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Why did God Become Man? The Real Meaning of Christmas
Associate Pastor's Column
When seminarians hit the books, the things they study are among the most challenging and the most beautiful in the world. One of the courses I most enjoyed in my seminarian studies was Christology, the study of Christ. In this course, the poor student is to grapple with his two natures, his one Person, the resurrection and redemption, and much more. It’s more like a very deep prayer than an academic labor. I remember when we got to the question, “Why did the Second Person of the Holy Trinity become man?” It stumped me. Sure, I could say lots of things, give lots of answers, of some of the reasons why he might have done it, but I couldn’t come up with one reason which capped all the rest. After all, he healed the sick, raised the dead, preached the Gospel, revealed the Father, died on the cross, rose from the dead, he descended into hell, he gave us the Holy Spirit of the Father and the Son, he gave us the perfect example of how to live, and so much more. But the reason, the one reason? The superb textbook we were using then reminded us speculating students of the Creed, “For us men and for our salvation, he came down from heaven.” Ah, there you have it. In prayer, therefore, I think we can all come to see that, for this very reason, we need Jesus in our lives not as something to make us feel good, something to inspire us, or someone to admire; he is our Savior, the Savior of the lost, who came to save us sinners. And this alone is the true meaning of Christmas. Have you ever listened closely to many of the Christmas Carols? They are a great treasure. They help us keep in memory those truths most central to Christmas. And I don’t refer to ditties like, I’m Creaming of a White Christmas, or Here Comes Santa Claus, that abominable Rudolf song, or other such pagan trivializations of Christmas. In O Holy Night, we sing, “Long lay the world in sin and error pining/ Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.” O Come All Ye Faithful proposes the lines, “Child, for us sinners poor and in the manger / We would embrace Thee, with love and awe.” In God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen, we find, “To save us all from Satan's power/ When we were gone astray.” And We Three Kings teach us the meaning of the gold, frankincense and myrrh, namely, “Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding dying/ Sealed in the stone-cold tomb.” And the one line in the next verse which summarizes so perfectly, “Glorious now behold Him arise/ King and God and Sacrifice,” followed by devout Alleluias. And in this way, this song links Christmas to Holy Week and Easter, just as the Three Kings linked Jesus’ birth to his death decades later. I once had a person – more than once, now that I think about it – upset with me because I taught about sin to a group of teenagers from the pulpit during a Mass. (The young people gobbled it up, by the way, the complainer was the “youth minister.”) Just like one who knows warmth understands the cold, and one who knows light understands shadows, one who knows God has a profound understanding of sin. And without this understanding of sin, what use is salvation, redemption, the very sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross? None. During this Christmas, find some time to pray, and if you need some material about which to think during your prayer, go back to these very Catholic Christmas carols, for they express the true meaning of Christmas. |
