Homily @ Christmas: Simple

Year C / Christmas / The Nativity of the Lord

Readings: Isaiah 9.1-7 / Responsorial Psalm 95.1-2a, 2b-3, 11-12, 13  (R/v Lk 2-11) / Titus 1.11-14 / Luke 2.1-14

It is simple. The reason for Christmas. The meaning of Christmas. The message of Christmas. It is very simple.

We have however forgotten how simple it is every now and then, and especially on Christmas Day. We have made Christmas complicated. 

Theologians theologise and philosophers philosophise what Christmas must be about. The self-righteous and the do-gooders give instructions on the do’s and don’ts of celebrating Christmas because of pious devotion. Families fret anxiously about how to spend Christmas together, whether at home and church or somewhere far away. Musicians confuse the meaning of Christmas with tunes about happy holidays, Santa Baby and Rudolph the red nose reindeer. Shops, supermarkets and all kinds of eateries sell out Christmas as they hawk presents, food, drink, and more presents. Some cities around the world light up their streets for Christmas cheer but they take mickey out of the season.

Truth be told Christmas can be complex, complicated and confusing these days. We make it so. We forget how simple it was that first holy night.

In this respect, I feel that we are like the people walking in darkness that our first reading describes. Wandering in the darkness of our familiarity of what Christmas must be as society, tradition and past habits describe, explain, expect. Sadly, our familiarity has led us, now and again, to forgetting how simple the first Christmas was that holy night, and how simple it must really be tonight.

As simple as how the crowd on the pier at the seaside town of Weymouth clapped and cheered when the coloured lights came on one evening as Kazuo Ishiguro describes in his novel, The Remains of the Day. 

Here are lights that come on. Lights switched on that uplift the people. Lights that put things in perspective for the main character Stevens who appreciates himself and his life better.  Indeed, the simplicity of this scene – of lights being switched on and giving life to others should remind us how important this Christmas night must be. 

For tonight we believe a far greater light comes and dispels the darkness. And we proclaim this is God’s radiant light. It shines by cutting through the darkness of our lives and the world. It is a light that uplifts us and gives us hope. There is indeed light because a child is born for us. His name is Jesus the Christ.

This light of Christ comes into our lives to brighten. It also enlightens us. It illumines us again on how simple the first Christmas was and why it must still be for us.

A reporter once asked Basil Cardinal Hume “What does Christmas mean to you?” He answered with this first thought that came into his mind: “The great and awesome God became man for me, that’s what Christmas means to me”. The reporter smiled, nodded his head, thanked him and was off.  

A few minutes later, the Cardinal realised that he said what he did because it was the familiar answer. It was what he had learned in catechism and theology, what he had heard from homilies and in retreats, and what he taught students and parishioners. Aware now, he said, “the simple truth that God had become man seemed to me quite staggering, and I realized that I was looking at this familiar truth in a new way”.

Can you and I see Christmas in a new way? In its simplicity? In the truth of what happened so silently, so surely, so simply as we heard proclaimed in Luke’s Gospel?

What happened is this: that the God who shows up in our world and who makes His way into our lives is a God who is love.  

Isn’t this reason simple enough for us to treasure this Christmas and each Christmas? And isn’t this truth about God simple enough for us to celebrate without so much theology and philosophy, so many traditions and practices, so myriad songs and clever homilies?

Simple then must be our reason for believing in Christmas and loving it as God’s gift. 

For it is in the simplicity of the birth of Jesus in that stable in Bethlehem that we will begin to find the answers to the many questions we ask. What does love look like? What does love do? Why is there a God? Why am I here? What is life about?  We only have to take ourselves to the Christmas crib and look at Jesus lying in the manger, and we will find our answers.

Jesus is the face of God and God’s love for us. He is “Emmanuel” – “God with us” – as the Christmas angel told Joseph the baby miraculously conceived in Mary would be called. Indeed God gets focused for us in Jesus Christ.  

In the face of this simple baby, we see the face of God for the very first time. If you agree with me about this, then no one can insist that we will not know about divine love and compassion. We really cannot because the truth of Christmas is simply this: in Jesus God shows up in our world and in our lives, and what we learn from that encounter is that God is love.

We have encountered Jesus in varied ways and at various times. In all of these, there is a prevailing simplicity. And it is this: in Jesus God is with us, God sees us as we are and God loves us still. Bro Manny, a 75 year old Lasallian Brother shared this with me recently as we reflected on Christmas. 

Indeed, every encounter we have had with Jesus has often been through the simple everyday encounters we have with one another. Encounters of living and loving, forgiving and reconciling. Encounters that challenge and uplift. Encounters that encourage or disappoint. Encounters that care and share. Encounters where we are loved and we love.

“We love,” the Apostle John explained in his first letter, “because He first loved us” (I John 4:19).  And how we know that He “first loved us” is because He came to us in Jesus Christ, born in a manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes. Tonight we learn again this simple lesson for a meaningful life and a happier world.

We hear that “today in the town of Bethlehem a saviour has been both to you; he is Christ the Lord”. This simple reality, unknown to many at the time, enveloped in the stillness of a winter’s night, is what we celebrate it tonight. 

Not just the event but really Jesus. We must therefore not be afraid to claim Jesus repeatedly as the Christmas hope for us and the world. Indeed, “Be not afraid” is how the angels begin their proclamation to the shepherds and to us of God’s coming, not to visit but to stay with us till the end of time.

Christmas challenges all of us to be simple – simple like the shepherds who come to Jesus. Simple in how one trusts God. This is the only way we can begin to understand the majesty of God’s love at work at Christmas.

We should beg God for this simplicity, especially at Christmas. Simplicity opens us to welcoming the mystery of God’s love, and, more so, to savour its goodness. My former spiritual director, the Jesuit Fr Gerard Keane, wrote about the importance of being simple in our hearts so that we can be with God who comes as a simple child to us.  Listen:

We are not at home with the complex. We belong in the world of the simplicity of Bethlehem. This is why the Christmas crib is so much our home. All are welcome. Everything seems resolved as we kneel before the stable in silent and tranquil unquestioning. All are welcome. All are at home – at home in the one spot in life and history that makes us feel we belong. And this is Christmas – simple, uncomplicated, friendly and homely.

Indeed, this is Christmas as it was that holy night, as must be for us now this evening in SJI, and as should always be for all the years to come. 

Christina Rosetti once penned these lines to celebrate Christmas:

Love came down at Christmas, Love all lovely, Love Divine,Love was born at Christmas, Star and Angels gave the sign*.

This is Christmas because God has come to us in Jesus. Yes, it is truly this simple.

A Blessed Christmas, everyone!

* Christina Rosetti, Love Came Down at Christmas.

Preached at St Joseph’s Institution, Singapore.

photo: internet (mormonchannel)