Faith

OSV News photo/Gregory A. Shemitz

Finding myself in the manger: How Christmas turns the world right side up

Wednesday, December 11, 2024Faith

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Without Christmas, we'd be stuck within a futile will to power, groping blindly to create an identity and meaning for ourselves.

Where would we be now without the first Christmas?

2025 years ago, God became man, and it changed everything. We take the beloved manger scene for granted, but what if there was no creche with its shepherds and wise men? We might survive the absence of eggnog and mistletoe, but what about Emmanuel, the one who makes God to be "with us?"

St. Paul gives us a taste of the stark reality of life without the savior as he reminds the Ephesians of their state before baptism: "You were dead through trespasses and sins . . . Following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air . . . In the passions of our flesh, following the desires of body and mind, and so we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. . . . Dead through our trespasses. . . . Having no hope and without God in the world" (Eph 2:1-5, 12).

We would simply be lost in a dark world, abandoned to our own meager resources.

The sin of Adam and Eve turned the world upside down. They were established in a protected place with all their needs fulfilled, especially their deepest desire for communion with God. But they wanted more, grasping after forbidden knowledge, wanting to become like God on their own terms. And so, the lower things of life, meant to be subordinate to the higher, rebelled, pulling our attention downward into the darkness. Fallen humanity now looks primarily to "me," to the fulfillment of our own desires more than anything else, essentially making an idol of self.

Christmas rightens things out by teaching us the reverse logic of sacrificial gift. Jesus, the Son of God who is the fullness of life, emptied himself, becoming a servant to his rebellious creatures. St. Paul also gives us the good news, teaching us how Christmas, the birth of God's Son into this dark world, lifts us out of this slavery to self: "Do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men" (Phil 2:3-7). Without Christmas, we'd be stuck within a futile will to power, groping blindly to create an identity and meaning for ourselves.

"Who am I?" and "Why do I exist?" These are the key human questions. Animals do not ask these questions; only beings who think and shape their destiny through free choice. Though ageless questions, they have taken on much greater urgency in the modern world where past markers of identity, taken from Church, family and culture, have worn thin. This is why we must experience the revelation of the Son of God's entrance into the world anew.

When we struggle to answer life's most fundamental questions, we grow restless and can even despair in the face of seeming meaninglessness. Only by looking into the manger, can we answer them. We may have abandoned God, but the Christ child proves he has not abandoned us. We might come up with rational definitions of what it means to be a human being, such as "a rational animal," but words fall short of expressing the reality-altering event of Christmas. To be a human being is to be loved by God so much that the infinite one would abase himself to draw us back into communion with him. Only on our knees, gazing at the Word made flesh, can we discover how much God cherishes us and invites us to enter into his eternal life.

The manger offers a sign for the whole world of what human life means -- radical self-emptying love ---- a stumbling block for many, just like the Cross. Herod represents the mighty of the world who still live by violent self-exertion, vainly striving to build an enduring kingdom for himself. Christmas teaches us that the little ones triumph in the end. Herod's innocent victims, murdered in his search for the Messiah, now reign in glory. The poor, unlearned shepherds received the first proclamation of the Good News of history's turning point. In turn, they became the first to proclaim it to others: "And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them" (Lk 2:20).

We call Jesus the Prince of Peace. He may have changed history and our understanding of what it means to be human, but we, too, need to experience it for ourselves. Can we find satisfaction for our restless hearts this Christmas? It's one thing to enjoy the celebration, harkening back to the more innocent time of our childhood, and quite another to lay down our restless quest to forge an identity and legacy for ourselves. Isn't the creche enough with its divine exchange? "God became man so that man might become God," St. Athanasius explains.

But to accept this exchange, we must become like little children, receiving from the Father his essential gift: incorporating into his divine Son as members of his Body. This is who we were made to become at the core of our identity. It is the greatest truth imaginable and the only one that can turn this world right-side up again.