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Benedict XVI - Homilies |
Homily
"In the Weakness of Infancy, He is the Mighty God"
Homily on Christmas Eve
H.H. Benedict XVI
December 24, 2010
www.zenit.org
Dear Brothers and Sisters!
"You are my son, this day I have begotten you" – with this passage from
Psalm 2 the Church begins the liturgy of this holy night. She knows that
this passage originally formed part of the coronation rite of the kings
of Israel. The king, who in himself is a man like others, becomes the
"Son of God" through being called and installed in his office. It is a
kind of adoption by God, a decisive act by which he grants a new
existence to this man, drawing him into his own being. The reading from
the prophet Isaiah that we have just heard presents the same process
even more clearly in a situation of hardship and danger for Israel: "To
us a child is born, to us a son is given. The government will be upon
his shoulder" (Is 9:6). Installation in the office of king is like a
second birth. As one newly born through God’s personal choice, as a
child born of God, the king embodies hope. On his shoulders the future
rests. He is the bearer of the promise of peace. On that night in
Bethlehem this prophetic saying came true in a way that would still have
been unimaginable at the time of Isaiah. Yes indeed, now it really is a
child on whose shoulders government is laid. In him the new kingship
appears that God establishes in the world. This child is truly born of
God. It is God’s eternal Word that unites humanity with divinity. To
this child belong those titles of honour which Isaiah’s coronation song
attributes to him: Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father,
Prince of Peace (Is 9:6). Yes, this king does not need counsellors drawn
from the wise of this world. He bears in himself God’s wisdom and God’s
counsel. In the weakness of infancy, he is the mighty God and he shows
us God’s own might in contrast to the self-asserting powers of this
world.
Truly, the words of Israel’s coronation rite were only ever rites of
hope which looked ahead to a distant future that God would bestow. None
of the kings who were greeted in this way lived up to the sublime
content of these words. In all of them, those words about divine sonship,
about installation into the heritage of the peoples, about making the
ends of the earth their possession (Ps 2:8) were only pointers towards
what was to come – as it were signposts of hope indicating a future that
at that moment was still beyond comprehension. Thus the fulfilment of
the prophecy, which began that night in Bethlehem, is both infinitely
greater and in worldly terms smaller than the prophecy itself might lead
one to imagine. It is greater in the sense that this child is truly the
Son of God, truly "God from God, light from light, begotten not made, of
one being with the Father". The infinite distance between God and man is
overcome. God has not only bent down, as we read in the Psalms; he has
truly "come down", he has come into the world, he has become one of us,
in order to draw all of us to himself. This child is truly Emmanuel –
God-with-us. His kingdom truly stretches to the ends of the earth. He
has truly built islands of peace in the world-encompassing breadth of
the holy Eucharist. Wherever it is celebrated, an island of peace
arises, of God’s own peace. This child has ignited the light of goodness
in men and has given them strength to overcome the tyranny of might.
This child builds his kingdom in every generation from within, from the
heart. But at the same time it is true that the "rod of his oppressor"
is not yet broken, the boots of warriors continue to tramp and the
"garment rolled in blood" (Is 9:4f) still remains. So part of this night
is simply joy at God’s closeness. We are grateful that God gives himself
into our hands as a child, begging as it were for our love, implanting
his peace in our hearts. But this joy is also a prayer: Lord, make your
promise come fully true. Break the rods of the oppressors. Burn the
tramping boots. Let the time of the garments rolled in blood come to an
end. Fulfil the prophecy that "of peace there will be no end" (Is 9:7).
We thank you for your goodness, but we also ask you to show forth your
power. Establish the dominion of your truth and your love in the world –
the "kingdom of righteousness, love and peace".
"Mary gave birth to her first-born son" (Lk 2:7). In this sentence Saint
Luke recounts quite soberly the great event to which the prophecies from
Israel’s history had pointed. Luke calls the child the "first-born". In
the language which developed within the sacred Scripture of the Old
Covenant, "first-born" does not mean the first of a series of children.
The word "first-born" is a title of honour, quite independently of
whether other brothers and sisters follow or not. So Israel is
designated by God in the Book of Exodus (4:22) as "my first-born Son",
and this expresses Israel’s election, its singular dignity, the
particular love of God the Father. The early Church knew that in Jesus
this saying had acquired a new depth, that the promises made to Israel
were summed up in him. Thus the Letter to the Hebrews calls Jesus "the
first-born", simply in order to designate him as the Son sent into the
world by God (cf. 1:5-7) after the ground had been prepared by Old
Testament prophecy. The first-born belongs to God in a special way – and
therefore he had to be handed over to God in a special way – as in many
religions – and he had to be ransomed through a vicarious sacrifice, as
Saint Luke recounts in the episode of the Presentation in the Temple.
The first-born belongs to God in a special way, and is as it were
destined for sacrifice. In Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross this destiny of
the first-born is fulfilled in a unique way. In his person he brings
humanity before God and unites man with God in such a way that God
becomes all in all. Saint Paul amplified and deepened the idea of Jesus
as first-born in the Letters to the Colossians and to the Ephesians:
Jesus, we read in these letters, is the first-born of all creation – the
true prototype of man, according to which God formed the human creature.
Man can be the image of God because Jesus is both God and man, the true
image of God and of man. Furthermore, as these letters tell us, he is
the first-born from the dead. In the resurrection he has broken down the
wall of death for all of us. He has opened up to man the dimension of
eternal life in fellowship with God. Finally, it is said to us that he
is the first-born of many brothers. Yes indeed, now he really is the
first of a series of brothers and sisters: the first, that is, who opens
up for us the possibility of communing with God. He creates true
brotherhood – not the kind defiled by sin as in the case of Cain and
Abel, or Romulus and Remus, but the new brotherhood in which we are
God’s own family. This new family of God begins at the moment when Mary
wraps her first-born in swaddling clothes and lays him in a manger. Let
us pray to him: Lord Jesus, who wanted to be born as the first of many
brothers and sisters, grant us the grace of true brotherhood. Help us to
become like you. Help us to recognize your face in others who need our
assistance, in those who are suffering or forsaken, in all people, and
help us to live together with you as brothers and sisters, so as to
become one family, your family.
At the end of the Christmas Gospel, we are told that a great heavenly
host of angels praised God and said: "Glory to God in the highest and on
earth peace among men with whom he is pleased!" (Lk 2:14). The Church
has extended this song of praise, which the angels sang in response to
the event of the holy night, into a hymn of joy at God’s glory – "we
praise you for your glory". We praise you for the beauty, for the
greatness, for the goodness of God, which becomes visible to us this
night. The appearing of beauty, of the beautiful, makes us happy without
our having to ask what use it can serve. God’s glory, from which all
beauty derives, causes us to break out in astonishment and joy. Anyone
who catches a glimpse of God experiences joy, and on this night we see
something of his light. But the angels’ message on that holy night also
spoke of men: "Peace among men with whom he is pleased". The Latin
translation of the angels’ song that we use in the liturgy, taken from
Saint Jerome, is slightly different: "peace to men of good will". The
expression "men of good will" has become an important part of the
Church’s vocabulary in recent decades. But which is the correct
translation? We must read both texts together; only in this way do we
truly understand the angels’ song. It would be a false interpretation to
see this exclusively as the action of God, as if he had not called man
to a free response of love. But it would be equally mistaken to adopt a
moralizing interpretation as if man were so to speak able to redeem
himself by his good will. Both elements belong together: grace and
freedom, God’s prior love for us, without which we could not love him,
and the response that he awaits from us, the response that he asks for
so palpably through the birth of his son. We cannot divide up into
independent entities the interplay of grace and freedom, or the
interplay of call and response. The two are inseparably woven together.
So this part of the angels’ message is both promise and call at the same
time. God has anticipated us with the gift of his Son. God anticipates
us again and again in unexpected ways. He does not cease to search for
us, to raise us up as often as we might need. He does not abandon the
lost sheep in the wilderness into which it had strayed. God does not
allow himself to be confounded by our sin. Again and again he begins
afresh with us. But he is still waiting for us to join him in love. He
loves us, so that we too may become people who love, so that there may
be peace on earth.
Saint Luke does not say that the angels sang. He states quite soberly:
the heavenly host praised God and said: "Glory to God in the highest" (Lk
2:13f.). But men have always known that the speech of angels is
different from human speech, and that above all on this night of joyful
proclamation it was in song that they extolled God’s heavenly glory. So
this angelic song has been recognized from the earliest days as music
proceeding from God, indeed, as an invitation to join in the singing
with hearts filled with joy at the fact that we are loved by God.
Cantare amantis est, says Saint Augustine: singing belongs to one who
loves. Thus, down the centuries, the angels’ song has again and again
become a song of love and joy, a song of those who love. At this hour,
full of thankfulness, we join in the singing of all the centuries,
singing that unites heaven and earth, angels and men. Yes, indeed, we
praise you for your glory. We praise you for your love. Grant that we
may join with you in love more and more and thus become people of peace.
Amen.
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