Christmas, December 25, 2007

Christmas, 2007

In the beginning, God used to come down to the Garden of Eden to enjoy a stroll around the garden with Adam and Eve on either side. They enjoyed the cool of the evening breeze together everyday. This they did routinely until one evening when he came down the two were not anywhere to be found. They had disappeared from his sight. God called them: 'Adam – Eve!! but there was no answer. He called over again, still no answer. He called yet again, and they braved up and said, 'we are here hiding because we are naked.” That day they disappointed him. He could no longer trust them, and they no trusted themselves around God. So, they were estranged from God.
Have you ever had a friend, at least you thought he was a friend, until one day you realized that s/he was a snake behind your back. That same sense of mistrust and suspicion ensued between man and God. It is awkward to cross paths with such a person.

God has always wanted to re-kindle that Glorious Original Relationship, before Original Sin ensued. God always missed that relationship with man. God enjoyed our company. Typical of what forgiveness is, it took the one who was offended, the one who had been double-crossed, to re-initiate that relationship.

And that started the Incarnation process. The becoming Human/Flesh of God. It is not foreign to God to come down to stroll around the garden of the Earth with mankind. He had done it routinely in the Garden of Eden in the beginning.
The Mystery of Christmas, the Son of God coming down among us, is the re-initiation of that Original Relationship between God and Man.

APPLICATION:

Well, one evening Adam and Eve stood God up. They were nowhere to be found. God is re-initiating that exact same relationship with you and I. Are you there for His appointment? For His coming? Are you there when He comes?
Does He find you waiting expectantly? Or are you hiding behind the bushes as Adam and Eve?
He comes at the very least every Sunday to us in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. At the most he come every day. Are you there, when he comes to take a stroll with you through the Garden of Eden of your Household, workplace, school, church?

He comes in the Sacrament of Reconciliation where the Original Relationship that was severed by Original Sin is restored and bridged. Are you there when he looks for you for an evening walk/stroll in the cool evening breeze? Or are you in hiding because of your shame. Come out.

“Do not be Afraid, for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people ...”   “You shall be a glorious crown in the hand of the Lord, a royal diadem held by your God.” You are precious. Your nakedness, shame and indignity is over. “No more shall people call you “Forsaken,” or your land “Desolate,” but you shall be called “My Delight,” and your land “Espoused.”

“As a young man marries a virgin, your Builder shall marry you; and as a Bridegroom rejoices in his Bride so shall your God rejoice in you.” Come out/back to the Garden of Eden where food and water are plentiful. Come back your original state, to the Oasis of Life and plenty of Fruit trees including the Tree of Life. Return from the Desert where there is no food, no water, no life, where God had once banished you. Today your banishment is ended. Live and take walks with the Lord now. Days of the Desolate Desert life are over. Psalm: “I have established a covenant with my chosen one.”

Story of an Upright Man and Pigeons: (by Fr. Flor McCarthy, SDB)

There was once a good and upright man who had a problem with the Incarnation. He couldn't believe that God's Son became one of us, and was too honest to pretend. It sounded too lofty an idea for him. So on Christmas Eve, when he wife and children went to church, he stayed at home. Shortly after his family left, it began to snow hard. He went to the window to watch it fall. All of a sudden birds bounced with a thudding sound against the window pane right in front of him. Lots of them. They were pigeons. They had been caught in the snow storm and in their desperate search for shelter,had seen the Light and flew into the window.

“I can't let these little creatures lie there and freeze to death,” he thought to himself. “But how can I help them?”
He then remembered the barn. It would provide a nice cozy warm shelter for them. He put on his coat and boots and made his way through the snow to the barn. There he put on his flashlight, but the birds did not follow.

“Oh! Food will bring them in,” he said. So he scattered a trail of bread crumbs all the way into the barn. But the birds still wouldn't come. Then he tried to shooo-shoo them into the barn by walking around them and waving and flailing his arms at them. But they were too alarmed and so scattered in all directions into the darkness. Then he thought to himself, “They find me a strange and terrifying creature, eh! If only there was some way I could get them to trust me.”
At that very moment, the bells of the church began to ring. He stood silently as they rang out the glad tidings of Christmas.

“The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” Then it dawned on him that just like those birds/pigeons he was looking for light and shelter from the storms of life, but for him God was aloof and too scary a stranger to associate with anyone.
It dawned on him why God would go to the lengths of taking the form of man and become one like us in everything but sin.
It was so that he could lure us to the safe-haven of Heaven without scaring us away, because we were scared of God to begin with. We learned to be threatened by God and the Concept of God from our first parents who hid in the bushes.

There was no way he could Espouse/marry us to himself when we are scared of him. It would be a long-distance relationship. Our Lord would like to shoo—shoo us into his barn, the Church. Mt. 23: 3739: “How often have I longed to gather your children, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you refused! So be it! Your house will be left to you desolate, for I promise, you shall not see me any more...”

As the old Noah shoo—shooed pairs of each species into the Ark, Our Lord would, as the new Noah, would like to shoo—shoo us into the Ark of Covenant (the church) for safety from eternal death. But we scatter into different directions and denominations. The Eucharist is his food and crumbs he is trying to scatter in a trail towards himself inside his barn, the church. But, as John says,  “The Word became man and dwelt among us.” “He came to what was his own but his own people did not accept him.”  “ He was in the world... but the world did not know him.”
Does He find a room in the Inn of your household, a Tabernacle in the Temple of your body. Do you come out of the bushes when you hear His voice calling for you?

“My sheep hear my voice and follow me.” (John 10: 3-4) Do you?

LESSON:
Our Lord's incarnation also affirms the beauty and preciousness of our Human Nature. It is as beautiful as he said in the beginning of Creation after creating Adam and Eve, “And God said, It is very, very good.” We are beauty to the superlative degree, the envy of the angels.

So, we don't have to deny our humanity in order to be important. We don't need to deny others of their humanity either. We do good to restore the dignity and worth of humanity on others as well whose dignity has been denigrated by poverty, sexual improprieties, exploitation, abuse, etc.

That is why and how Peace will reign on earth, when we all appreciate our humanity, cherish it as God does. That is how today is glad tidings of joy. We are the Beloved of God,  “No more shall people call you “Forsaken,” or your land “Desolate,” but you shall be called “My Delight,” and your land “Espoused.”

We are Precious in the eyes of God. “You shall be a glorious crown in the hand of the Lord, a royal diadem held by your God.