To listen to this homily, click here.
First of all, on behalf of the priests, deacons and parish staff of Incarnate Word, let me wish each of you a very blessed and merry Christmas. It seems like every year, the need grows for the hope and joy provided by Our Savior’s Birth. I hope these holy days warm our hearts and homes in a new and wonderful way!
A couple weeks ago, there was a cheeky article in the Wall Street Journal detailing the harrowing plight of retail workers throughout North America during this busy holiday season. In this piece, employees of many different businesses shared their trauma of having to listen to the same Christmas tunes over and over again during their shifts. Some of them described their preferred coping mechanisms, looking for rooms and closets without speakers to take a break from the repeating playlists. Others blacklisted particular songs with sentiments that would certainly place them on Santa’s naughty list! Nearly everyone referenced “All I want for Christmas is you” by Mariah Carey as public enemy number 1. Ms. Carey seemed to embrace this villain’s role whole-heartedly by commanding her followers on social media to blare her song, beginning November 1st, ensuring that everyone would be sick of it long before the Savior’s birth. It appears some people really do love to watch the world burn…
But even if Mariah Carey’s ear worm doesn’t bother you, we all have a Christmas song or two we’ve heard a million times, which gets under our skin or seems to make no sense. These are often the songs we still sing along to but substitute our own lyrics.
For me, the Christmas song I simply don’t get is, “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”. Supposedly, the second verse says, “oh bring us some figgy pudding, oh bring us some figgy pudding, oh bring us some figgy pudding, and bring it right here.” This is pure nonsense. First of all, what in the world is figgy pudding? Have any of you had it recently…or ever? I have not and I don’t think it exists. I believe the proper words to the song, the ones I always sing when I hear this tune are, “Oh bring us some freakin pudding, Oh bring us some freakin pudding, Oh bring us some freakin pudding, and bring it right now.” If you listen to the entire song, this makes complete sense and fits the spirit of words which are downright aggressive and threatening. In fact, the next verse raises the belligerence-factor big-time as they taunt the hearer, “we won’t go until we get some, we won’t go until we get some, we won’t go until we get some, So bring it right here.” This is definitely the attitude of someone who would say, give me some freakin pudding”!
Understandably, you might be wondering what this rant has to do with our celebration of the Baby Jesus. Just like some of these Christmas songs, if we don’t know what the words are or what they mean, we cannot make sense of why we sing them. In the same way, for many people, even for many Christians, the “what” and the “why” of Christmas is not entirely clear. For many good-hearted souls, the celebration of Jesus’ birth is a time to gather with friends and family, relax, exchange gifts, and enjoy fine food and drink, which are all good things. But they are not the reason we celebrate. Why does this matter? If we do not understand the “what” of Christmas, then we will not understand why it is so important and why it should bring us so much joy.
Ever since the beginning of time, ever since the first humans Adam and Eve sinned against God in the Garden of Eden, the human race had been alienated from God through original sin. Each generation that followed, suffered the wounds and sadness that evil and death brought. Humanity had incurred a debt it could not repay and heaven was closed to all. But God promised to rescue us. Despite humanity’s tendency, over and over again, to turn our back on the Creator, our loving God would not give up on us. He slowly laid the foundation for our salvation, by revealing himself through his Chosen People, delivering them from slavery in Egypt, establishing an everlasting covenant, and helping them to grow in wisdom, holiness, and love with the help of the Law and Prophets.
But these things could only go so far. When the time was right, God proved his love beyond a shadow of a doubt by sending his Only Son to become one of us. Incredibly, he humbled himself by becoming truly human while remaining fully divine. He wanted to be like us in all things except sin, so he could serve as our ransom from sin and death. Jesus is the key that re-opened heaven, the lamb who takes away the sin of the world, the price that was paid to cancel the debt of human sin and wickedness. We see little hints of this in the Scriptures’ description of the nativity. For example, Jesus was placed in a manger, which was used to feed the animals. It was a sign that he would soon feed us with his own body and blood in the Eucharist. Also, he was wrapped in swaddling clothes, which was a foreshadowing of how he would be wrapped in burial clothes after his saving sacrifice on the cross. Even as a tiny, helpless, innocent baby, Jesus begins his mission of salvation. He is the only person who was born to die, who lived so that he could lay down his life!
This is the “what” of the Christmas mystery and it is the reason why we celebrate it so extravagantly every year since. Without the humble birth of our savior, without his life on earth, and his sacrifice on the cross that would follow, we would still be dwelling in darkness, captive to our sins and the power of death. We would still be crushed by a debt we could not repay; a force we could not defeat and heaven would be out of our reach. If we understand this, how can we keep from singing and celebrating?!
Today, let renew our spirit of thanksgiving to God for his love for us and for our world. God needs nothing from us and yet he gives us everything, including himself. As we celebrate Christmas this year, may we marvel at what we have received and why it is such a big deal. Then, perhaps, it will make a little more sense why we sing all of these Christmas songs, even the annoying ones, and why we must share tidings of gladness and joy!
