Corpus Christi Blog

Nativity is Mercy

12-25-2015HomiliesFr. Chad King

My brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate the most joyful and exciting moment in all of history, God becoming man.  But this celebration of Christmas this year is not ordinary because Pope Francis has declared this year to be a Jubilee Year of Mercy.  Beginning just a couple of weeks ago, on Dec. 8, Pope Francis has called the Church to enter into this year in a particular and purposeful way, to receive the ever-present, ever-new Mercy.  And so today, we celebrate the birth of the Savior of the World, we rejoice that Mercy has been born into our lives.

When we think of Jesus Christ and Mercy, perhaps our minds and hearts are drawn to one of the many stories in the Gospels.  We might think of Matthew or Zacchaeus who both were tax collectors, and in this time tax collectors were not well thought of by the people and considered terrible sinners who collected more than was necessary and kept the rest for themselves.  Matthew and Zacchaeus were in the midst of their job when Jesus came to them, Christ encounters them in the midst of their work-a-day world; and he calls them out of their world of sin.  As such Jesus is very merciful to them, he saw them, called them to follow him.  And indeed they did, and this great act of mercy by Jesus freed them from their greed and they followed Jesus. 

Throughout the Gospels, Christ is constantly calling people to mercy.  He called Peter out of his cowardice ways to be a man of strength.  He shows mercy to the good thief on the Cross when he calls him out of the life of sin and into eternal life.  Jesus is merciful to all of us when upon that Cross says, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do”.  Continually throughout the Gospels, one story after the other, Jesus is calling us to receive God’s bountiful Mercy.  However, perhaps the greatest story of Mercy is this one, Christmas.  The most merciful image of God in the Gospels is the image of the Nativity. 

Certainly, when we think of mercy we think of forgiveness, but there is so much more to mercy.  Mercy comes from the Hebrew word- ‘hesed’.  And ‘hesed’ does not merely mean to forgive or to have some emotional act of pity on another.  Rather, ‘hesed’ means to jump into another’s skin, it means to see what they see, hear what they hear, and feel what they feel.  And so Mercy, in its truest sense, means to go through what the other is going through. 

This is the true beauty of Christmas, the gift of God becoming one of us.  Think about it, the baby that we honor today is the Son of God, who as Scripture says, through whom all things are made.  All of creation was made through Christ; He set all the stars in their place, and it is these stars that he was looking up to as he lay in that manger. God deals with us, not as some distant observer of humanity, some isolated majestic figure.  God comes to us not in some grandiose earth-shattering attention seeking way, rather He comes to us meek and lowly as a little baby.  A baby who is not intimidating, but gentle, loving, and so approachable. The baby Jesus, like most babies, kind of draws ourselves to Him. Though Jesus is God, He emptied Himself and became poor for our sake.  God humbled himself and becomes one of us in order to allow us to draw near to him. 

This what the Incarnation means, the God of the universe took on human flesh.  This is the greatest act of Mercy, because God has quite literally jumped into our skin.  God meets us where we are at, and loves us there.  And as such, our God is able to feel what we feel. He knows what it means to suffer, He knows what it means to have joy, or to be tempted.  He knows what it means to be lonely or abandoned.  He knows who we are and what our hearts are going through because he became one of us. And God became human so that He can be the joy of every human heart.

My brothers and sisters, every religion in the world is nothing more than an attempt of humanity to journey to God.   That is, every religion except one.  In Christianity, it isn’t us who journey to God but God who journeys to us.  We celebrate Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who has taken on human flesh for our sake.  God has come to us, we don’t have to go seeking for Him.  God has come to us, we just have to humble ourselves and receive Him; we just have to let Him in. 

Whenever we celebrate Christmas, we are celebrating really and substantially the birth of Mercy.  May each of us truly receive this greatest act of Mercy, may we encounter and receive Jesus Christ into us, and may this God-man then empower and strengthen us to be merciful to all others, as well as to ourselves.  And may the God of Mercy this Christmas, in this Year of Mercy, be born in our hearts in a new way.  God bless and keep you.

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