Christ Before the Nations

The Christmas feast of the Birth of Jesus, Son of God and Son of Mary, overflows with its symbols, rituals, signs and wonders, its narratives, and the mystery of God-made-flesh. Epiphany today continues opportunities to explore the Christ mystery and to be embraced by the actions of God among the human family.

Our liturgical Tradition really presents not so much individual stories and events in the unfolding of the Christmas-Epiphany Season, but rather, we are invited to explore Christ’s redemptive relationship with the Father, empowered by the Spirit, shown among us in the mystery of the Incarnation. It is in the Incarnation that we come to know God in our very humanness. One feast is not sufficient for our understanding of the total intensity and intimacy of what it means that Christ, Son of God, is sent in love by his Father to take on our humanity. One day or one part of the gospel Infancy Narratives cannot exhaust the transformation in grace which Jesus’ Birth occasions.

Shepherds and Kings
Beginning with Gabriel’s announcement of the enfleshment of the Son of God to Mary, we move quickly to the Birth of the Savior in the stable surrounded by the animals of God’s creation. The glory of God is seen after the announcement of the same good news to poor shepherds. They go and adore and tell us that it was just as the angels had told them: Mary and Joseph and the Child in the manger!

Christmas is about light and glory in the dark night. It’s about the poor hearing words of consolation and hope. It’s about a kingdom of peace begun among those of good will.

Under the language and the imagines it’s about redemption, where God and humankind are reconciled. The instrument of reconciliation is humanity in the person and ministry of Jesus, Son of Mary.

Last week we had a side visit to the home of the Holy Family. In one sense, there is a temptation towards romanticism of the scriptural text, for little is detailed about the familial relationships of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus. Such contemporary interest is not the point of the scripture narratives, rather we are further shown that all the actions – the Birth, the Shepherds, the flight to Egypt and the return, the presentation and circumcision, and the losing and finding of Jesus – are all

about the actions and works of the Father in this Son of Man, Jesus, who is at once Son of God and Son of Mary.

In the Kings, their journey, the Star, their gifts we are asked to see Jesus, not only born to the children of promise, but to all the peoples of the earth. While faithful to the Jewish covenant, today’s feast of the Epiphany is about the “showing forth” or the revelation of Christ to a bigger universe of hope among the nations.

The Christmas mystery grows from what appears in the simplicity of the manger to a wonderful experience of Christ by all the nations. The muted power of Mother and Child explodes into the wisdom and earthly power of the Kings laying down their gifts before the one who would establish the Kingdom of God.

The themes carry us through the days: light and darkness, reconciliation and sin, the rich and poor, the shepherds and kings, the journey of discovery of both shepherds and kings. Within the Infancy Narratives of Matthew and Luke, there is the motif of non-acceptance of the Father’s action of grace in Christ. The gospel of John in the Prologue, likewise, speaks about “coming into his own and his own receiving him not.” The story and the mystery are there for the believing and reception. Both shepherds and kings journey and come to believe what they had been told. Their journey ends in a faith response.

The Baptism of the Lord
This year, we are blessed with an additional feast in the Christmas-Epiphany Season, the Baptism of the Lord. In another theophany, a revelation of God to humankind, the Epiphany shows us Christ after his Baptism on coming out of the waters. In this story the heavens open and the Spirit is seen descending on him and then the voice of the Father: “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” Jesus is reborn of water and Spirit. In similar stories we are told to “Listen to him.” Once again we are born in Christ Jesus to faith.

The Season of Grace 2009 once again invites us to faith in Christ Jesus. We are urged to go down into the waters and come out renewed. In Baptism we move again from death to life. Like Jesus, we are called to mission, the sharing of the stories we just heard and experienced in the faith life of the community in celebrating Christmas-Epiphany.

CDH