Christmas Vigil​ (Is 52:7-10; Ps 98; Heb 1:1-12; John 1:1-14)

Culturally, Christmas in America is one of the most festive seasons. Families and friends gather. This family gathering in particular can be heartwarming or stressful or both. Some of you might have been kindly forced to come to this service. I know I am quite guilty of that since I very kindly invited my family. And they really didn’t have a choice this time. I am very grateful for that as well as for those who just had to be here! This past Sunday, some people asked me how long this Christmas service will be. I told Nancy to give me a sign if I seem to go too long. She will start looking at her watch, and I will take that as a cue. 

Now, let’s reflect on Christmas. Christmas, as we know, is the celebration of the birth of Jesus. Yet, that’s not everything. The main reason why we celebrate this particular birth in a theological sense is that God has revealed God’s eternal union with us through the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. The core message of Christmas, the birth of Jesus is then the mystery of the incarnation. The incarnation is God’s way to be in union with humans. 

This idea of God uniting God’s very own self to humans, however, requires some logical thinking. Think about our companion animals. Imagine a puppy named “Sir Topham Hatt.” In order for me to fully experience what he really experiences, I somehow need to be just like him. But I can’t. I’m so helplessly human. One way to do is to do my best to communicate, yet there’s always a barrier I cannot cross. Now, this is something God must have had trouble with us. God cannot be human, yet God can communicate with humans by creating, since God can create all things, the very human nature to be one with humans. Imagine you’re creating some part of yourself that helps you fully grasp Sir Topham Hatt’s experience without having to become a dog because you just can’t. This idea of creating some part of you to fully experience Sir Topham Hatt’s experience, after all, can only come from love.  

In this sense, the incarnation reflects God’s compassionate desire and love to be one with us. This incarnation is as ancient as the entire human history because there has never been a single moment that God has not been one with us. We might not have been aware of this eternal oneness between God and us due to our ignorance of it, but it doesn’t change God’s unconditional love and desire to be fully united, to be in union with us. Don’t get confused that the incarnation began with Jesus. It has begun even before him, but Jesus fully revealed this mystery of the incarnation. 

Chronologically speaking, this revelation of the mystery of the incarnation actually begins with the Blessed Virgin Mary. God became incarnate in Mary, meaning God was one with Mary in her womb. The Annunciation to Mary really is the very beginning moment that this incarnation mystery is revealed. When we look at the 13 or 14 years old Jewish girl who is pregnant, in the eyes of faith we see God’s oneness with Mary. And Jesus of Nazareth whose birth we celebrate this evening fully reveals the mystery of the incarnation which was hidden. It’s like the incarnation mystery hidden in the womb of Mary, and that mystery is fully shouted out through the baby Jesus’s first cry. Both Mary and Jesus show us God’s eternal oneness with us. This is the core message of Christmas. Emmanuel. God is with us. 

My friends, our Christian faith is founded on this very truth of God being with us, Emmanuel. Christ is in the innermost depth of our being. Christ is very alive and present in your heart whether you feel it or not. We Christians believe that Christ is at the center of our being. This eternal oneness of God with us is what sustains us, what keeps us going whether we recognize it or not. It’s not over there but right here in us. It’s just that we don’t know it’s here because we haven’t been paying attention to it or we have been told otherwise. When this most intimate presence of God’s oneness is revealed to our personal lives, we are transformed. This transformation is the very reason why people followed Jesus. 

Have you yet found Christ in you? Christ is waiting to be born in your very being. Which takes back to the scene of the Annunciation again in which the Archangel Gabriel told Mary she would conceive and give birth to Jesus. In a sense, all of us are called to be in the place of Mary, saying yes to the eternal union with God. Yet, this doesn’t happen automatically. It requires a spiritual practice of being attentive to God who is sustaining your being, longing to be seen and communed deeper and deeper. We need to practice how to go deeper first to encounter God in us, which we do here at Saint Agnes Church once a month. This inward movement restores, rejuvenates, and recharges us. Only then, we are to go outwardly to practice our love for others. All that we do as Christians for others in need come from this very source of Christ in us. 

I can sense that Nancy is about to look at her watch. During this Christmas season, I invite all of us to sense God in us and ask the Holy Spirit to open your heart. Our personal and intimate experience of God in us is like the most precious treasure of God hidden in you, waiting to be found. There’s nothing better than this because it is God’s unconditional love and desire to be one with us. Not even death can set apart from it. What can be more precious than that? It is the very source of who we are and what we do. And as we receive Holy Communion, we are transformed into Christ because God created us to become more than we are, which is Christ. 

So, my friends, may Christ find you and fulfill you. This eternal oneness of God with you be abundant in your life with others in the act of sharing. 

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN.