Christmas Day 2023

Could God have been entirely luminous, mystical, and otherworldly in his coming into our world? He could’ve, couldn’t he? I mean, he created everything from absolutely nothing. He unleashed plagues, parted the Red Sea, rained fire down from heaven to clobber King Ahab’s false gods. He sent for a flaming chariot that swept Elijah, body and soul, off the face of the earth, heavenwards, etc., etc. So, if God could be that luminous, mystical, and otherworldly in the OT, no reason why his Incarnation should be any less. I mean, a choir angels were reported to appear and even sing to shepherds that first Christmas night. So his Son could’ve wafted down a shaft of starlight himself, fully grown, and in awesome majesty! That way, he wouldn’t leave any room for doubt that he was the Messiah promised of old.

But God didn’t do that. Maybe God thought, “I can be luminous, mystical, and otherworldly in a more human kind of way.” Okay, how about this? God could’ve willed to just suddenly appear in Israel as a good man from out of nowhere; initially a stranger, an unknown, like David Carradine in Kung Fu, 500 years ago. He’d say his name was Yeshua, Jesus, “God saves.” He’d then be true to his name. He’d go from village to village, healing, exorcising, inspiring, and drawing crowds. People would ask, “Who is this man whom even demons obey? Where’d he come from?” But the less he had to explain about his beginnings, the more mysterious he’d be! As I’m sure you’ve noticed, sisters and brothers, mystery often ushers human consciousness to divinity.

But God didn’t do that. Okay, how about at least this? God could come into humanity the way he did: being born of human parents, nine months in the mother’s womb, starting out as a baby. But, God naman, couldn’t you have written better script? One with optimal conditions for a nativity story? Because as it happened: Mary pregnant by the “Holy Spirit”? Such that Joseph decided to “divorce her quietly”? Plus, the threat of Mary being stoned to death as an adulterer if Joseph decided to be righteous rather than humane? (You see, sisters and brothers, a devout Jew was duty-bound by Law to sumbong adulterers to the Sanhedrin.) And as if things couldn’t be more arduous: no room in the inn? So, a manger for a cradle? In a God-knows-where, reeking of livestock? God naman.

To compensate for all this, we render our belens in as sublime a beauty as we envision the first Christmas to be. The Holy Family’s faces are aglow, frazzle-free, and flawless. Mary and Joseph look like they’re fresh from the shower after eight full hours of sleep. Baby Jesus, often topless but magically warm, asleep but angelically smiling, at mukhang amoy-Johnsons-baby-powder! ‘Yun! Gano’n dapat ang script, God! Luminous, mystical, otherworldly: the optimal backstory befitting the Son of God!

​But God didn’t do that either. He didn’t do any of that.

Come to think of it, dear sisters and brothers, that’s the kind of savior we really need in our life. The savior we need is someone born under imperfect, unmanicured circumstances; a startup infant his parents were terrified of losing, and then, in the nick of time, saved by God’s mothering hand.

We need a savior who grew up with his dad chiseling and smoothening him into discipline and responsibility, with his mom training him for chores, correcting his mistakes, scolding him, especially that one time when they lost him and went looking for him for two days that brought them to the edge of their sanity!

We need a savior who must’ve also gotten sick, sprained, or wounded; then, lovingly nursed, splinted, or bandaged to health. We need a savior who knew what it felt to go hungry when his dad found no work, and who received what the neighbors shared from the little food they had, and who saw and heard his parents say, “Thank you. We don’t know what we will do without you.”

The savior we need is someone who must’ve agonized over: “Do I keep fixing broken stuff to put food on the table? Or do I quit my job, fix people instead, but leave my mom?” We need a savior whose mom might’ve said, “Anak, matagal mo nang pinangarap ito. Go, anak. Follow your dream. I’ll be okay. God and I will take care of me.” And following his dream, the savior we need is one who also got exhausted and needed me-time, away from fixing people for a while, to recoup, recharge, and fix himself, too.

The savior we need is someone who could cry over losing friend, and weep over his people because they were shepherdless; a savior who could laugh and play with the kids, eat and drink with grownups. We need a savior who would blow the whistle on Pharisees and Sadducees, and he would stand his ground even when they road-raged on him. Because if there was a bunch of people giving God a really bad name, it was the religious, self-righteous guardians of purity.

And now as some if us are not getting any younger, boy, do we need a savior to teach us how to face the last door, to navigate between paralyzing fear and ardent faith on the way to that door, which, we hope, will open when we knock, and lead us back to him.

In other words, sisters and brothers, sure, we need a luminous, mystical, and otherworldly savior, by all means. We need him to be divine, in other words, to be of God, to be God! But we need our savior to also fully understand why we need him to be deeply human like us in all things except in our sin. If he is God with us, we need Emmanuel not only as nearness to us in time and space. We need an Emmanuel who’s a striking resemblance to us.

I end with some words from my favorite Jesuit theologian, Karl Rahner. Contemplating on Christmas, he hears the Lord say: “I am there. I am with you. I am your life. I am your time. I am your joy. Do not be afraid to be happy, for ever since I wept, joy is the standard of living that is really more suitable than the anxiety and grief of those who think they have no hope. I am the blind alleys of all your paths, for when you no longer know how to go any further, then you have reached me…though you are not aware of it. I am in your anxiety, for I have shared it by suffering it. I wasn’t even heroic according to the wisdom of the world. I am in the prison of your finiteness, for my love for you has made me your prisoner. When the totals of your plans and of your experiences do not balance out evenly, I am the unsolved remainder. And I know that this remainder, which makes you frantic, is in reality my love, that you do not yet understand…. I am in your death, for today I began to die with you because I was born, and I have not let myself be spared any real part of this death…. This reality—incomprehensible wonder of my all-mighty love—I have sheltered, safely & completely in your world.”