What a wonderful evocation of joy and gratitude Isaiah offers us in the words:
How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace.
The
city had been under long siege and neighbouring towns and cities had been taken
and destroyed. Hope was no more in
evidence than the almost non-existent and much-disputed food, with no more
than a few pitchers-full of water available from what had once been deep, brim-top-lapping,
cisterns. The army had gone out to fight
indeed, but they left more in desperation than in expectation; some of the
people had cheered them on their way, but the conviction was not there; prayers
also had been offered, but with lips that trembled; and now those left inside
the city walls waited in silence, with hearts unable to shake off a dark
foreboding of what might soon befall them.
Eventually
a runner was noticed in the distance by those keeping watch from the protecting
walls. He had been expected of course; but,
as they caught clearer sight of him, they began to look at one another in
disbelief: this runner is running strongly, running confidently; he is not pumping
his arms in agonizing effort, he is raising them, waving them exultantly! He is, surely, one who:
PUBLISHES PEACE, WHO BRINGS GOOD NEWS
At
such a sight, first of all the watchmen on the towers, then, the citizens
within the walls, in unconscious obedience to the prophetic words of exhortation:
Break forth together into singing
you waste places of Jerusalem;
They
did indeed break out into a veritable delirium of thanksgiving and praise,
while the priests – with now more firmly solemn voices -- began to intone:
The LORD has comforted His people, He
has redeemed Jerusalem!!
Dear
People of God, Jesus comes to us each year at Christmas like that runner, giving
us supreme cause for our brim-full joy: our
God reigns over sin and death! Whatever
the past year may have witnessed and no matter how miserable our own record
might have been over that period, Jesus comes to assure us that:
The
Lord
has bared His holy arm, and all the ends of the earth shall see the
salvation of our God.
He
comes, as we heard in the reading from the letter to the Hebrews, as One Who:
Is the radiance of the glory
of God and the express image of His nature.
Therefore,
seeing Him, we can be confident and sure that God is able and willing to reign
for us, both in us and through us, if we -- for our part -- are humble and
brave enough to look away from our sinful projects and ludicrous gods (money,
power, pleasure etc.) and return faithfully to Him with hopeful sincerity and
humble obedience in all our needs.
This
Christmas rejoicing calls for much more than mere joy of heart, however; for
Jesus, as our second reading told us, is:
God’s Son … heir of all
things, through Whom also He created the world; Who upholds the universe by the
word of His power;
to
which St. John, in our Gospel, adds:
In Him was life, and the life was the
light of men.
Therefore,
Jesus’ coming means not only passing joy for our heart, but fulfilment for the
whole of our being, since He is most truly our Lord and Saviour: our Light to
guide us, our Hope to sustain us, and our Life that leads to the eternal peace
and joy of our heavenly home. His coming
manifests and indeed offers to us:
His glory, as of the only Son from
the Father, full of grace and truth;
and,
by sharing that glory with us, He wills to transform all who believe in Him from
human beings subject to sin and death into children of God, as St. John again
tells us:
To all who did receive Him, who
believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.
Children
reborn, that is, no longer from merely human stock through the will and/or
passion of our parents before us, but born
anew of water and the Holy Spirit: God’s Fatherly gift expressing to the
full His infinite Goodness; and our free-will responding with appropriate filial longing by the obedience of faith.
And
it is thus -- as children reborn of water and the Spirit -- that we can repeat:
The Word became flesh and
dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the
Father, full of grace and truth.
Dear
People of God, our ability to catch passing glimpses of saving beauty and power,
to understand snatches of divine truth concerning the glorious reality of the Word-made-flesh, proves not only that
He has become with us, as one of us, in our Marian flesh and blood, it proves not only that He has deliberately chosen to be for
us in all things, but it proves that we – though caked-over with all sorts of filth -- are,
root-down, mysteriously like Him, because He is, has become, our Brother. He has, most wondrously become one of us while
remaining infinitely, savingly, above us; and that is our share in the
glory which is His as the only begotten Son of the Father, as the letter to the
Hebrews puts it:
As much superior to angels, as we have, by adoption in Him,
obtained a more excellent name than they.
And
thus, being able to be reborn and renewed in Jesus, and able to share His glory
which enables us to live through faith, by His Spirit, our Christmas joy
and hope is crowned and completed by the Father Who now says (2 Corinthians
6:18):
I will be a Father to you, and you shall
be My sons and daughters.
Once
reborn in Jesus with the right to become children of God for all eternity, we
have an endowment that our sincere endeavour to live a life of faith and filial
love will bring to glorious maturity.
Each year Jesus comes to visit us, to see and encourage our progress,
and that is why, during Advent, Mother Church cries out to us encouragingly:
Behold, the Bridegroom is coming; go out to
meet Him! (Matthew 25:6)
Every Christmas we do just that, we go out to meet the Lord with lighted lamps that shine with love, praise, and gratitude. Ultimately, the time will arrive – and we are now already preparing, at the deepest level, for that time -- when the Lord will come for each and every one of us, calling us from this world as He did Lazarus from the tomb, to meet Himself. Let us, therefore, dear People of God, welcome Him this day as we wish to embrace Him on that our final day, when earth’s fading and fitful light will be transformed into the prospect of eternal glory.
