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This is not the Gospel we expected. It doesn’t speak about the manger, the shepherds, about the cold winter; it doesn’t speak about Mary not having a place to give birth. This is a quite different Gospel.
“In Principio erat verbum et verbum erat apud Deum et Deus erat verbum” (Jn 1:1).
It does speak about the birth of Jesus, but it does so in a very obscure way. Et verbum caro factum est, et habitavit in nobis. And for some of you here this morning, the obscurity of the words of the Gospel is an example of the obscurity of the Church, with all of her structures, rules, and prohibitions. For some of you here this morning, the very Mass itself seems strange, full of Latin, Gregorian chant, and incense. So many contradictions. The Gospel says that Christ is the true light “who gives light to every man” (Jn 1:9). But we don’t ever see this light. And where is this God, who has come to dwell among us? Someone might say: in my life, I neither see nor feel him. Isn’t this story of Jesus just a nice fable, like Santa Claus, created to give us a false sense of peace, or worse, to provide the Church with money, so it can live “well”?
This kind of atheism in fact has come back into fashion. It it never really disappeared, but in the past 20 years, there has been a resurgence of discussions like the aforementioned, which are already old, but clothed in a way that makes them seem quite new and fresh. Two weeks ago, a famous Englishman, an atheist named Christopher Hitchens, died. Together with Richard Dawkins, he tried to argue that modern science has already explained away all of the difficulties which man must face and that there is no longer any need for religion. At the most (though it is still doubtful), religions can give some ethical reflections to improve society. In the mind of these new atheists, the Catholic Church represents the last bastion of superstition and falsehood. In fact, they’re unable to understand how, after all these recent scandals, the Church is able to stand on its feet. Why doesn’t the Pope resign and go into retirement, leaving St. Peter’s as a museum of beautiful art? Isn’t it finally time to acknowledge our defeat?
It’s in this context that we are able to understand the importance of today’s Gospel, the importance of poetry, the importance of liturgical rituals. The image of the nativity scene, which is so dear to us, with all of the traditional and familiar characters, lacks the ability to satisfy the doubts and the questions, which spitefully come from the atheists. They do not see in the nativity scene anything but evidence of a fable. What an absurdity to look, for example, at the painting of the Epiphany to the right of the Church, and to think that at the center there is God, actually, that God even exists. And in this sense, they’re right: it is absurd. If our faith were merely in this painting, we would probably become atheists, or at least skeptics. Recently, Pope Benedict XVI said that the Prologue to the Gospel of St. John, the Gospel which we just read, offers us a synthesis of our entire Faith. He didn’t say that about the nativity scene, about the manger, but about the Prologue. Does this mean that the nativity scene is not true? Does this mean that the birth of Christ didn’t happen?
No, the problem with the vision offered to us by the nativity scene is not that it’s not true, but that it’s not complete. If God became man, it’s obvious that he’s going to appear like a man, look like a man, look like a baby who has undergone this extraordinary event. To use a slightly crude, but revealing example, the problem with pornography, with the images of nude people, is not that you see too much of the person. On the contrary, the problem is that you don’t see enough of the person. A person is more than just a naked body. One sees a person in the types of clothes they choose, in their tastes, in their opinions, desires, and hopes. The naked body offers nothing of these things. It reduces the person to a thing. The essence of the person disappears.
Similarly, the nativity scene offers us a beautiful image of the holy family, of the meekness of Christ from his very infancy, from his nudity and weakness. But it doesn’t tell us everything. The Christmas preface explains to us: “…new radiance from Thy glory hath shone on the eye of the soul that the recognition of our God made visible draweth us to love that is invisible”. These are the invisible things that today’s Gospel offers and explains to us. The nativity scene gives us a beautiful image; the Prologue to St. John gives us the substance. The Prologue is able to respond to the questions that the mainstream atheists aren’t even able to formulate. In Principio erat verbum. That is, from the beginning, God has always existed, he is greater than the world, he created the world, and he created it through his Only Son, through the Word. God is not an old man with a grey beard, as if he were an old monk; he is the true source of all that exists, and from this exists a relationship of love which generates the Word, the Son, and it is the Word that became flesh, that became a Man. Atheists are not able to respond to the question of when everything began. They always arrive at the banal and unsatisfying answer: “we don’t know” which in itself is less reasonable than to say, there is a Being that created everything.
We cannot understand the profundity of the nativity scene or of the child, without this poetry of St. John. The Faith tells us that the baby is God, but with the help of St. John, our reason can truly understand why he is God. Recently, we welcomed a visitor from Australia; he was 22 years old, intelligent, mature, serious, and had recently converted to Catholicism. Why did he convert? He told me that the only credible god would be a God who reigns not from a throne, but from the Cross. For him, and for all of us, it is that which gives truth to the Nativity. Christ is God because he is Son, eternally generated from the Father, made man for one reason, to die for us. Each one of us who has experienced even a minimal amount of love knows that only in sacrifice is true love found. And there’s no greater sacrifice than the death of your only Son. It is precisely in accepting this sacrifice that we become free. “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God” (Jn 1:12).
The traditional Mass, the one that we’re celebrating this morning, concludes every time with this Gospel. It is a synthesis and an ever-fresh invitation, today, just as always. It invites us again to become true children of God. There may be people in Church this morning who don’t go to Mass very often, maybe some have the weight of many grave sins on their shoulders, maybe some have lost their faith due to these modern atheists. Today, God offers you again his invitation; he offers you the possibility to leave the slavery of sin and to become a child. “He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not. He came to his own home, and how own people received him not. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God…And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth” (Jn 1:10-14).