Christmas 2011
God became
human - let us do likewise!
Psalm 8; Gal 4:1-7; John 1:1-5, 9-14, 16-18
Christmas – a revolution in our thinking about God and humanity.
I
wish you a joyous and meaningful Christmas!
Christmas is the Christian celebration that God and
humanity are not strangers. They are friends. Interesting, mysterious, strange
at times - but friends, life enhancing friends.
To be sure, God and humanity are not the same. They are different.
God is God and we are human.
Yet, our humanity,
our being human, includes a longing for
the source and the secret of life: “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my
soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God”, the
poet from the Hebrew tradition confesses (Psalm 42:1f.). Being human includes
the interesting possibility of being open
towards God.
And God does
not live in splendid isolation, up
there or out there somewhere, where humanity is not known (so Ernst Bloch’s
criticism of the Christian understanding of God). God’s being includes a sharing
of God’s life with us and with the joys and the pains of the world in which
we live.
So as we, being human, are open towards God, so God –
we celebrate at Christmas - includes God’s relationship to our humanity.
The ancient Christmas
hymn from the Gospel of John confesses that the divine word “became flesh” and lived among us; and
the Christian creed which all Christian churches confess, says that
“For us all and for
our salvation
he – Jesus Christ - . . . became
human.”
If that is true, that God and humanity are different, but that neither excludes the other, but longs for a relationship with the
other, then that is quite a revolution
in our thinking - both about God and about
humanity.
Let me meditate for a moment on that revolution of
which the Christmas message reminds us.
God
Let
us think of God first.
The God whom religious people affirm and atheists deny
is often a God painted according to our
ideas of what God should be like. Such a God is often removed from the nitty gritty of life. It is a God who lives in
splendid isolation. It is a God who cannot feel, who has no heart and who
cannot suffer.
Listen to this poem which comes to us from the
struggle for human dignity in
Where
was god, daddy; where, where, where,
when
the commissioners
broke
the fence,
burnt
the farm,
destroyed
the harvest,
killed
the pigs,
raped
Imelda,
drank
our rum?
HE WAS UP THERE,
boy.
Where
was god, daddy; where, where, where,
when
because we complained
the
state judge came and fined us
the
bailiff came to arrest us
and
even the priest came to insult us?
HE WAS UP THERE,
boy.
Well
then daddy; we must now tell him plainly
that
he must come down sometimes
to
be with us.
You
can see how we are, daddy,
with
no fields sown, no farm, no pigs, nothing,
and
he as if nothing had happened.
It
isn't right, you know, daddy.
If
he's really up there
let
him come down
Let
him come down to taste this cruel hunger with us
let
him come down and sweat in the maize-fields,
come
down to be imprisoned,
let
him come down and spew on the rich man
who
throws the stone and hides his hand,
on
the venal judge,
on
the unworthy priest,
and
on the bailiffs and commissioners
who
rob and kill the peasants;
because
I certainly don't want to tell my son when he asks me one day:
HE WAS UP THERE, boy.[1]
My friends, the God whom we confess at Christmas is
not removed from the struggles, the pains, from the nitty gritty of life. The Christmas hymn that was sung in the
church in which the Gospel of John
was written affirms, not that God lives out there in splendid isolation, but that
God has shared God’s life with the human person Jesus of Nazareth and thereby took
on board and shared our human journey with all its pains, uncertainties and
ambiguities: “. . . the Word- the
divine Word that has always being part of God’s being - became flesh and lived among us . . .”
Do you remember how God was portrayed when the Hebrew
people were weighed down under the yoke of slavery and oppression? “. . . the lord said, ‘I have observed the misery
of my people who are in
My friends, I don’t know at what stage you are in your
life’s journey. I don’t know whether joy is flooding your life today, or
whether pain, uncertainty and hopelessness is threatening to drown you.
Where ever you are, I would like to say to you –
indeed, we need to say it to each
other! - that the God whom we worship and celebrate today, does not live in
splendid isolation, but shares in the joys and pains of your life.
That is the revolution in our thinking of God. God
does not live in splendid isolation. God shares in the journeys of our life.
Humanity
Now
a word about us, about our being human. Such a word is important
because there have been strands in our culture and in our thinking that have down played our humanity.
We in the church, in the realm of Christian faith, have
at times been told to deny our humanity and become divine. Sainthood has sometimes
been understood as denying the passions of life and withdrawing from the world.
The closer we come to God, the more we leave behind our human life and the
world in which we live – so we have been told.
But just as the celebration of Christmas is a protest against understanding God as
living in splendid isolation, so Christmas is also a protest against any
attempt to deny or play down our humanity.
Quite the opposite. The Christmas story invites us to affirm and celebrate our humanity, our being
human: “. . . the Word - the divine
Word that has always been part of God’s being - became flesh – became human - and lived among us . . .”
The Christmas hymn from the Gospel of John affirms
that God has shared God’s life with the human person Jesus of Nazareth and
thereby affirmed and graced our humanity.
“. . . the Word became flesh and
lived among us . . .”
Christians are not expected to deny or play down their
humanity but to joyously affirm it.
We are not supposed to become divine. Our
call and destiny is to become human!
But let us not forget that humanity is one. Let us resist the cultural temptation of
glorifying the individual and let us celebrate that we belong to each other, that we need
each other. That we are part of a common
humanity.
When God shared God’s life with Jesus, God did not
just affirm and grace maleness, since Jesus was a male, or Jewishness, since
Jesus was a Jew, but God said YES to humanity,
to every human person and to all human persons; to all of us together.
The integrity
of our celebration depends on our acknowledging that we are part of humanity.
Our humanity hangs together with all human beings. At Christmas we are celebrating
the humanity of all human beings.
So, as we enjoy the Christmas celebrations, enjoy our
family and friends, enjoy a good dinner – and we should enjoy all of that! –
our humanity also includes those who are less fortunate than we are, who live
in abject poverty, who flee oppression and risk and lose their lives in the
process.
Jesus Christ was born
in a stable because there was no room in the hotel – may that remind us of
the fate of the homeless in our midst.
Jesus’ family had to flee from their home country – may that remind us to think of
refugees today and intensify our resolve to make our society more generous and
compassionate.
When Jesus returned from exile and engaged in his life’s
mission he fasted in the desert, was opposed, tortured and finally killed – may
that make us sensitive to those who experience hunger and pain.
Conclusion
Christmas
invites us to entertain a revolution in
our understanding of God and of humanity.
God does not live in splendid isolation, far removed from
the struggles and challenges of our life. At Christmas we celebrate that God is
involved with us. God intensifies our joys and helps us to carry our burdens.
God is a friend of humanity. God is involved with us.
At the same time, God affirms our humanity. We
should not try to deny our humanity or flee from it. Our destiny is not to be
divine, but to be human. Let us take our place in the see of humanity and
accept responsibility for our human sisters and brothers.
God became
human - let us do likewise!
TL,
[1]Cited
from: Julia Esquivel Velasquez, “A letter from