Homily for Christmas

Homily for Christmas
Mass during the Day
Dec. 25, 2004
John 1: 1-5, 9-14
Immaculate Heart of Mary, Scarsdale, N.Y.

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1: 5).

Adoration of the Shepherds (Robert Leinweber)

Why do we feel better on bright, sunny days like today than on overcast or rainy ones like Thursday?  Why do horror movies so often involve dark old mansions?  What is it that attracts us to a glowing fireplace or a campfire?  Why do we instinctively fear the dark?  Why are light and color so important a part of our Christmas festivity?

Light and darkness are powerful images.  Light makes us feel comfort, warmth, splendor, life.  Darkness is threatening, cold, ugly, deadly.  We dress our heroes in light—the knight in shining armor, Luke Skywalker in astronautical whites.  Our villains wear black hats, black capes, even black masks, like Darth Vader.

Light and life, hope, glory, security—these are the intangible and everlasting dreams of all men and women in all ages, in all places.  We dream of creating utopian societies, cities of light, justice, and peace.  We create and pass on romantic myths:

          Don’t let it be forgot

          That once there was a spot

          For one brief shining moment

          That was known as Camelot.

King Arthur’s pursuit of righteousness and peace has come down in legend, poetry, musical drama, and the Sunday comics.  We’ve created the historical myth of an American Camelot, the “one brief shining moment” of 1961 to 1963.

Our pursuit of the light and what the light symbolizes is always shadowed, however.  Our dark world has its Mordreds, its Oswalds, its Herods.  Our own inner selves hold powers that, like the Star Wars script, we may call the “dark side” as well as any other name.  Light always contends with darkness.  Mortal, sinful, and grasping as we are, we carry within us the seeds of both light and darkness.

“In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind swept over the waters.  Then God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.  God saw how good the light was” (Gen 1:1-4).  The author of the priestly creation story in Genesis appreciated the power of symbol when he made light the 1st of God’s creations, the 1st step in bringing order out of the primeval chaos of wasteland, abyss, wind, and water.  The 1st Christians appreciated the power of symbol when they recognized Jesus as the light of the world, a world still a wasteland of greed, oppression, war, poverty, illness, every sort of human misery.

No one knows when Jesus was born.  We’re not sure of the year, much less the month and the day.  The Church celebrates the birth of Jesus on Dec. 25 because the pagan Romans celebrated the promised triumph of light over darkness, life over death, on that day.  Three or 4 days after the winter solstice came the festival of the Unconquered Sun:  darkness hadn’t conquered the world; days were starting to lengthen again; spring, life, and warmth were sure to return.  So the Romans made merry and praised their gods.

When Rome was christianized in the 4th century, all of Rome was christianized—book-burnings and such barbarism would come only in the Dark Ages—but in the 4th century, pagan temples became churches, pagan Vergil became a prophet, and pagan festivals became holy days.  Dec. 25 became the day of the Eternal Sun (there’s no play on words in Latin), the light of the world, the day when he shone upon mankind by entering our history.

“In the beginning was the Word….  All things came to be thru him ….  What came to be thru him was life, and this life was the light of the human race” (John 1:1,3-4).  Christ’s birth is, for John the Evangelist, the culmination of God’s long process of enlightening us with his Word.  The light of God’s eternal Word has meant life and light for us since that 1st moment of creation John evokes, since the giving of the Law to Moses, since the preaching of the prophets.  “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (1:5).  Both the chosen people and the pagan nations resisted the light of the Word and the life it means.  But the light can’t be put out.

With Christ’s coming among us, we see God’s love personalized and enfleshed.  We see God’s love in action.  We see and understand that God’s Word is part of us.  The light shines in the darkness—the darkness of our sinfulness, our misery, our mortality—and this darkness still doesn’t overcome the light.  No matter how much the powers of darkness resist Jesus, they can’t overcome him.  He overcomes them, finally, decisively.  “The Lord has bared his holy arm in the sight of all the nations; all the ends of the earth will behold the salvation of our God” (Is 52:10).

Jesus takes to himself our sins and forgives them.  He overcomes the darkness of the grave, shows us that death is hollow and life is eternal.  He offers us a way to peace within ourselves and between ourselves, promises us a place in his eternal glory.  “When the Son had accomplished purification from sins, he took his seat at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Heb 1:3), and “from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace” (John 1:16 RSV).

Making Christmas a season of light is more than appropriate.  We’re not only brightening dismal December but also reminding ourselves that Jesus is our light, and no darkness can overpower him in our lives or in our destiny.