The Adoration of the Shepherds, depicting the birth of Christ, painted by Gerard van Honthorst in 1622. (Wikimedia Commons / Google Art Project)/The Nation.com Fr Bill Dailey CSC
Love came down at Christmas,
Love all lovely, love divine;
Love was born at Christmas,
Star and angels gave the sign.
Worship we the Godhead,
Love incarnate, love divine;
Worship we our Jesus:
But wherewith for sacred sign?
Love shall be our token,
Love shall be yours and love be mine,
Love to God and to all men,
Love for plea and gift and sign.
– Christina Rosetti, 1885
“Love came down at Christmas”, begins Christina Rosetti’s beautiful little poem meditating on the celebration that is fast upon us. Five short words that explain it with a clarity anyone can understand that most exalted of theological terms: the Incarnation. We bow when we recite et incarnatus est – and he became incarnate – in the creed, signalling the centrality of this marvellous fact. God took flesh and was born to us – God “who is love” as we state at every baptismal liturgy.
St John Henry Newman, among the most learned and revered of Christian theologians, called the incarnation the ‘central’ doctrine of the Christian faith – the single doctrine one might name to explain all the rest of what we believe. How marvellous then if it could be understood not just by a person of his learning, but by anyone who could understand Rosetti’s little line that “love came down at Christmas!” We should expect it is so, for Our Lord himself blessed his Father “for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children.”
Beautiful
What it is to say that love came down at Christmas, and to say that God became flesh, may be understood if you stop for a moment as you read this and look at your hand. What do you see there? Isn’t it beautiful? What is it for? Who made it? Why? We human beings spin ourselves into all sorts of perplexity when we get lost in these questions. What am I for? Who made me? What was I made for?
Our first sin was losing sight of who made us, and wishing to be gods ourselves. In forgetting who made us, we were doomed to forget what we were made for. We descend from beauty into ugliness quickly enough that way.
Into human history God sent us a reminder. Not just any reminder, but a teacher. And not just any teacher, but his Son. “And the word became flesh, and dwelt among us.”
How are we to know what we are made for, and who made us, and how to use these bodies of ours? “Come, follow me.” By attending to Christ the teacher. Note he did not teach calculus, or physics, or biology, or Latin or Greek — not even Irish! No, he taught in the following ways. He made the lost feel at home – the tax collector, the prostitute. He made the proud – the Pharisee, the Roman Centurion, even Pontius Pilate – feel humbled. He sat with the Samaritan woman at the well, despite knowing everything about her – because he remained with her knowing the worst, she knew he was the long-awaited one. He healed and forgave to the point of exhaustion.
How marvellous that God all powerful, God so remote, the God of the Plagues and the Flood, the Creator of all that is who dwells beyond time and place, came down at Christmas”
Where he encountered hunger he fed. He even provided that great vintage to a couple in Cana on their wedding day, for that was a celebration of love. He also gave that body for us on the Cross.
When Jesus told us he was the Way, the Truth, and the Life, he was not pointing us to some hidden path of knowing. He was saying, emphatically: “Look at me. See how I love. This is what you were made for!”
How incredible that God, all powerful, all remote, the God of the Plagues and the Flood, the God of creation who dwells beyond time and space, in the fullness of his wisdom sent us a humble, indeed a vulnerable child to an obscure and dusty village and a conquered people.
St John Henry put it this way: “And with a wonderful condescension He came, not as before in power, but in weakness, in the form of a servant, in the likeness of that fallen creature whom he purposed to restore. So he humbled Himself; suffering all the infirmities of our nature in the likeness of sinful flesh, all but a sinner – pure from all sin, yet subjected to all temptation – and at length becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross.”
People say that what they want in preaching is something practical, something concrete, something that connects to their own lives. God says, “Okay, do you have a body? A voice to speak? A community? I’ll show you what to do with all that. This is my beloved son…”
Preaching
What could be more concrete than to ask what have I been doing in this body? Have I sought out the lonely and the discouraged? Have I visited those who may need it? Have I forgiven those who have wronged me? Have I fed the hungry? How have I been speaking to people?
Love came down at Christmas. How marvellous that God all powerful, God so remote, the God of the Plagues and the Flood, the Creator of all that is who dwells beyond time and place, came down at Christmas. To a particular mother, our Mother, in a particular, obscure town, Bethlehem, to a particular conquered people, he came. Poor shepherds heralded his coming, “peace on earth, good will toward all!”
It’s a story even a child can understand.
Fr Bill Dailey CSC is the Director of the Notre Dame-Newman Centre for Faith and Reason.