Christmas

Yes, the nativity scene is lovely and meaningful. When my children were babies, I too related so much to Jesus coming to earth as an infant. There’s something profoundly moving about seeing Him there.

The Church actually intends the crèche to draw us into the very heart of Christmas; however, the mystery is that this baby is not just cute, but truly God made flesh.

When we see the child in the manger, it’s easy to think only of His littleness. But the liturgies of Christmas remind us that this small child is “the new light of God’s glory” (Preface I of Christmas). The Son who has existed before all ages now enters time. He sacrifices His heavenly form to be human form; on Him, God takes up our frail humanity, so that through what is visible we might be drawn into the invisible mystery of His divine love. He will experience all of our emotions; all of our pain. That’s sacrificial love. This is what the Church calls the “marvelous exchange”: God became human so that we might share in His divine life.

Even the setting of the manger tells us something deeper. Jesus is born not in comfort, but in poverty and rejection, because there was no room at the inn. From the beginning, His light shines in the darkness, and the darkness resists it. That’s why, immediately after Christmas, we experience the response of the darkness when we celebrate the feasts of St. Stephen, St. John, and the Holy Innocents: to remind us that this baby calls us to a life of witness, sometimes even to the point of sacrifice.

So yes, the baby is beautiful, but His beauty is more than sentimental. He is the Word made flesh, God’s love dwelling with us, who came to restore our humanity and invite us into eternal life.