gifts we give one another, for Christmas, are a pale, but precious, reflection of this gift of God to us, that we should be His children, adopted and precious to Him, as Jesus Christ is precious to him. Is this not good News, even in these times of Covid?
Why this should be so, why God should so endow us, is sheer mystery; but it is the Good News which Christians celebrate, particularly, at this time of year, the news that God has become man, in Jesus, so that all men may become God; that is, all humankind, for “from his fulness we have all received, grace in return for grace”.
But, of course, the gift has consequences and it makes demands of us, that we behave, as best we may, as Jesus Christ, that we become ever more like him; in a word, that our behaviour brings about God’s kingdom in our world, bringing about that peace on earth, of which the angels sang, in Bethlehem, and the justice that it implies.
The Covid miseries, which all humankind is experiencing, with all their attendant difficulty, are of this existence only. The truth is, there is a larger picture; there is an infinitely greater reality ahead, for all of us. The manner with which we can embrace this truth and live with its consequences will be the measure of how far we will make God’s gift a reality in His world.
Happy Christmas, from all of us to all of you.