4th Sunday of Advent 18.12.16 Humanity of Christ
We are about to celebrate another Christmas. It could come
and go without much thought.
But let us give it some thought, and connect with the real
meaning of the feast.
It will give due honour to God, and be of great spiritual
benefit to ourselves if we do explore further.
Christmas is the celebration of God-becoming-Man, no less
than that! And in a world of surprising things, nothing could be more
surprising than for that to happen.
Our Lord could have come down from Heaven, as an adult,
fully formed, and ready for action. He could have gone straight to work in
saving the world, performing miracles, teaching the way of holiness, forgiving
sin, and finally dying and rising.
Instead He chose a much longer and slower way of achieving
His ultimate goal.
He really did take on human nature. Some heretics have
suggested that He only appeared to be
human. The Gospel makes clear that He came from the line of His ancestors, and
was born of the Virgin Mary, taking flesh from her.
He went through conception, birth, boyhood, thus showing
deep identification with our human condition. He showed by this that He was
healing humanity in all its stages.
He is human, in fact more human than we are, as in stronger
and better.
We use ‘human’ as a synonym for weakness (I’m only human),
but it can be seen as strength, as it was in His case.
We may be weak but we should not use that as a convenient
excuse for wrongdoing. With a little more backbone, and with the help of divine
grace, we could actually be much stronger, spiritually speaking.
The humanity of Jesus was perfect in every way, and thus
becomes the inspiration for us to imitate.
Having become human He raises the standard, and then conveys
whatever we are willing to receive from His perfect humanity.
He teaches, inspires, empowers us to act as He would act – if
not in working miracles, at least in holiness of living.
Things will never be the same once He has come. Sadly they
have been the same for many, because they have not absorbed the lesson. This is
what happens to people who think Christmas is only eating and drinking!
It is no small
thing that God would join us on such terms. We should never take it for
granted.
Sin has
blinded us; the devil has deceived us. We have another chance, another
Christmas to break into the light. We have a way out of the valley of darkness,
as we soar to higher things.
We declare
ourselves willing to be lifted to higher things, no longer using our humanity
as an excuse, but rather as a stepping stone to progress.
Each generation
has to work this out and make it their own. Can we get it more right than previous
generations?
There is no
reason why we cannot. It just takes focus, and the graces will come. We are not
condemned to stay the same as we always have been.
In the
making of a film the same scene can be done again and again until it comes
right. It would be handy to have that in real life. If we say the wrong thing,
for example, we can cut that scene and start again!
We do have
something of this effect in the cyclical nature of the year. We can get this
Christmas more right than any previous one – by getting to the heart of the
feast, joining our humanity to that of Christ.
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