Say "Yes" to the God Who Enters Our Mess | A Virtual Pilgrimage Reflecting on the Incarnation - Week 1

Join Fr. Michael Rossman, SJ for this reflection on Wednesday of the 1st Week of Advent.

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Transcript

The many happy traditions around Christmas — the lights, the cookies, the manger scenes — can make us forget just how startling the first Christmas really was. What must Joseph have thought? Here he is, engaged to Mary, ready to start a new life, a home to build, a workshop to run, maybe some little carpenters someday. And then, one night, an angel appears in a dream.

“Oh, by the way, the woman you're going to marry is already pregnant. Now, don't worry — it's by the Holy Spirit. Clearly, the baby isn’t yours. And the name of the firstborn son? Already chosen. He’ll be Jesus. And, by the way, this child will be the Savior of the world. No pressure or anything.”

Now, admittedly, that’s probably not how the angel sounded. But I can't help but wonder if Joseph woke up thinking, What on earth just happened? He must have felt the rug pulled out from under him. This wasn’t what he had planned. But somehow he said yes — even though things did not get easier.

Instead of a calm pregnancy, Joseph and Mary had to travel to Bethlehem. There was no room at the inn, no family nearby, no advanced medical care. Just the smell of animals and the scratch of hay. We decorate our manger scenes beautifully, but this was a real birth: messy and noisy and exhausting. And then, before they could even rest, they had to flee their country to escape Herod’s violence. Maybe that experience shaped Jesus’ heart — his constant compassion for outsiders. He knew what it was like to be one.

And after that, life didn’t magically smooth out. Remember when Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem? Three days of panic, and then they find him in the temple saying, “Didn’t you know I must be in my Father’s house?” Imagine what that felt like for Joseph — this boy he had raised and loved and protected gently reminding him, “You're not my only father.”

Joseph must have died a thousand little deaths raising Jesus — each one a surrender, another yes to God's plan over his own. Maybe that’s why he’s called the patron of a “happy death.” Not just because he likely died with Mary and Jesus beside him, but because he had already died to self so many times.

As a priest, I remind myself my life is not my own. But certainly parents know this even more. They die to self daily — through late nights, hard choices, and constant giving. Joseph and Mary lived that same rhythm of surrender. They didn’t understand everything, but they trusted. They said yes.

I think of the first Christmas after my dad died, when I was young and my mom had to hold everything together for me and my brothers. It wasn’t what she had planned, but she made Christmas beautiful — not because it was perfect, but because it was filled with love. Well, love… and also a little chaos. I remember one year my brother and I got into a wrestling match and I crashed into the Christmas tree, breaking it in half. That also wasn’t in my mother’s plans. But the first Christmas wasn’t in Mary and Joseph’s plans either.

They didn’t plan for angels, or an unexpected pregnancy, or giving birth in a stable. But they said yes. They trusted. And that’s when God entered our world. G.K. Chesterton said Christmas is built upon a beautiful and intentional paradox: that the birth of the homeless should be celebrated in every home. The Light of the World was born in darkness. The Eternal Word came as a speechless baby. The Bread of Life was laid in a feeding trough.

At Christmas, we don’t celebrate that Jesus is 2025 years old. We celebrate that God is still being born among us. Saint Augustine wrote, “God is younger than all else.” God is eternally new — always creating, always renewing. And Christmas is our reminder to believe again that God can still surprise us.

Few things capture that better than seeing Christmas through a child’s eyes. My brothers still tease me about how I used to cry tears of joy, yelling, “Thank you, Santa! Thank you!” As the youngest in my family, I wasn’t around to witness all of my brothers’ embarrassing moments — but they certainly remember mine. Yet maybe those tears of joy they still kid me about are what Christmas ought to look like: gratitude and wonder that God came so close, that the Savior of the world needed to be fed and held.

That’s not just a story from long ago. That's the kind of God we still have — a God who doesn’t stay distant, but who enters our mess. So maybe your Christmas this year looks picture-perfect. Or maybe it doesn’t. Maybe there’s an empty chair at the table, or a plan that fell apart. But that’s okay, because that’s where Christ was born — right in the middle of what was not planned.

So let’s give glory to God in the highest. And like Mary and Joseph, let’s say yes. Yes to love. Yes to hope. Yes to the God who still chooses to be born among us.