bukas palad: December 2016

Year A / Christmas / Christmas Day

Readings Isaiah 52.7-10 / Psalm 97.1,2-3ab, 3cd-4, 5-6 (R/v 3) / Hebrews 1.1-6 / John 1.1-5, 9-14

Have you ever wondered about the paper that wraps our Christmas gifts?

Its color delights us. Its design makes us smile. But we’re more eagerly focused on the gift. We shake it and feel it, sometimes we smell it, to try and guess what the wrapping paper and trimmings hide. At best, the wrapping paper completes the whole package making it Christmassy. Almost all us, especially children, then simply rip and tear and pull apart the wrapping paper to get to the gift.

It’s all about the gift, isn’t it? The paper is useless—simply decorative, simply ornamental, simply unimportant. No one pays much attention to it. After it is ripped and torn apart, it’s useless. It’s done its job. It’s thrown away.

Don’t we throw away much more than Christmas wrapping paper in our lives? Throw away someone else’s forgiveness, care and love by being ungrateful and uncharitable in return. Throw away ordinary things and moments that are our daily bread by believing that the expensive, the superficial, the passing provide. Throw away countless opportunities for a fuller, happier life by being calculative, jealous, miserable, frighten. Yes, may be, even throw way God and God’s wishes for us, now and again, by insisting that our self-centered, self-righteous, self-preserving ways are best. And don’t we sometimes feel like thrown away paper—unappreciated, undervalued, unloved?

Today, we celebrate Jesus’ birth. In him, God reminds us that we are meant for God, not to be to be thrown away because of sin and cast into the dung heap of death. God gives us Jesus as our hope-filled joy that we are his. How does God do this? We hear it in our gospel reading: “And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth” (John 1.14).

Christian scripture, song and art always presents the new born Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes. But God became human, like you and me, by wrapping himself in human skin. It is in human skin first and foremost that our God wraps himself up to dwell amongst so as to love us and to serve us in Jesus.

Does this shock you? That God wrapped in human skin? Wrapped himself in human skin, so prone to disease and death, to sinfulness and evil? What can it mean for us that God choose to wrap himself in human skin? Nothing more, nothing less than the goodness of human skin, our skin, for God.

In birth, Jesus reveals the glory of God as fullness of grace of who we are to God. By wrapping himself in human skin, God acknowledges that it is frail, and that our humanity can be as sinful as it can be saintly, but more than this, that we are in our skin, warts and all, always good enough for God. Jesus coming daily into our lives proclaims this.

In birth, Jesus also reveals the glory of God in the truth of who God is and how God wants to interact with us. God wishes to be with us, not throw us away. God desires this because “everything in Jesus speaks of God’s mercy; nothing in him is devoid of God’s compassion” for us (Pope Francis, Misericordiae Vultus, 8). By choosing to wrap himself up in our skin, so often scarred by infirmity and weakness, yet also traced with hopes and joys, God very clearly wants to get involve with and in our lives.

By meeting us in human skin, God in Jesus allows us to meet him in our skin. We can touch him, as we can also speak with him, hear him, see him, know him, live with him. Yes, God has come to us in Jesus to abide in us, so that we can abide in him (John 15.4). This indeed is reason for Christmas celebration because as Paul writes in his letter to the Hebrews it is now in our time that God no longer speaks in partial and various ways, through prophets of old, but fully through Jesus who comes to redeem us for God (Hebrews 1.1-3).

Part of exchanging gifts is acknowledging what we receive. We say “thank you”. We shake hands in thanksgiving. We give an embrace in appreciation. We kiss in the love of being loved, and we smile in gratefulness.

God gives Himself to us in Jesus. He is God’s gift. We visibly represent this in the baby Jesus in the manger. As we stand or kneel before Jesus in the manger, what will we say or do to express thanks? How shall we respond to God who comes to us wrapped in our very skin?

Many will welcome Jesus with words of thanksgiving and greet him with praise. Some will ask for graces such as the grace to be generous and make promises to follow and serve better.

There is another way to acknowledge God’s gift of Jesus. An Ignatian way. Anyone who has done the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola would have prayed the final contemplation. It invites us to love God and love others more in deeds than in words.

A deed we can make this Christmas is to let Jesus wrap us in God’s very skin. And what is God’s skin but love? In the Letter to the Colossians, Paul urges Christians to put on love, God’s love that binds all together in perfect unity (Colossians 3.14). To put on such love, you and I must wrap ourselves in the very skin of God, God who is Love and Love that is God’s way to live.

Does it scare you to want to put on God’s skin and make it your own? I think you, like me, are afraid because we honestly know how unworthy we are to do this and how weak we are to accomplish it.

Jesus however can do this for us. So, let us be audacious as we humble ourselves before Jesus in the manger, and beg him to wrap us anew in God. Let us have the holy boldness to plead for this from him in whom God has redeemed, transformed, and made whole again human skin, our skin. Indeed, let us be as confident as St Ireneaus who understands that Jesus’ coming brings all the newness for us to live with God more fully, more hopefully, more joyfully.

If God wraps himself in human skin in Jesus, then it is only in Jesus that we will be enfolded into God’s skin. In Jesus, God touches humanity in skin that enfleshes God’s mercy, God’s love, God’s life. In Jesus, God calls us to do likewise. This is why every time we reach out in Jesus’ name to touch another’s skin, especially, skin we fear because of disease and colour, difference and vice, corruption and sinfulness, we let him wrap us more and more in the love of God.

I believe we all want to live and serve like Jesus. But we struggle because we are so wrapped up in our own skin. We need new skin, God’s skin, to wrap us anew. At Christmas, God becomes what we are in order to make us what he is himself. To make us what he is himself—there is no other way this can happen unless we take on God’s skin, take on his love so as to love like him. This is how human skin can be stretched, reshaped, made new by Jesus who comes so that "we become fully human…by letting God bring us beyond ourselves" (Pope Francis, The Joy of the Gospel, 8).

At the manger, then, let us offer ourselves as gifts to God, not perfect, not saintly, but just as we are. Let us let Jesus wrap us up for God, wrap us in nothing better than in the same human skin he has wrapped himself in—skin that he has redeemed and renewed through the Incarnation. For, like the wiser, older family ones who gingerly peel back the scotch tape to save the wrapping paper for another gift, another occasion, let us let God save us and use us anew. Yes, this action is also what Christmas joy must be about: that today God makes all things we throw away very valuable again in Jesus.

Preached at St Ignatius Parish, Singapore
photo: from the Internet (scripture for today. bloodspot.com)

Year A / Advent / Week 2 / Sunday

Readings: Isaiah 11.1-10 / Psalm 72.2, 7-8, 12-13, 17 (R/v cf 7) / Romans 15.4-9 / Matthew 3.1-12

Have you ever read a “whodunit” mystery novel, like The Hound of Baskerville by Arthur Conan Doyle? The kind whose complex plot is riddled with many clues to help you discover more about the mystery, and with this fuller knowledge, solve it, like the protagonist does?

What if Advent is a bit like a “whodunit” mystery we are trying to make sense of?

Throughout history, humankind waited expectantly to encounter God. They called this waiting Advent. They tried to understand who God is and why God is important their lives. They tried to make sense of how God worked in their lives. We do the same today—trying to make sense of our own waiting, our own Advent. In faith, we understand Christmas as the fulfillment of Advent: God comes into human time and space to save us in the person of Jesus.

Everybody likes Christmas: everything about it is good, joyful, bountiful, and blessed. But Advent comes before Christmas so that we can prepare ourselves to go deeper into the true meaning of Christmas. Go deeper by going beyond the superficialities of Christmas, like Christmas trees and trimmings, twinkling lights and feel-good carols, prettily wrapped up presents and the merriment of gatherings. Go deeper to appreciate that God comes to us in Jesus to save us from sin and death, and so draw us to Godself—draw us to that destination and destiny we don’t know exactly where it is or how it will be but we will know what it is because in that moment, in that space, we will experience being in the fullness of life with God. In faith, this is what we believe.

Today the Prophet Isaiah gives us a vision of this future Jesus’ coming promises: “The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together” (Isaiah 11:6). He gives us an image of a place where justice flourishes and peace reigns. It pictures why Jesus came and where he will lead us. It assures our belief in God; it guarantees our hope in Christmas.

Daily, we need hope: hope to believe that we will remain faithful to God, even as we struggle with our unchristian words and deeds. Universally, many yearn for hope: hope to live through the world’s troubles and uncertainties, its pain and suffering. Where are we to find this hope? Paul points us in this direction in our second reading: “Everything that was written long ago in the scriptures was meant to teach us something about hope from the examples scripture gives of how people who did not give up were helped by God” (Romans 15.4).

Advent reminds us that we are indeed God’s people: we are always in need and God is always ready to help. Our Advent readings set our sights on this truth in Jesus—he is our Christmas hope. We can learn to appreciate this hope, and deepen it, by considering the clues our Advent readings provide—clues that enable us to remember, to celebrate and to believe in Jesus, “the Son of God who became man so that we might become like God” (St Athanasius). This is why Jesus is the reason for our salvation. This is why our Advent waiting must be joyful anticipation.

Today’s readings offer us two clues to help us better embrace Christmas hope: the shoot of Jesse and John the Baptist.

“A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots” (Isaiah 11.1). We heard this line in our first reading, It is an unusual image to picture Jesus’ coming. I learned to call such a shoot a sucker in Biology class. A shoot growing out of the stump of a chopped down tree is in fact an eyesore. But in scripture this shoot symbolizes Israel that God protects and perpetuates. Israel’s enemies tried everything to end the family line of Jesse from which David became King and Jesus comes as the long expectant Messiah. They failed; God prevailed.

How should we interpret this clue? This tiny shoot is about to sprout. It is fragile yet it bears much promise. Such is the coming of God in Jesus. He comes not in triumph or power. He comes vulnerable, defenseless as a newborn child. He comes like a small shoot but a shoot graced in God’s spirit of wisdom and understanding, of counsel and insight, of knowledge and fear of God, of delight in God, to transform and save the world. More than this, he comes to make real the angels’ announcement to the shepherds, “Be not afraid”. This is the hope we need today, as our ancestors in faith needed in history.

This image of the shoot also calls us to pay attention to how they grow into branches. They grow right at the edge of a tree. They grow because new cells at the tree’s edge produce shoots that sprout; in time, they grow into branches that go outward and upward. They are fragile in the beginning; they become strong as they mature. Parts of our lives are like shoots; they are our growing edges. They are fragile but they offer us the opportunity to mature in hope. We need to have hope to be brave that this will happen. What might some of these edges be for you? Will you be brave enough to let them grow this Advent so that you can go deep in your hope for Christmas?

Going deep in hope is exactly how John the Baptist is able to prepare the way for Jesus’ coming. He does this by being more than a voice in the wilderness for us to hear. In fact, he models the way to welcome Jesus: he shows us what happens when one dares to enter into one’s own wilderness to meet God in hope and to know this hope is indeed God's coming in the person of Jesus.

What should shock us about John the Baptist is not his appearance or diet, his threatening language or truthful message. It is this observation he makes and puts into action in his life: “Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees” (Matthew 3.10). He has laid the ax to his life by emptying himself totally for God. This is why it matters to enter into the wilderness of one’s life and depend solely on God in hope—and on God who transforms. In the wilderness, John emptied himself of his fear and ego and God formed him into the prophet who announces Jesus’ coming and the power of Jesus to forgive.

How should we interpret this clue that John the Baptist is for our Advent preparations? In John's example we understand why we have to empty ourselves for God: this is the only way to prepare well to receive Jesus. We can do this in Advent by laying the ax to our lives and chopping down and rooting out of all our habits of greed, shame and selfishness. Then, we will truly empty ourselves for God’s coming.

A shoot and a prophet. Two clues from today’s Advent readings to help us prepare better for Christmas. Clues that dare us to go into the wilderness of our lives, those places of vulnerability, those edges in our lives bearing the promise of growth, like shoots on a tree stump, and to grow in hope. Clues that challenge us to discover the breadth, the depth and the height of our hope in God in our Advent preparation of emptying ourselves to welcome Jesus. Clues that ask us to gamble all we believe in God to be true this Christmas by still seeing in things as tiny as a shoot or in moments as empty as the wilderness God’s faithful, saving presence as our hope.

May be when we grasp the gift these clues are, we will appreciate even more how Isaiah’s vision of the fullness of life Jesus’ coming—“The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together”—is fulfilled because of the one all the Advent clues point us to: “a little child who shall lead them” and all of us onward into God’s presence. And this child's name is Jesus.

Preached at St Ignatius Parish, Singapore

Photo: www.butternutvalleyfarm.com

bukas palad

with open hands, we give what we have first received. and with open hands, we receive what we will divest, once again. this is blessing itself: the giving and receiving of life and love, the sharing of faith and God.

Homily: Wrapped

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Homily: In This Time of Advent Growth

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