SPEAKER_00: This morning the church dares to proclaim something extraordinary.
SPEAKER_00: Not only that God has entered our story, but that before there was a story at all, God was already there.
SPEAKER_00: In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.
SPEAKER_00: John does not begin with Bethlehem, he does not begin with Mary or Joseph or the angels or in a manger.
SPEAKER_00: He takes us all the way back.
SPEAKER_00: Before time, before history, before creation itself, before there was light, before there was dust, before there was a breath in human lungs, there was the word.
SPEAKER_00: And there is where Christmas morning deepens this mystery.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew tells us how Jesus enters history.
SPEAKER_00: John tells us who he has always been.
SPEAKER_00: The child lying in the manger is the eternal word through whom all things were made.
SPEAKER_00: The tiny hands that grasped Mary's fingers are the hands that shaped the stars.
SPEAKER_00: The voice that will one day cry out from the cross is the same voice that said, Let there be light.
SPEAKER_00: And then John gives us the line that changes everything.
SPEAKER_00: And the word became flesh and dwelt among us.
SPEAKER_00: Not visit us, not hover, hover over us, not appear to us briefly and then leaves.
SPEAKER_00: No, he dwelt among us.
SPEAKER_00: Literally, he pitched his tent among us.
SPEAKER_00: God moves into our story.
SPEAKER_00: This is not poetic metaphor.
SPEAKER_00: This is not a theological, this is a theological earthquake.
SPEAKER_00: The eternal God did not save us from a distance.
SPEAKER_00: He entered fully into our condition, our limits, our vulnerability, our suffering, our death.
SPEAKER_00: And here's where the first reading from Isaiah comes alive.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah tells us how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the one who brings good news, who proclaims peace, who brings glad tidings, who says to Zion, Your God reigns.
SPEAKER_00: For centuries Israel waited, waited through exile, waited through silence, waited through darkness, and Isaiah dares to say, God will stay silent no longer.
SPEAKER_00: Break forth together in song, the prophet says, for the Lord has comforted his people.
SPEAKER_00: Christmas is that moment when God's silence ends, not with thunder, not with armies, but with a newborn baby.
SPEAKER_00: The good news does not arrive as an explanation.
SPEAKER_00: The good news arrives as a person.
SPEAKER_00: And Hebrews makes this even clearer in our second reading.
SPEAKER_00: It says, In times past, God spoke in partial and various ways through the prophets.
SPEAKER_00: In these last days, he has spoken to us through his son.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, God has everything he wants to say.
SPEAKER_00: He has said everything in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to know what God is like, do not look elsewhere.
SPEAKER_00: Look at Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Look at his mercy.
SPEAKER_00: Look at his humility.
SPEAKER_00: Look at his willingness to enter into poverty and rejection.
SPEAKER_00: Look at the cross that is already hidden in the wood of the crib.
SPEAKER_00: This is why John speaks so honestly to us.
SPEAKER_00: He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.
SPEAKER_00: Christmas does not deny the darker parts.
SPEAKER_00: It confronts it.
SPEAKER_00: The light shines in the darkness, John says, and darkness has overcome it.
SPEAKER_00: And the darkness has not overcome it.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you come to this mass this morning radiant and joyful.
SPEAKER_00: Others are coming to Mass with grief, with exhaustion, with fear, disappointment or doubt, with worry.
SPEAKER_00: Some come because of faith.
SPEAKER_00: Some come because of habit.
SPEAKER_00: Some come because you are searching and don't know quite yet what you're looking for.
SPEAKER_00: John does not shame you.
SPEAKER_00: John does not shame any of that.
SPEAKER_00: He simply says, the light has come.
SPEAKER_00: And here is the breaking, the breathtaking truth about Christmas.
SPEAKER_00: God did not wait for us to understand him before coming.
SPEAKER_00: He does not wait for us to clean ourselves and have a perfect life.
SPEAKER_00: He does not wait for perfect faith.
SPEAKER_00: He came so that those who believe in him might be children of God, not servants, not spectators, not outsiders, but his children.
SPEAKER_00: That means Christmas is not just about something we observe, it is something we are invited into.
SPEAKER_00: The word became flesh so that our flesh could take up into God.
SPEAKER_00: He enters our history so that our history may be redeemed.
SPEAKER_00: He takes on our humanity so that we might share his divine life.
SPEAKER_00: This is not sentimentality, this is salvation.
SPEAKER_00: So when you leave this church today, do not rush past the mystery.
SPEAKER_00: I invite you to visit the crush, to look again upon the Christ child.
SPEAKER_00: Let yourself be looked at by him.
SPEAKER_00: Carry this truth into your homes and into your hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because God has spoken, God has come and God has stayed.
SPEAKER_00: And because the word became has become flesh, because light has entered darkness, because God has chosen to dwell with us, nothing, absolutely nothing, will ever be the same.
SPEAKER_00: For Christ is our Savior born today.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks be to God.
SPEAKER_00: Merry Christmas.