The Love and Joy of Christmas
The Love and Joy of Christmas
The Word of God in the readings today overflows with joy.
Chapter 52 of the Book of Isaiah proclaims a great beauty, exulting one who brings good tidings, bears good news, and announces peace and salvation. And it speaks of a shared shout for joy upon witnessing the redeeming works of God. This imagery beautifully anticipates the arrival of Christ, and His works, but the Truth of the Word of God is not passive in nature. By its very being, in calling us to faith, it calls us to action. Again and again, Psalm 98 commands us to join in acting joyfully, even in song, for having seen, with all the world, the triumphant and saving power of God.
All of this was written before Jesus was born, before the authors or their first listeners could know the full meaning towards which the Holy Spirit was guiding them, and all of us. The first chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews reminds us that their original understanding of the Word of God was incomplete precisely because it is through Jesus, as the Son of God, that God has most fully made himself known.
In the beginning of the Gospel according to John, the very good news is that Jesus is not only the Son of God, but also God himself, who became flesh and made His dwelling among us, even as a newborn child, in order to be with us in a new way. The miraculous hope and salvation offered to the whole of humanity is an act of love, expressed by the perfect love that created all of us, given freely so that we might know that love more personally, and share it more deeply.
Because Jesus is God, He perfectly understood the full meaning of what He was doing when He came among us, and He could not fail to fulfill what He set out to do, so the whole of the love He poured out over the course of His human life--His compassion, His sacrifice, His suffering, His joy--all of this was contained in the moment He became one of us. His birth, though later, was the moment in which that true light, which enlightens everyone, could finally be seen by human eyes.
Since Jesus is also the Word of God, the joy in all of this is not merely a reflection of Him; it is a part of Him. Christmas overflows with joy because it is filled with love. This is true most of all in Jesus, as He shares Himself with each of us. And so too it should be true in each of us, as we share His love and joy with Him, and with each other.
How is love, and the way we share it, transformed by God dwelling among us in the person of Jesus?
How does Christmas present an opportunity to better love and share joy like Christ?
How does this beauty, this transformation, this opportunity, reach across the whole year?
How are all of these qualities, fully realized, at once both universal and deeply personal?
Reflection by John Manley II
Thank you John, for sharing your thoughts. I agree that joy is a marker of the Divine. Merry Christmas!
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